A Random Smattering of Thoughts

I am constantly amazed at how my British high school friends have been able to remain friends with each other over the past four years. Most of my friends in college haven't kept in contact with a lot of their high school friends, and even if they end up going to the same school, they don't hang out all the time.

But with my British friends, this is different. If two of my high school friends ended up at the same university, they are still good friends. I can look through any of their Facebook photo albums and see more than one of my high school friends in it.

Even if my high school friends don't end up going to the same college, they are still best friends again when they go home. I can stalk Facebook walls and see things written like,

"what date are you back?? do you reckon you might want to come out to ibiza or nat? lots of special kisses xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

or

"We need to arrange a weekend to get everyone together for some fun and frolicks xxx xxx"

or

"Miss you loads, looking forward to seeing you in three weeks!! lots of love xx"

Those were actually copy and pasted from different friends' walls. I hope they don't mind.

Which brings me to another thought: What the heck is up with the little x's??? This is a very British thing to do. At the end of any message, letter or email, British people put tiny x's. It's so weird to me and looks strange in my opinion. In the United States, the "x" stands for a kiss, but in England I think they are past that point. It's really just "something they do", and it doesn't seem to stand for much anymore. It's just so bizzare.

Anyways.

I just took some cupcakes out of the oven. It's the second time in less than 24 hours that I've made a batch of cupcakes. Last night I made some from scratch, and they were pretty good, but today I went for the boxed ones. It'll be a taste test.

As most of you probably know, I am playing "mommy" around here right now. My parents are in England and so Carolyn and I have been holding down the fort. It's been a pretty interesting week, to say the least.

We cook and clean every day, but most of it has been playing taxi. Claire was involved in Vacation Bible School every day last week, so we had to take her and then pick her up afterwards. And then she would hang out with friends in the afternoon. Or friends would come over here. We've had sleepovers galore, and I am feeling the stress of becoming a "mom" prematurely.

I actually have to leave to pick Claire up in 10 minutes.

We've had some funny things happen this week, though. Like the time that we found a 3-inch long scorpion in my mom's sink and then it disappeared 10 minutes later. Or the time that we had to have a back-to-basics talk with my not-so-young sister to explain that ovulation does not occur during menstruation. That was a fun evening.

Fun week.

Oh gosh, I have to leave. :-/

More later!
-K