Musings

Okay, I guess it's high time that I updated this blog. We've been in Istanbul since Tuesday, and I have many quirky insights to share.

I actually brought my wireless modem with me, and after much struggle, E's cute little brother and I set it up two days ago. We are all very excited to have wireless. I can use my laptop, and E's family loves using my little netbook and the iTouch. I'm sure they're constantly wondering why E married this foreign nut job, but at least they enjoy all my foreign technology.

His family is also crazy about my pedicure. I have little flowers painted on my big toes, and they think it's the greatest thing ever. I'm just glad my pedicure has actually lasted for the last five weeks (way to go, Spicy Nails).

Istanbul is hot and humid, and our first day here I really thought I was going to die. I have never sweat so much in my entire life and looked an absolute fright. E's mom actually put a cool cloth on my forehead, and his sister gave me a foot massage. Talk about embarrassing.

Sleeping is just miserable when there is a hot body inside of me and one lying next to me that thinks he should sleep in the middle of the full-size bed and fling his arms and legs all over the place. After one day here, I insisted on buying a fan. All my in-laws, and extended in-laws, frowned on the idea. Didn't the crazy foreigner know that cold air was going to make her and the baby sick, sick, sick? But my cute husband can't say no to me (which is both a good and bad thing), so now I have a fan. The only problem is frequent power outages (for example, right now). Fortunately, they are not caused by the fan.

Of course, E's family is spoiling me like usual. They pile a million pillows behind my back and under my legs when I sit and ply me with drink and food all day. They are so sweet, but I'd much rather be treated like a normal person. And I feel terrible drinking my cold juice while they are all fasting in a million degrees. Really, I don't know how they do it. I've been so impressed with E who doesn't eat, drink, or smoke all day and has never once complained. He tells me all the time that when he is ready, he'll be able to quick smoking. I was skeptical, but I see now that he really does have the self-control.

The first thing E did when he arrived was show off all our baby clothes. It is so cute to see him so excited about our baby. I'm sure his family thinks I'm absolutely extravagant, but they shouldn't be surprised seeing how many clothes I have for myself.

In fact, I've been trying to downsize my life, so E and I sent two HUGE bags of my clothes to Istanbul. My poor, poor, wonderful husband. I had two huge suitcases (like 60-lb suitcases) to go on the airplane and two huge bags to go on the bus. And, of course, he had to carry all the bags down four flights of stairs by himself. This in the heat while fasting. I know he must have been miserable, but he never complained. How did I get to be so lucky?

Anywho, there is no place to donate things in Turkey, and I did not want to throw away two huge bags of decent clothes, so we decided to send them to Istanbul to see if his family could use anything. I was very amused watching his two sisters place dibs on my things—not many, of course, because I am huge and they are skeletal skinny—and, naturally, the older sister always got her way. Oh family dynamics.

I also have about 100 tampons. I bought a huge box at Costco before we got married, not realizing we'd get pregnant so quickly. I offered to give his sisters some of the tampons and discovered they had never seen a tampon before. I used one to demonstrate how it works. They were fascinated by the whole process, but also had no desire to try it for themselves. Tee hee hee.

Speaking of toilet topics . . . E's family has one bathroom that has both a traditional toilet (or what we Americans consider a traditional toilet) and what I like to call a squatty-potty. I'm pretty darn sure I am the only person who uses the traditional toilet—and I am so, so grateful that they have one. (We visited a few people last time who had to turn on the water to their toilets so I could use them!) Anyway, I love having the toilet, but I've also discovered it has no water pressure. When I flush it, not even a piece of toilet paper goes down. Talk about a dilemma. I've learned, though, that if I pour a jug of water into the toilet at the same time I flush, everything will go down. Thank goodness my in-laws aren't aware of these crazy antics.

On a totally unrelated note . . . the other night, E and his siblings shared stories about their childhood. They all agree that their parents had the perfect marriage and they never once heard them argue. Sigh. I'm afraid that will not be the case for our little peanut. They also shared an interesting story. When they were young, their father used to drive a car. One day, though, he was driving home and his one-year-old son wandered into the street (I don't know who was supposed to be watching him). He put on the brakes and very narrowly missed hitting him. He parked the car and never once drove again after that.

Okay, I guess that's enough for now. Au revoir.