Progressive Dinner

A couple of weeks ago we participated in a progressive dinner with friends from the chapel and we had such a great time. Four couples opened their homes to a crowd of 50+ adults and kids.

The first home found us devouring lots of yummy tapas (basically the Spanish word for hors d'oeuvres). Here are a couple of snapshots of friends enjoying the beginning of our evening...
Stop #2 was reserved for soup and salad, which we helped prepare by providing potato soup. The recipe for our soup comes from friends, and it's a tried and true recipe, having made it several times over the years. This time, however, our soup turned out a bit thicker than normal. Seems we got a little carried away with the number of potatoes we used. It was almost more of a side dish than a soup. Oh well.

Here are photos taken at Stop #2... A friend and her daughter rode scooters to and from each location. We were lazy and drove.

There was quite a nice variety of salads along with our soup. I've decided I need to get a little more adventurous with salads.

The sun started to set as we finished the second course and were headed to the third... the main course.

Here they served up some delicious homemade paella, a typical Spanish dish.

Mmmm... paella!

Of course the 4th and final stop consisted of desserts, my very favorite. Everything tasted good, but one dessert in particular, an apple cake, was scrumptious, and I've asked for that recipe.

The kids had a blast playing in the backyard. They have this rope swing hanging from a tree and they took turns swinging on it.

My son gets a push from a friend. The boys had so much fun!

This was my first-ever progressive dinner. Yeah, I know... I've been living under a rock. I've seriously been missing out on some fun! It's a great way to get to know people better, enjoy some good food and possibly pick up some new recipes for the fam. It's all good! I vote for more progressive dinners!

How about you? Have you ever been to a progressive dinner? If so, tell me about it... Was there a theme? Did you have a good time? Did you get sick afterward?

The Personals

Have you ever written a personal ad to be printed in a newspaper?

The bulletin board in our Spanish class has several examples of personal ads written by students as part of an exercise. Some of them are serious, and others very funny. Reading these ads reminded me of a friend who once read and answered a personal ad from her local newspaper. What a fiasco that turned out to be!

My girlfriend was single and looking for love...in all the wrong places in retrospect. I can practically hear Johnny Lee singing right now, can you? Come on, please tell me you remember the theme from Urban Cowboy! Okay, whatever! Some of us are older than others. Let's continue with the tale about my poor friend.

My girlfriend, who shall remain nameless as I wouldn't want to embarrass her or cause our friendship to suffer, hadn't been dating anyone and was really having a hard time meeting guys. She turned to the personal ads and read one that she found intriguing, so she ended up answering it, which lead to a lengthy dialogue with the guy who wrote it. Keep in mind this was before the days of email, so there were letters being sent and phone calls being made for quite some time as these two strangers got to know one another.

Now... my girlfriend had sent her photo to this guy at his request, but he never provided a photo of himself even though she'd asked for one in return. Uh... hello! Red flag alert! He had described himself as being blonde and stocky though.

Time passed and it was finally decided that these two lonely folks should meet in person. Scary thought, right? One never knows where something like this could lead! It could be love at first sight, which could then lead to a whirlwind romance, marriage and babies.... or... not.

The meeting took place in a public place, a restaurant to be exact. My girlfriend was very excited and yet very nervous about all the unknowns. And she's always been quite shy, so this was a very big deal to her.

As it turned out, the guy's hair was indeed blonde, what little he had remaining. Seems he was virtually bald. He wasn't stocky. He was quite overweight. He had an incredibly bad complexion and evidently wore some kind of geeky polyester pants that were completely out of style and just downright tacky. Let's just say there was no chemistry... not for my friend anyway.

My girlfriend was mortified! She apparently made up some lame excuse about needing to leave and got the heck out of that place. Later that night she called me and told me about the whole unfortunate experience. She shed a few tears and then we laughed about it.

A few days later, my girlfriend received a letter from the polyester prince and he basically blasted her for blowing him off, saying she was too appearance-oriented and how she'd disappointed him. My friend was so upset as she's just the nicest person ever and would never intentionally hurt a soul. He had her thinking she was a terrible person because she wasn't attracted to him. I told her he was the loser because he had been deceptive from the beginning... "Mr. I'm Blonde and Stocky and I Refuse to Give You My Photo."

Needless to say, my girlfriend NEVER answered another personal ad, and you'll be thrilled to know she's happily married and has a daughter today.

Comforting AND Unnerving?

Wanna know what's comforting, yet unnerving at the same time?

It's the armed military police that randomly "walk the beat" in our neighborhood. We never know when they're going to show up, packin' heat and ready for anything kind of throw down imaginable.

Yes, the very presence of these serious-looking cops comforts me greatly on one hand, and yet totally unnerves me (Translation = "Scares the pants off of me!") on the other.

I'd show you a photo, but I think that would likely get us thrown off base and maybe even get my husband booted out of the Air Force or something, so I believe I'll forego the photo today. I rather enjoy the steady paycheck.

Having a "crappy" time

As you're well aware, I'm not fond of the massive amounts of dog dookie that exist on the sidewalks here in Spain. I just can't comprehend how anyone could think that's okay. I find myself resisting the urge to scream to anyone and everyone I walk past, "Can you not smell that, people?!" I don't get it.

I thought things were a little more sanitary in base housing as I believe there are laws about walking dogs on leashes, and while I'm not sure about any specific laws regarding cleaning up after one's dog, it's seemingly understood. Your dog does its business in a neighbor's yard and you, the dog owner, clean it up, right? I think that's the way it goes. It's called common courtesy.


We might have had cats climbing on our cars, but we hadn't had dog dookie in our yard... until last week. We'd been out and about a few days ago, and upon pulling into the driveway of our home, we were greeted with a huge pile of dog dookie on our front lawn. Funny thing... we don't own a dog. Hmmm... where'd THAT come from and to whom do we send our thanks?

And mind you, I'm not blaming our close neighbors because we've lived here for several months now and this is the first time this has happened. It could have been anyone walking their dog. I just personally think it's rude not to clean up after your pets when they make messes in someone else's yard.

I love dogs! They're wonderfully intelligent, loving, loyal animals. I don't hold a pile of dog dookie in my yard against the dog... I hold it against the dog's owner. I've been a dog owner in the past, and will likely have another dog sometime in the future, but I don't intend to allow my dog to dump on other people's lawns and just act like I don't notice.
My hubby and I were on our way to Spanish class this morning and just as we were approaching the school, an unattended dog darted out into the middle of the street, squatted and did its business, right there in front of God and everybody. Isn't that special? It's as if the dog saw a sign such as this one...
I'm left wondering why these "crappy" experiences continue to occur wherever I go.

One of those "DUH" moments...

Today I went to a parent/teacher conference to discuss the progress of my 6th grade son. My appointment was at 2pm, but I showed up about 10 minutes early, thinking I was being very responsible and had it all together.

Upon arriving at my son's classroom, I found his teacher sitting at her desk and I let her know I was there, but was early, and told her if she needed more time I could wait in the hallway. She invited me in right away and we sat at a table in the back of the classroom.

The teacher then looked at me and very politely said, "It's nice to see you and I'm happy to talk to you about D, but parent/teacher conferences are actually next Friday."

So much for having it all together!

I later chuckled to myself, imagining what my thoughts about this teacher would have been if she hadn't been sitting in her classroom today. (The kids were out of school today as spring break has started, so she could have very easily been out of town.) I would have thought she was completely blowing me off. And she'd have thought the same about me when next Friday rolled around and I didn't show up for our conference.

Sometimes I worry about my sanity... Truly!

The things one can learn in Spanish class...

My hubby and I learned something new in Spanish class today. Our professor, Maite, brought in a DVD called "Abre los Ojos" (Translation = "Open Your Eyes"), which is a Spanish movie made in 1997. The movie has two distinctly different beginnings and she showed us both as part of a learning exercise.

Anyway, this movie was quite familiar to me because I'd seen it before, only I'd seen the English version called "Vanilla Sky" starring Tom Cruise. It seems Tom Cruise bought the English-language rights to Alejandro Amenabar's "Abre los Ojos." The 2001 remake is called "Vanilla Sky." Who knew? We certainly didn't until today. And furthermore, actress Penélope Cruz (beautiful Spaniard and former lady love of Tom Cruise) starred in both movies, performing the part of the same character, and we were told she even wore the exact same wardrobe in each movie. Interesting, huh?

We never know what we're going to learn in Spanish class! Maite knows almost as much about American pop culture as we do. In fact, sometimes I think she knows more. I didn't realize just how often American TV programs and movies are shown here. It's just funny to hear about these forms of entertainment from Maite. She talks about Homer Simpson a lot and I know she thinks Richard Gere and Brad Pitt are good-looking. One day we discussed music and she and I discovered we both liked ABBA. On another day Maite was making a point about something and she asked if we knew Sam Cooke's "What a Wonderful World," and the next thing we knew, she and I broke out in song...

"Don't know much about history... Don't know much biology..."

Kitty Cat Woes

Puzzled as to what this might be? I'll save you the time and trouble of guessing. These are cat prints on my car, a very common occurrence here. By the way, we don't own a cat.

This particular morning the cat prints are visible from one end of the car to the other....

Yep, across the trunk, up the back window, over the top of the car, down the front window and across the hood were cat prints...
Luckily cat prints were all we found. We have friends here with cat prints as well as some very distinct scratches on their new car. These same friends have issues with a neighbor's cat that "sprays" practically everything in their back yard. How nice is that?

We're not sure if there is one particular cat roosting under our carport on top of our car. There are many wild cats that roam the area, but there's also one domestic cat with a collar that comes to visit on a regular basis. So far we've refrained from setting up surveillance cameras to find the guilty party responsible for cat prints on our vehicle, but the minute we find scratches, we may find ourselves out shopping for the necessary equipment to make that happen.

You know, I like animals... I really do! I just don't like them on my car, or prefer them making nasty messes around my house. If that's mean and particular, so be it. If you don't mind cat spray at your house, that's certainly your prerogative, but I seriously don't care for that, nor do my poor friends. I believe I can speak for them in saying that they'd prefer your kitty spray at your house, not theirs. Some things aren't meant to be shared with neighbors, and I believe cat spraying falls into that category.

Although we currently do not own any pets, we've been pet owners in the past, and will be again one day. We would never go out of our way to provoke, taunt or injure an animal. Cruelty to animals is not our game. Please know that and take me at my word. I assure you, your sweet, precious Fluffy is in no danger at my house. No matter how many times we find cat prints on our car, we would never take any kind of action against the culprit, but that doesn't mean we don't think about it. *wink