Wit, Wisdom & Wonder

I'm foolishly gleeful that Jason finally feels comfortable enough to help himself to food and drink. Just now, he let me know he's out of his juice and the ones we have suck! Well, I'm paraphrasing - what he said was "Oh, noooooooo!"

Last night we went to meet up with friends to watch the firework show downtown on the beach. In 50 degree weather, mind you. At some point, Jason went off with a few friends to check out the merchant stalls and look around. The friends came back without him. Poor Josh was besides himself worrying and couldn't relax. We looked everywhere but couldn't find him, but about an hour and a half after the other kids returned, Jason came back. Oy, teenagers!

Today, we're back to somewhat seasonal weather - which for us is mid-to-high sixties. It's warm enough to have the doors and windows open again. Which I'm very thankful for, my system cannot seem to process the reality that is wearing wool and fleece in July all weekend, then short sleeves on Monday.

A bit of foolishness this morning, as I was offered 36 Silkie eggs for $25. If only my Silkies were old enough to brood eggs! I found a really great commercial incubator for $300 which I cannot afford. I may go in for the $120 home model (yes, with fan and turner). We'll wait and see.

Josh is having the time of his life working with our exchange student. Mornings are a hoot, as Josh gets Jason out the door in time for carpool. You should see all the snacks he brought home from the market for Jason today! I take a quieter role, given Jason is more comfortable with another guy. No worries, Jason and I just work on vocabulary together.

Right now the two of them are sitting next to each other on the sofa, using the Babelfish website to communicate and do homework together.

I'm literally bursting with pride from the other sofa, safely away so my sneezes don't get them sick.

Since I had to work, Josh went to the BBQ with the host family and students. Everyone was talking about using Babelfish to talk with their students, so we decided tonight to put Jason on my netbook so we could have actual conversations. Yes, this is cheating in some regards, but now he has confidence and is actually talking with us. We had a ball holding a taste test of things to pack in his lunch and he was able to make some requests and let us know what he'd like to do while visiting in the U.S.A.

Granted, we're probably breaking some unknown, unwritten rule using the computers, but if it helps him learn English by helping him relax - I'm all for it. He was able to ask me how to get to a site where he can chat via instant message with his uncle, parents and friends back home. Talk about a huge change, his eyes lit up and he's been laughing. Now that he's not feeling so isolated, I think we're going to see a huge change in his enjoyment of the program.

Eureka!

Now, if I could just get Tina's chickens to stop flying into the living room window and startling us half to death! One of them actually made it over the fence, onto the front porch and attacked the front door until Josh went out there. Then she ran back into the yard and has been behaving herself.

Note to self: sell that one ASAP!

Full moon was lovely last night with Dawn and Heather. It's been so long since we had such a great group of folks to share the evening with. Dawn brought the yummiest wine and cookies, the latter of which Josh forgot to hide so she couldn't take them back home with her.

This morning was spent cleaning the front half of the house, which basically means down on my knees (toe = owe!) scrubbing the baseboards and trim pieces, getting the vacuum hose attachment to all the nook and crannies where the fur likes to hide. Then I scrubbed the kitchen down, while running laundry in between answering homework questions via Blackboard. Josh and Kevin took care of the dump run, vacuumed out my car, power washed the house and sidewalks, then called it a day. Josh was helping me scrub down the windows (what the hell is that scum on the INSIDE?) when the phone rang - so we jumped in the shower to freshen up and headed into town to pick up Jason. From his photographs and his interest sheet, we knew Jason was really into basketball. Why is obvious. The kid is really fricking tall! Somewhere around 5'11. I knew him as soon as I saw him because he towered over everyone else!

It turns out his sister is one of the chaperon/teachers. It was lovely to meet her, thankfully her English is really quite good. She even uses slang. Jason, however, is much better at reading English so we've been writing notes to each other in a notebook all afternoon! He mentioned he wanted beef, so we took him to Applebees (lots of pictures in the menu, very important that). He loves cheeseburgers and fries. Wowsa. Guess I know what we'll be serving him for dinner. We took him to the sports store to buy him a basketball, which he carried around the rest of the day! We took him to one of the bigger Asian market in town where he picked out some familiar snacks. Then to the Commissary to get cereal, sandwich meat, etc. Boy was he ever shocked to see a gallon of milk. When the guys were putting the groceries away (so Jason knew where things were), he held it up and gestured 'why'. Josh pointed to the mini-boxes of cereal Jason picked out at the market and Jason laughed. That's pretty much how we're communicating right now.

Speaking of bringing Jason home, he's really quite over-whelmed with all the critters, especially the dogs. Poor doggies will be staying outside as much as possible during his stay. He smiled at all the chickens, probably thinking we're nuts. He's a city kid!

His room was decked out with his family photos and his letter & questionnaire are in the living room, which made him smile. I wrote up a note about things like helping himself to food, asking questions, letting him know he could use a computer, etc. so he had time to run it through his translator. Seems to work best for now. He's on about 40 minutes of shower time right now, Josh is gonna talk to him about that. Thankfully, those two get along great. Jason let us know he wants to call us Mom & Dad, which is wonderful and he even brought a few gifts - beautiful silk and the most gorgeous fan (paintings of 100s of Kabuki-type characters). Picy goodness tomorrow.

I may be mistaken, but I'm thinking Jason didn't bring a jacket. It's very warm where he's from and I worry he will be cold and not tell us. Josh has pulled out a few older jackets for him, we'll take him shopping for a hoodie or similar later this week.

Tomorrow is the welcome picnic, I imagine he'll disappear to talk to his friends about the crazy folks he's staying with, all the chickens and the nutty dogs. I'm sure we'll be the center of gossip for the entire tour! *yawn*