Meow.

Don't judge me. 

                                          We have a stray cat.




It all started when a frightening black cat with a crooked head started sleeping under our meager bush of a tree to escape the heat and the killer cats by the dumpster. It made London so happy whenever she would wake up from her nap and see it out our window. The cat started napping there more frequently, and now it spends most of its day in our garden. Tonight we put milk out for the first time. It makes me wonder lots of things... Mostly--how does a cat get a crooked head? And--what will my sisters think of me?

Saturday we were invited to a Halloween party at our church. Halloween this year was completely off my radar because they don't celebrate it in Jordan. I neglected to consider the twenty embassy kids who go to our church and had their hearts set on dressing up like storm troopers and super heroes. London had absolutely nothing to wear! I found a brown onesie and leggings in her winter clothing collection and determined that I had some hope of turning my child into, what else, a kitty cat. We went to the mall down the street where, in one of the hokey beauty stores, I found slap bracelets wrapped in faux fur. 




I cut one up and sewed the pieces on a headband, and sewed another bracelet to the seam in her leggings to make a tail. Maybe it was the combination of that button nose and her curly red hair that pushed her whole look over the edge. She was just perfect! 


Next year I'm hoping she will be less horrified by the decorations and actually go trick-or-treating with the big kids. 


Our internet went out this week. The only way I could get a connection and watch the presidential debate was to leave my apartment and sit in the hallway. So I waited for London to take a nap and I faithfully fulfilled part of my American duty. As I was sitting there, one of our neighbors, who just happens to be Russian, came home. She almost had a heart attack when she saw me. Now, they just moved in a week ago, and I assumed she didn't know that we were neighbors. I did my best to explain that I was trying to get a better connection in the hallway, and pointed to where I live. In her broken English, she cried, "No, no, no. Very bad! No sit! You go. Very bad!" After a few minutes, I just got up and turned the corner because I was clearly failing at explaining that I wasn't dangerous. 

It's a good thing my husband is so wise in the ways of world culture. It turns out, Russians think that if a woman sits on the ground, she will become infertile, or as this blogger puts it, her ovaries will freeze. The poor woman was trying to save my fertility, and I was talking about internet connections.

The most important news of the week: Taylor Swift's new album came out today and me and London haven't had this much fun in months.

Next week, we are spending 4 days in Southern Jordan. We'll be visiting Petra and riding camels, among other once-in-a-lifetime adventurous things. Knocking things off our dream board one weekend at a time...