Thursday, May 31, 2007

Trying new things

May 31, 2007
I ate my first fresh fig today. Nothing like a Newton! I haven't decided if I actually like it or not. Of course, given that I bought 2, I have another chance to find out. The lady at the produce cart is very sweet and I am always asking her about things I have never seen before. She steered me toward a small melon a few weeks ago that she said was incredibly sweet, I guess the season was early because it was refreshing but definitely not very sweet. It looks like a large grapefruit with cantaloupe markings on it, if you can envision that, and has green flesh inside like a honeydew. Tasted a bit like a honeydew too. It is still there, so I imagine we are deeper into the season, so I really should try again. It is hard buying produce for one, for example I got a bunch of lettuce last week and even with having 1-2 salads every single day it took a whole week, and lots of tossed wilting pieces, to finish it up. I haven't gotten watermelon since Terry left because it is just too big for just me, even though these melons are smaller than the ones at home, and rounder, and the outside is a darker green.

I also tried an orange from our tree. There was a fruit that has been there almost a whole month and it never got orange, stayed yellowish, and I finally picked it. Very tart, like a grapefruit. I don't know if that if what that tree produces or if it was too early. It was getting soft, though, so I have to assume it was ripe.

Finally, I have been a lemonade fiend. Our tree is in full production and I recently discovered that the smaller ones are juicier and tarter so the quality of the lemonade has gone up. Some of the lemons are starting to turn yellow, as mentioned last week, but most are still green. There are not nearly enough yellow lemons for marmalade (oh yeah, and since we don't have our stuff we don't have what we need to make marmalade anyway!) so I am hoping the green ones continue to ripen in a staggered enough fashion that I can continue to find uses for them. Lately I have been less enthusiastic about water than normal, so the lemonade is helping keep my liquid consumption up. Yeah, yeah, I have to take care of myself for the baby, blah blah. I have been very good about eating well, but I admit I have added a certain amount of chocolate to my diet because mom will truly have a heart attack and die if I haven't gained weight at my next doctor's visit. At least it is heart-healthy dark chocolate!! (only found in the baking aisle. Ah, these Maltese have things to learn.)

June 2, 2007
It appears that Malta has no noise pollution laws. At 6:30am (yes this is a Saturday) there was hammering and power tools. Needless to say, Kirby wanted in on the action and I couldn't get him back to bed until I had at least let him out to potty. I am desperately hoping this is not a new, permanent trend. Even I prefer to sleep a little later than 6:30am, and poor Terry when he returns!

Other news is it seems our original beliefs that our container of stuff is either floating on the Med or has sunk to the bottom may still be accurate. The government agency that is supposed to review the paperwork for the container and historically returns the documents within one day has now had our documents for more than 2 weeks, which makes me suspect a coverup - that this whole agency-holding-our-documents story is a lie and really the shipping company is trying to have our statute of limitations run out on the claim we are entitled to make because they threw our container overboard and now must reimburse us for all our stuff.

The good news is we get what is called a "layette shipment", which is 250lb of stuff sent air freight (for some reason air doesn't seem to have a problem clearing customs). It has to be stuff for the baby, but since the things we had acquired and put in our ship freight before we left are now at the bottom of the Med, at least we get a weight limit 250lb for getting replacement stuff for the baby. We're entitled to have the layette shipment sent as early as 120 days before the due date - which is next week!!! (the 120 days, not the due date) Things are moving along. My belly is getting huge. When Terry returns we'll post another photo of it.

By the way, it was brought to my attention that I had not yet mentioned that I have been feeling the baby kick for about a week now. I never felt the "flutter" feeling people talk about, baby went straight to trying to pound its way out. I am glad baby is still small and weak, I don't think I will appreciate the jabs and elbows I expect a month from now!

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