Sofa Illuminations

A perplexing revelation came to me as I was sitting here just now, talking to a friend of mine in The Netherlands about Australia's amazing mangoes...

Christmas time is always interesting for me. Instead of it warming up (as I'm used to) it cools down... Instead of the smell of ripe tropical fruit, the smell of scented pinecones greets you when you walk into the grocery store. People are pulling out scarves and woolens, instead of tank tops and flip flops.
Before Christmas, on a cold wintery day, a friend sipped hot chocolate with me as we watched snow laden clouds drift gloomily across the sky, and asked "What do you miss most about Christmas in Australia?"
Without hesitation I said, "Mangoes."

The smell, the sickly sweet bins of them that you drift past at the local corner shop... the way they spice up the air when you cut into them... the slippery seed at the center that holds so much goodness and requires so much flossing afterwards...

But they're not the same here, they're more bitter, and less intoxicating.

Then a dear friend of ours married a man from Uganda, right before Christmas. R and I sang at their wedding. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the reception area to see that the place cards on the table were mangoes! Not ordinary store bought mangoes, but large, fat, red-ripening mangoes that made my heart pound. The kind where, when you sniff the stem, all you can think about is summer as a child and your face sticky with mango juice.

It was like a gift from heaven for me. In the middle of a cold winter, a home country touch of Christmas.

I treasured those mangoes. I took them home, and for fear they would go bad in my refrigerator while I was gone, I wrapped them carefully in a sweater and put them in my hand luggage for the plane ride to Denver the next day. They arrived safe and sound, and into the refrigerator they went.

Periodically, I would pull them out of the refrigerator and put them on the counter, thinking that today would be the day I'd cut into them and share them with the family, but somehow they would sit there just long enough to be overlooked, and then returned to the refrigerator by someone kind enough to try and preserve them for me... And then later I would pull them out again, to get them to room temperature, and smell them for a while, and thing about how wonderful a surprise they were... and then they'd disappear into the refrigerator again.

They were left in Denver, uneaten.

And as I sat here, talking to my friend about mangoes, I remembered them. Those two luscious, ruby coloured mangoes that smelled so sweet, and were such a gift... and a small question dropped into my mind...

"How often do you do that?"

It was a painful question for me.

How often are we blessed... do we receive a beautiful gift, and then never truly enjoy it? How often do we look at it, admire it, caress it... and never partake of it?

Food for thought.

Quotes of 2008

"You don't have to jam your nose in there!" - Ryan Pue

"I have no function left in my body it was so amazing!" - Steph Thompson

"It's crazy that all my earliest childhood memories are bodily function disasters." - Anonymous.

"Howls. Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce." - Monty Python

"It's dejavu all over again!" - Swimming commentator at the Olympics.

"No sauce? No problem!" - Amelie & Imogen

"You just need that next neuron to fire... Go neuron!" - Ryan

Amelie Quotes:

"Don't be loud to the doggie, you make her ears hurt." - Amelie to Imogen

Ryan: Amelie, why did you take your ponytail out?
Amelie: Because it was all hairy.
Ryan: It was hairy?
Amelie: AND dangerous.

Me: Cute shoes, Amelie!
Amelie: Yeah, they were sixty dollars, but the right colour.
Me: Sixty dollars?!
Amelie: Yeah, remember? I got them at the store.

Amelie, sounding out words to Imogen:
"No, it's p-p-p-chinchilla!"

Amelie, to the fabric counter girl:
"I have a grandma."
"Yeah?"
"I have cousins."
"Yeah?"
"I have a Papa, and he has lots of beer!"

Amelie, doing music study with Mama, and listening to Olsen Olsen, by Sigur Ros:
Mama: What do you think is in his heart that he's trying to get out?
Amelie: He has an ache in his heart.
Mama: A sad ache, or a happy ache?
Amelie: A happy ache. Like a blue crack. In the floor.

Amelie: The sun gives me Bite-amins (Vitamins)
Mama: Oh really? Which vitamins?
Amelie: Pony ones. Because they're better than giraffes.

Amelie getting ready for a bath, yells:"The nakey buns are HERE!!" and points to her butt with two hands.

Cory Gustke: Amelie, what do you like on your pizza?
Amelie: Tickles.

Amelie, commenting on the puppies at the mall:
I love their ears. They're so deli-fish.

Papa: Amelie, who were Peter Rabbit's sisters?
Amelie: Mootsie, Jootsie aaaaand... Tootsie!

Papa brings the girls ketchup at In-N-Out:
Amelie: Woaaaah! Shiver me timbers!!

Amelie: These are going to be the BEST cupcakes EVER!
Mama: Oh, thank you, Amelie! It makes me so happy that you have such confidence in Mama's cooking. You make me feel so good!
Amelie shrugs slightly: It's kinda my job.

Whitney: You have a cute smile.
Amelie: That's why God made me special.

Amelie: Honey. It's cereal ketchup!

Amelie crashes heads with Imogen really hard. Amelie cries, Imogen looks at her.
Me: Wow, that was quite a whop!
Amelie: Yeah (cries some more) Immi has a strong head!
Me: (laughing) Yes. Yes she does.
Amelie: But I doooon't have one (and cries again).

Imogen quotes:

Imogen: Um on. Wick. Urry.
Me: Why?
Imogen: Cwackers.

"Aff oo et mah blip blops."

Imogen hears a song in a clothing store.
Imogen: Singin'?
Me: Yeah. (wryly) She's saying, touch me right now.
Imogen: Gwoss.

Me: There's one dice, two dice. Pick them up, please.
Imogen: No dice!

"'Nother pop'tickle!"

"I love food! I just wanna eat, eat, EAT!"

"Stop it, dude!"