The Inner Anatomy of a Walleye

This is a papaya. It is a fruit in abundance around here these days. The insides of a papaya remind me of the stomach or some part of the inner anatomy of a walleye. Ah, the memories of watching my dad fillet his catch of the day. Gross. I find that papayas taste like "dirty socks" to quote my mother. For some odd reason though, I want to come to enjoy the taste - I like a challenge. And isn't there a fact like you need to taste something 22 times before you actually like it? I don't remember that with dark chocolate or Grape Nuts, but I will think about this "fact" to help me persevere. So, every week I buy a papaya. I learned that a little lemon juice and a bit of sugar helps. Jovie likes papaya, with or without the condiments, but I do think they add. The rest of my family, besides Jovie, is opposed to joining me in my, "love papaya as my own child" challenge. Sometimes you just need to climb the mountain yourself...

For some odd reason we haven't mentioned our newest vehicle purchase - a motorcycle. When we moved to the new house, walking to work or school became impossible. So, along with the rest of the 1,139,964,932 people in India, we now own a motorcycle. We also transport our children on the motorcycle. Ani comes home every day from school on it - helmet on of course. Two children on with dad is my limit, and Jovie has not taken a spin yet. All though it is common to see up to five on a motorcycle here. I am pretty sure all these extra passengers would be illegal in the States. So, the motorcycle has been a fun part of making memories here, a season that will not be repeated. I can handle the motorcycle mainly because we never go over 30 miles per hour here, which for some reason makes it safer to me. I know that's not necessarily comforting to some, but for me, it is, so I am just going to have to go with it. One last thing about the motorcycle. Our other vehicle, the car/van/can, has a great name - something that just popped. But the motorcycle is feeling a bit blue about not having a name. There really is nothing funny about it though. It's a black motorcycle - its hard to go anywhere with it. If you have any ideas, please feel free to share them. P.S. Sarah, did you know that when your dad was here, he got a lift from Jayson on the motorcycle? I wish I would have had my camera to see Denny and Jayson together on the motorcycle.

The photo below is Saraa. Saraa comes over on Fridays to hang out with us. Her mom and dad are our friends who run the animal rescue center. Saraa is not yet two. Saraa knows three languages. Her mom is Finnish, her dad is Tamil (the state that we live in) and in their house, they speak English. Tamil, Finnish and English. She is smarter than me. The multiple language deal here knocks my socks off. Most Indians know at least three languages, if not four of five. Usually Hindi, English, their state language and their village dialect. Crazy. James is a bit confused on the whole language front. We had a 10 minute "argument" about how he things that we speak American and I think we speak English. He's very ethnocentric. At the end of the discussion he finally waved the white flag of surrender, but I think he did it with reluctance. I don't think he is quite sold on that fact that he now speaks English, instead of American.

I hang my head low. Kansas lost in the second round. I had them going all the way! I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Oh, I need to retract my statement about how high we live. Our friend Mark, let me know, that if we were at 7,000 meters, we would need oxygen masks. Meters, feet, is there a difference? So, its 7,000 feet about 2,400 meters. Sorry people. On this very undramatic note, I will leave you. We are having seven extra kids for pizza/movie night tonight, so I am going to get the dough a risin'.

Eleven kids plus one dad equals a good time in the car/van/can