My Little Nephew

My little nephew Evan was born a month ago on 8/8/08. His early claim to fame was that he was 8 lb. 8 oz.

Mom and Dad went out to VA to see him this weekend. Sharon and I want to go soon, but things keep happening to keep us from going. I don’t know if it will work out for us to go before Christmas or not. Sigh.

My Internship

It looks like I have fallen into the blogging trap I’ve seen others fall into: that of not blogging at all because it’s too overwhelming to catch up with one’s self. So I shall do my best to rectify the situation, although looking ahead schedule-wise, I question my success in this endeavor. Nevertheless, I enjoy writing, and so I’ll give it a shot again…

I shall begin with a bit about my internship this past summer. I have alluded to it several times but haven’t really addressed how it went. I chose to do my internship at the small hospital near my home—mainly because I wanted to save on gas. As it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised at the professionalism of the personnel at MCF. MCF is a small 25-bed critical access hospital. It was bought by MCBG back in 2000, I think, and with the resources of “the mother ship” behind it, MCF has flourished and is a beautiful little hospital.

Part of my internship requirements had me going into the many different departments of the hospital. For example, I got to see the laboratory, radiology, cardiac rehab, nursing, environmental services, facilities management, dietary, process improvement, and cost accounting, just to name a few. I found it all highly interesting, and I made a great many friends as I flitted about.

I had my own office, in which I spent many hours working on my various papers and eventually, my internship project.

My project ended up being a bit different than the one I had anticipated doing. MCF has plans for renovating their 1960’s kitchen. My preceptor, the administrator of the hospital, wanted me to research and come up with a design for their renovation. She wanted me to focus on the ergonomic aspect, in particular. In addition, she sent me to MCBG to take part in Lean Sigma training, which is about reducing waste in processes. I really enjoyed my project, and I spent many hours back in that kitchen, measuring existing equipment and talking with the kitchen workers.

The number one complaint of the workers was the three compartment sink. If nothing else happens to improve their kitchen lives, they want that sink raised. Here is a picture of my buddy Mike doing a demonstration as to why he considers it too low. My back hurts just looking at it.

I was given the opportunity to present my project to upper management, which was a little nerve-wracking. It went well though, and they seemed to be so appreciative of all the many, many hours I put into it.

On my last day, Mike caught up with me in the hall. He hadn’t realized it was my last day, and I had to remind him that my being there was always known to be a temporary thing. “I know,” he said glumly. “But when you get used to somebody being around, you don’t really like to see them leave.” I thought that was so sweet. And I miss him too.

European Overview

It’s been almost a month and a half since we’re back from our European trip, and I have neglected to post anything here about it. So for what it is worth, I am posting the editorial I wrote for our Journal.

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Europe Overview

Introduction

This overview is for those of you who do not wish to read the daily blow-by-blow accounts of what we did and where we went. It is instead an overview in general terms of how our trip came about and how things progressed. It will give you more background and hopefully fill in some of the voids made by the assumptions of each daily entry.

Background

As you may or may not know, Sara, Sharon, and I, along with five of our friends took a tour of Europe back in June of 2000. We were gone four weeks and traveled by tour bus. We made a lot of Australian friends who were also on our particular tour. While we have many wonderful memories of that trip, we certainly fulfilled the role of the “typical tourist.” We didn’t participate in the culture, and we were happy to let our tour guide translate and spoon feed us everything.

Sharon and I next stepped out of our comfort zones in 2006 when we participated in a two week study abroad opportunity that immersed us into German culture. We had both taken German classes, and this opportunity let us put our beginner-level language skills to work. One thing I remember my German professor saying is that her goal is to teach us life skills while we were there, namely, being able to get around Europe on our own. She taught us how to read train schedules and how to navigate by ourselves. We even had the opportunity to travel by ourselves when we were there. It was exhilarating and instead of satisfying my travel inclinations, this trip only served to ignite schemes of coming back on our own.

In the meantime, my cousin Louisa called me one day to see what I thought of a travel opportunity she had through her school. I don’t remember exactly what was said but I remember telling her that if we went again, we would be sure to include her in our plans. To keep a long story short, our travel band this round consisted of five siblings and a first cousin: Sara, Martin, Sharon, Jolene, and myself, in addition to Cousin Louisa.

The trip

Our European trip took us through five major countries: Germany, Austria, Italy, France, and Switzerland. We got an “open-jaw” flight, which means that you can fly into one city and out of another. These flights are a little more expensive, but it allowed us make better use of our time. We didn’t have to backtrack to our arrival city. I enjoyed the planning part of it, and so my theory going into it was that we would stay in a major city three nights and we would do “day trips” based out of each city. This plan was modified slightly, thanks mostly to the input of other experienced backpackers whose advice I sought. While it is ideal to spend several nights in one place, we didn’t have enough time to do that and make it to all our destinations of choice. There would’ve been several places I would’ve been glad to give up (such as Vienna and Nice), but the consensus of the group was to include them, and so there were several times when we had to pack up and go pretty quickly after arriving.

The itinerary

Here’s where we landed for sleeping accommodations:

Berlin, Germany (4 nights)

Rothenburg, Germany (1 night)

Munich, Germany (2 nights)

Vienna, Austria (3 nights)

Treviso, Italy (2 nights)

La Spezia, Italy (1 night)

Nice, France (2 nights)

Interlaken, Switzerland (3 nights)

Paris, France (3 nights)

 

Accommodations

 

I had booked all our accommodations several months prior to leaving. We had a variety of accommodations, including hostels, low-budget hotels, and bed & breakfasts. Our lodging ranged in price from 15 Euros per person per night (PPPN) [$23.18] in Berlin to 30.56 Euros PPPN [$45.84] in Paris. Hostels usually have dorm room accommodations and may or may not have their own bathrooms, the alternative being community showers and toilets. By booking in advance, however, I was able to ensure that we had our own bathroom in all facilities except for the last two places. It may have been a 2 x 2 sq foot facility, but it was Our Own. Obviously, having your own restroom increases the price, and so it is safe to assume that lodging could be gotten for less than we spent if you are willing to share restroom facilities.

 

Here’s where we stayed:

Wombats	Hostel	Berlin, Germany
Fuchsmuehle	B&B/Apartment	Rothenburg, Germany
Wombats	Hostel	Munich, Germany
Happy Hostel	Hostel/Apartment	Vienna, Austria
Hotel Laconda Lorenzo	Hotel	Treviso, Italy
Affittacamere Tre Frè	B&B	La Spezia, Italy
Villa Saint Exupery	Hostel	Nice, France
Rugenpark B&B	B&B	Interlaken, Switzerland
St. Christophers	Hostel	Paris, France

 

We were happy with all our lodging except for the Villa in Nice, France. The staff was great, but the thing you have to understand about hostels is that its clientele are mostly young people who enjoy partying. Since we are not partyers in the sense of bars, loud music, etc., the Villa was unanimously our least favorite set of accommodations. That being said, many of the things we didn’t like about it (location, uncomfortable beds, small room, cool showers) could easily have been tolerated if we had just been able to get some rest. The noise from the bar was incredible. Additionally, the first night, we forgot to lock the door (doh), and so someone joined us in the middle of the night for a brief period of time. The second night, we made sure to lock the door, but someone tried to break their way in anyway.

Rothenburg was unanimously our favorite set of accommodations (See Day Six). We also really enjoyed our stay in Interlaken, where Chris and Ursula were our hosts at the Hotel Rugenpark. They have a dog named Monty who is just priceless. He comes and goes in and out of doors at will, which is astonishing to see. I booked the Rugenpark because of other travelers’ good reviews, and we were not disappointed.

The train system

As long as you are not a citizen of the European Union, you can purchase a Eurail pass. There are different types of passes, but the one that worked the best for us was a 15 consecutive day pass. By relying on Berlin’s massive local transportation system, we didn’t have to activate our passes until Day 6. It was timed so that the last day it was active was the day we landed in Paris, where we again depended on local transportation. I think we used the Eurail passes every day with only a very few exceptions. The pass cost us $628 (US) each, which was discounted because we had more than two people traveling together. We got three separate passes with two people’s name on each to maximize flexibility.

In addition to needing the Eurail pass, however, there are certain trains that require reservations. The Italian trains, for example, require reservations on all city-to-city trains. The cost of the reservations varies from 5 Euros per person to 15 Euros per person. Despite this additional cost, we still saved a lot of money by having the Eurail pass.

The train system is very efficient, particularly in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. With few exceptions, they arrive and depart on time. If you want to read about the day we messed with the train system, make sure you read Day Twelve. It’s a wonder we lived to tell the tale.

Packing

For three weeks, we lived out of our backpacks. We had to pack light, and so we had to pack smart. We all got a set of packing cubes, which we lived and breathed by. When traveling with backpacks, it is very important to stay organized, and so utilizing the packing cubes was instrumental in this process. If there were one sound that had to define our trip, it would be the sound of a packing cube zipper. We six days worth of clothing, including the set we wore to begin with, and so we had to grab our washing opportunities when we had them. With six people, it didn’t take much to generate a load of wash. Thanks to the hostels we were in, laundry wasn’t the nightmare it was when we were in Europe in 2000. Laundry is relatively inexpensive at hostels, and surprisingly, they include your detergent. The cheapest we ran into was 2 Euros for washing AND drying a load AND they did it for you. We didn’t catch on to that, however, until late in the day after the female staff had already left. So we ended up having to tend our own laundry anyway, but it was still very inexpensive. Another thing we did to facilitate ease of washing was to make sure our fabrics were some form of polyester, nylon, microfiber, and/or spandex. These fabrics are fast-drying and mostly wrinkle-free.

Our Injuries

Traveling makes ones clumsy, we found out, and we ended up with quite the tally of injuries. Louisa kicked of the series of injuries by running full-blast into a sidewalk post on our walking tour in Berlin. They periodically have a row of posts they put across the sidewalk to discourage cars from driving on them, I suppose. Louisa was being a good tourist and was gazing upward at some building architecture. I was following Louisa. One second she was there. And the next, she wasn’t. The only thing she found to be thankful for was the fact that she was not male, for she ran straight into it. In Paris, Louisa had two more rather serious injuries. First of all, she pinched her fingers in the heavy hostel door. This created quite the little blood blisters. And after our last foreign supper, she pulled her biggest doozy, I believe, when she ran full-force into a sign post. She smacked the sign post so hard, in fact, that passersby froze and winced on her behalf.

I fell down at the Hundertwasser Haus in Vienna. I wound up with two bruised knees and a bruised palm. My camera suffered injuries as well. I fell again when we left the Villa in Nice, France, in the early morning hours. The hill was very steep, I was fully loaded with a pack on the front and a pack on my back, and evidently I slipped on an unseen manhole cover. It’s a wonder I didn’t roll all the way down to the bottom—it was that steep. In Switzerland, I hit my head on a shelf and again about ten minutes later when I forgot that I hadn’t put the “garage door” shade on the balcony door all the way up; I walked full force into it and got a resounding smack for my reward.

Martin first of all smacked his head on a cupboard door in the bathroom in Vienna. He had a sore head for days. He thought that that injury should count toward his “injury quota,” but that was not so to be. The night before we left the Villa, he was wearing his Crocs when he decided that he would go and investigate a shorter route for us to get down to the tram station. This involved a set of stone stairs down the garden path, puddles of water, and droppings from the trees. He described it as a cartoon fall—the kind where they spin and spin to no avail. He fell flat on his back and ended up bruising some ribs. He tried to cover it up by going straight to the restroom to wash off the mud, but Sharon’s sharp eyes picked up on it, and he was busted!

Sara’s big injury came in Vienna when she was hurrying along trying to make it into the tram. Her foot slipped off the curb and she went down on her knee, skinning it in the process. The ankle wasn’t sprained, but she had wounds to tend for the next couple of days.

Jolene’s injuries happened at the beginning and at the end. In Berlin, she was walking along, and her foot also slipped off the sidewalk, and down she went—splat. In Paris, the lid to her locker—a very heavy metal lid—fell down onto her face, injuring her nose and surrounding areas.

Sharon was the last one affected in our first round of injuries (it seemed everyone had their first one before the second set came along). Hers came in Nice at a restaurant called Flunch. She was on her way to the restroom, which was located downstairs. A cleaning lady distracted her on her way down the circling stairs, and down she went—faster than she cared to. Other than the health conditions she and Martin suffered after their mad sprint for the train, I think she managed to avoid the second round.

We weren’t the only ones that suffered with some tripsy issues. We talked with a man from Scotland who said that he was tripping his way around Europe. He just couldn’t understand it because he only deserved it once—when he had had a little too much to drink. We can’t even claim that for an excuse. We were just victims, plain and simple.

Despite our injuries, we did enjoy our trip very much.

 

Administrative Feet

So I guess some of you know (or maybe not) that I have started my healthcare administration internship at the local hospital here in Franklin. To tell the truth, the reason I initially chose the hospital is because of its location, which is exactly four minutes away from my house. Our internships are unpaid, and so four minutes away is a Good Thing, economically speaking. I’ll talk more about the internship itself on a later date. The thing I need to expound on at the moment is the unfairness of the burden placed on administrative feet.

It seems that in order for one’s feet to be professional, one must wear hose and dress shoes. We’re talking about someone who has worn tennis shoes to work practically every day of my working life. Until now.

I’m three weeks into my internship, and my feet feel used and abused. I have almost exhausted my band aid supply. What works perfectly well with which to waltz into and back out of church simply does not work so well when it comes to tromping around a hospital for 8 hours. Sure, you sit for a good portion of the day, but it doesn’t shorten the length halls.

What’s that? Wear comfortable dress shoes? Well, the only dress shoes I think that have been reported to be comfortable are Really Ugly Shoes, IMHO. Heels like miniature tree trunks? No thanks. Complicating the matter is the need to wear a dress. As I look at what other people are wearing, oh sure… they can wear ugly, comfortable shoes, but they’re wearing pants and only the tips of their shoes are showing.

So as I pass the nurses and the housekeeping staff and the dietary people, I gaze longingly at their Crocs and their tennis shoes. How much better working for free would be if I just had comfy shoes!?! I selected my outfit very carefully on this very morning and gingerly slipped into yet another pair of dress shoes. And my feet Remembered yesterday…. Painfully. So in a moment laced with impulsiveness, I decided that I was going to wear my Crocs Primas. I asked Sharon if it looked just dreadful. She stood there in her comfy flip flops, evaluating my less than professional outfit, but she seemed to think that it might be ok. And so I wore Crocs to work! And my feet hummed a little tune.

So what do you think? If I wear my Primas, am I committing professional bankruptcy?

Quote of the Day

While going the speed limit (in an effort to increase gas mileage) on the LONG drive home from church (25 mi):

Sharon: “One would have to wonder if we’re actually moving.”

Kris: “You really would.”

Sharon: “Why, we may have to start packing a picnic lunch.”

I thought we should start holding up a sign for the benefit of the annoyed motorists around us that says “Gas $3.49/gallon.” I guess I’m going to have to start leaving the house earlier so that I can putz down the road. This thing of consuming $40 every time I fill up with gas is really getting on my nerves. I found myself “hiding my eyes” last night when I filled up.

I have a small economy car; I fill up approximately once a week. I cannot even fathom what it is like to fill up an SUV or van. Even if I had plenty of discretionary funds, it would still take my breath away.

How much does it take to fill your car and how often do you have to do the deed?

An Academic Update

 

I haven’t talked about school in a while, and so I’ll give an update on that.

What’s left: I have just two undergraduate classes left this semester, and because I hadn’t taken my senior assessment class, I couldn’t go ahead and start on my internship (argh). So I was granted permission by the powers that be to take two graduate-level classes prior to my graduation. My undergraduate classes are my senior exit class and a healthcare finance class, which I find particularly interesting, but challenging.

The one grad class is a health law class with the same professor I had last semester, and so he is allowing me (and two others) to do an independent study. Our independent study, as it turns out, is to read some actual cases and to then write papers about the cases. So far, we’ve only had to do three of them, and he is aiming for five total. Which is Perfect!!!

The other one is a terrible class. The textbook is one of the most unfriendly reads I have ever had, and the $100 I paid for the book has done me NO GOOD at all. I won’t color this post with my feelings for this class, for it would probably have to be censored. But to summarize it, the class consists of ONE VERY LARGE GROUP PROJECT, in which we must produce ONE academic paper and ONE poster summarizing the paper. It will be presented at some healthcare conference by our professor who just beams at us anew every week and says he is sure we are doing a really good job. There are about twenty students in the class, and so you can imagine how frustrating this is. “It’s about the process,” he loves to say.

I enjoy my finance class with Dr. W. My respect for him has increased tenfold this semester. The man is brilliant, and the things he teaches are actually relevant. I have just finished my term project for this class (a financial analysis of a pharmaceutical company), and it is an enormous relief to me to have it finished. Now I just have to present it in class.

What’s coming up: So I was going to walk the line in May with all my good friends, go to Europe for three weeks with my siblings and first cousin, then come back and do my internship the rest of the summer. That plan still stands except that I will postpone walking the line until December. The reason for doing so is a little complicated, but essentially, if I wait until AFTER my internship to walk, I will be recognized as a “Scholar of the College,” whatever the significance of that is, but better than that, I will be “invited” to apply for an award that has monies attached (unfortunately, no guarantees come with the invitation, but there is that chance…). So since I’ll be working for FREE for my internship this summer (!?!), I decided I shall defer my graduation until December. That is when Sharon will be finished anyway, and so for the benefit of our poor family who is overcome with graduations to attend, it just makes sense to do it at the same time.

But in the meantime, I will continue working on my masters in the fall, and by the time I “graduate” with my Bachelor’s, I will already have 19 hours earned toward my Masters. How nice is that? I will be on track to graduate with my master’s exactly one year later, December, 2009.

My Internship: Barring the fact that I will get absolutely zero income from my internship, I am really looking forward to it. I decided to stay at our local hospital to do the internship primarily because at least I will be saving about $300 in gas. It is 5 minutes away from my house. I have gone to see my preceptor already and gotten a tour of the hospital. They’ve just added a brand-new wing, and I will get my own office, which they are remodeling as we speak (new carpet, new desk, new paint, new computer). That, to me, is very exciting. I have to do “rotations” through all the hospital departments, but I also have to do a term project. My preceptor emailed about two weeks ago and told me that my term project will likely be working with one of their accountants and helping her to develop a cost-accounting system for the hospital. How amazing is that???

Unexpected Conversations

Well, I’ve done two dumb things within one 24-hour period.

Dumb Thing #1: I went to Martin’s office yesterday to do my taxes. I stuck my cell phone in my pocket as I headed out the door because I figured Sharon would be calling to see where I was at. Martin was at his other computer working on something, and I went about my business. All of a sudden, I became aware of some teeny-tiny voices.

“Do you hear that?” I asked Martin.

“Hear what?” he replied.

“Voices,” I said.

He didn’t hear anything. I took his handheld Dell Axiom out of its holder and examined it curiously. Martin came over and looked around too. We scanned the room, but found no voice-spewing devices

“I know I didn’t imagine that,” I said, resuming my taxes.

Mere seconds later, the cell phone in my pocket began to ring. It was a number I didn’t recognize. I answered and was startled to hear, “This is 911. Do you have an emergency?” The pieces came crashing together then, and I spent the next thirty seconds explaining and apologizing for “the phone in my pocket.”

“We’d like to remind you to keep your phone locked if you’re going to have it in your pocket,” was the stern reply.

As if I needed reminding. Martin was laughing his head off.

Dumb Thing #2 : Mom called me tonight and told me she had misplaced the number for Mrs. B., a lady whom Sharon had worked for in years prior and who had left a message about Mom babysitting for her grandchild on our answering machine last week. Sharon had been after Mom to call her back, and Mom kept forgetting. So tonight, Mom wanted me to look the number up for her on caller ID. So I hung up and looked it up. Sure enough. There it was.

So I called Mom back and was absolutely astonished to hear Mrs. B. herself answer the phone.

Instead of dialing the number that is home (and has been ever since I can remember), I had dialed this strange number. Mrs. B. also just happens to have been my COMM161 (speech) professor. So after several seconds of stuttering around trying to explain why I was calling her and promising that I would have Mom call her right back, she said that actually the babysitting crisis was over, and they had found someone else already. So we chatted for the next twenty minutes.

I finally called Mom back and told her she didn’t have to call Mrs. B. after all.

Then it was Mother laughing her head off.

Tornado Watch

Well, it seems we have survived some more tornadoes around here, but it was pretty scary for a while there. We had about twelve extra people (friends, relations, neighbors) in our safe (?) and cozy basement. Some stayed the whole night and some stayed until about 2 in the morning when everything had passed us by. There were many others though that weren’t so lucky. The last I heard, the death toll was up to 55.

My mind was put at ease somewhat, however, knowing that I had backed up my computer recently and that the backups were safely in my bank vault. I made sure to retrieve and secure my key as I sure didn’t want it blowing away. I wonder what kind of grief the bank would give you if your key was blown away in a tornado…

We actually were hit harder by whatever blew through last week. Dad’s goat shelter somehow made the trek from the back of the field up to the front board fence and smashed it. There were pieces of metal on the road, and so Dad and I braved the strong winds to get it off. At one point, I felt like I was dancing with a piece of metal as it took on a life of its own and twirled me around. The electricity was out for about two hours, and so we had to revert back to our Amish roots and pull out the kerosene lanterns. Keeping our basement dry relies on our [electric] pumps to keep working, and so when the electricity failed to come back on, Dad and Martin started making some moves to go get the generator and hook the pumps back up.

And then the electricity came back on.

Homage to a Furnace

“This is what I am talking about,” said Sharon, standing in front of the open oven door. “Real heat.”

We had been cold all day and were never able to quite get toasty enough.

“Do you remember the days of our old furnace?” I asked her, joining her at the oven door. And so we remembered…

In the house of our childhood, we had had an old furnace that had to be lit every fall at the outset of the cold season by crawling under the house. It took up about a 2′ x 3′ area in the hall in front of the living room door. It was covered by a metal grate and was controlled by a thermostat on the wall. You could always tell when the cold season had arrived by the smell of the burning dust that had accumulated on top of it over the summer. Once it had gotten the dust out of its system, all was well. And during the winter, family life centered around that crusty old furnace.

Every Sunday the after church, the first thing we would do after we got home was to gather around the furnace and “toast” ourselves—something our mother taught us to do quite well. “I’m toasting” was just as commonly heard as was “I’m reading.” Everyone would take a side of the furnace, and our skirts would go billowing out. We could tell who was hogging the heat by whose skirt was the most “present.” The best position was to stand across the corner—one foot in the living room and one foot in the hall. Our legs would turn bright red from the heat—and yet, we continued to toast until we couldn’t stand it anymore.

It was while on this furnace that “Knuckle Juice” was commonly ingested. Knuckle Juice was invented by none other than my mother. As we would toast ourselves while gathered around her skirt, something would happen to Mom. Instead of being the kind, compassionate mother we normally had when she was not toasting, she would get a look in her eye and turn all mean; she would grab the fist of her nearest offspring and would demand some Knuckle Juice. “I want some Knuckle Juice,” she would roar, and whoever the Victim of the Day was would [could only] protest with all the vigor of a worm. The fist would finally make it up to her mouth, and she would “gnaw” on it until we thought we must surely be the unfortunate, but infamous, Hansel or Gretel. When we were giggling helplessly and held up only by the fist wedged firmly in her mouth, she would let us return to our prior state. There was nothing quite like the terror of having your mother come after you for Knuckle Juice. To this day, we know to give proper respect to that vicious monster that now lies dormant—but we know he is still there just waiting for another dose of good ol’ Knuckle Juice.

The hall in which the furnace resided led directly from the kitchen to the laundry. Like most children, we routinely ran through the house. But we knew enough to give the old furnace some respect. And so the dash from the front door to the back bedroom via the hall would require a fancy sprint. You either had enough speed that you would jump over the entire thing, or mid furnace your right leg would take a detour to the living room, after which your left leg carried you into the hall and back on track.

We had steel-wheeled roller skates that we used regularly. That old furnace was nothing more than a bump in the road during the summer time, if we had enough speed. Our little steel wheels would only occasionally get caught in the grate.

One time during the winter, I misjudged the physics that surrounded the furnace, and I tripped and fell, landing on top of the hot furnace grate. I had burns in the shape of a grid across my leg for the next little while.

We had another furnace very similar to the above-referenced that resided at the far end of the dining room. It was by this furnace that the infamous cat (who caused my dad to upchuck his cheerios) died. It was seemingly not only people who enjoyed toasting, but also our entire entourage of cats. They loved to crawl under the house in cold weather to bask in its warmth.

Ahh, yes. That was real heat, but sadly enough, that furnace is no longer around. It has been replaced by several gas heaters over the years and, just recently, central heat and air.

But you just can’t get warm enough in this below 20 degree weather. I have to say, that was one fine furnace!

Pantry Talk

It seems we have a chronic problem at our house with food. I told Sharon the other day, “Never have I seen a pantry so full that has nothing in it to eat.”

Some of the stuff really is worthless: like the bag of doughnut mix that Sharon picked up at some bulk food shop in Indiana a couple years ago. It’s been so long ago that the directions have completely disappeared so we can’t make them if we wanted to. Then there’s the box of Marzipan Cappuccino we got in Germany. I decided cappuccino in Germany is different from cappuccino here in the States, and it is best left alone. Then there are the various cake and brownie mixes you keep around just in case you get in a pinch and have to take something somewhere sometime. There are boxes of jello and pudding, but that’s more of a dessert than it is a staple. Partially eaten bags of this or that just keep sitting there creating their own “ghost town” legacy.

We do have a couple things that present at least a little value, such as pasta or rice. But in order to have good pasta or rice, you have to have some kind of sauce and a meat. Rarely can we time it so that we have all the ingredients in our kitchen for a stellar pasta dish all at the same time. So when we do have a pasta dish, it is usually something like plain old spaghetti. IF we happen to have hamburger that hasn’t been freezer burned, that is.

See, that’s our other problem. Our freezer is a horrid little freezer. It looks all nice and innocent on the outside, but on the inside (where it matters), it ruins our food with frost if we keep it for more than “a reasonable length of time” (which we routinely do).

We do have canned green beans in our pantry, but green beans are best when eaten with a main dish or are part of the main dish themselves. They’re not so great when they themselves are the main dish.

Fresh fruit and vegetables we buy present their own problems. First of all, some of them really struggle from the moment they’re picked up off the shelves, particularly in the winter time. Secondly, they end up being victims of gross and wanton neglect. For example, the apple that I thought I would be sure to eat when I picked it up in the store sits in the fruit bowl for a couple days… and sits in the fruit bowl… and sits in the fruit bowl… and as I rush through the kitchen one day, I glance at the fruit bowl, and oh my! There is the apple. But it is too late to save its fruity little life.

And so we have become connoisseurs of Campbell’s soup. And hooray for Ramen noodles. And Hamburger Helper. And canned fruit.

I broke out the cracked wheat the other night for a new food experience, but Sharon wasn’t so fond of it. So inevitably, when there is just “nothing to eat” and we’re not in a Campbell’s soup mood, we have to go grocery shopping. Everything about grocery shopping depresses me. Cooking itself isn’t so bad, but if you have to cook something, it means you have to have the ingredients. And in order to have the right ingredients, you have to do a bit of planning before you actually go shopping. And planning for groceries isn’t my forte in the least. In fact, if I do manage to come up with a list, it is usually left sitting at home on the kitchen cupboard. (I think this must come from years of living five miles from Wal-Mart—it’s just too easy to run up town on a whim.)

This last week we finally decided that the time had come when we could no longer put it off, and so bundled ourselves up and off we went to Wal-Mart to do a bit of grocery shopping. And we spent a considerable amount of time in that store, as we usually do. And many aisles and decisions later, we left the store one hundred dollars and thirty-two cents poorer.

We realized as we were leaving that except for some sandwich supplies, we STILL didn’t have anything of substance to eat!

But we did have plenty of things to drink, we saw, and straws through which to drink it (I love straws). And thankfully, we will be able to continue washing our hair regularly, shaving our legs, washing our clothes, washing our dishes, and giving treats to Cleo. And I did stock up on salt and pepper and corn starch. That’s something, isn’t it?

But I guess it looks like we will be “grocery shopping” again tomorrow unless we want eggs for the third time this week.