TIA

Ghana. West Africa. "We welcome everyone. If you are a pedophile or a sexual deviant, you are not welcome." Women with babies on their backs and baskets on their heads. Red orange dirt roads, pot holes, tro tros so full people exit through windows. Groundnut stew. Two Ghana cedi. Goats napping in the middle of the road. Castles, ruins, slavery. Vibrant wooden canoes that take a village to launch. Villages on stilts. Boat rides through the ominous stillness of a jungle. Lagoons known as maternity wards. Life is strong in Africa. Monkeys at the Dutch-run sanctuary. "The only animal I ever took care of before this was a goldfish." Sweeping garbage into the gutter. Cooking over an open fire, even in the middle of a city. Ideas, Confidence, God Knows Best Bicycle Workshop. Machetes and naked men walking from where to where. Obruni, obruni, obruni! Black Stars and impromptu football games against kids in underwear and flannel shirts. Radio outbursts, rasta versions of Celine Dion, a strange fascination with country music. "If it's not on, it's not in." Coconuts for lunch. Kola nuts. Coffins for sale where you buy your bed. Don't shit about, but if you do happen to shit your pants just take them off and leave them on the side of the road. Inner city cattle drives. Half-finished buildings made of concrete blocks that now have corn growing out of the floors. Cooking lessons with Nana. Star beer. Dan the Pancake Man and his friend Frank the Juice Man. Two hundred year old rainforest trees. A canopy walk through Kakum National Forest, with monkeys jumping around the treetops below. Vic Baboo's Cafe with food so good you don't mind the giant rat passing through the dining room. A laundry debacle that lasted three days. The Unofficial Squirrel Rescue Organization. Universe serendipity and meeting the Las Vegas angels. Nigerian movies featuring demonic possession or domestic violence. Morning wake up calls courtesy of roosters. A feverish night spent in a rank prison cell at Al Hassan hotel. Green oranges, hard boiled eggs, onion crackers, Guiness Malta, Milo. "The future is our middle name." The 3am call to prayer during the 3am walk to the bus station. Navigating the female urinal for the first time. Mud huts, bucket showers, yams and red sauce. Lisa, Ann-Katrine, Oliver, Joke, Capito. Afternoons spent playing cards, drinking Obama water, cleaning wounds. Ozzie in his sweatshirt, no underwear, playing football. A walking safari that was one of the most incredible days of my life. Swimming elephants, baboons, warthogs, tse tse flies, antelope, water bucks, bush bucks, black cobras, walking elephants. Hiking through mint. Iamfinethaaaaankyou. Being serenaded with If You're Happy and You Know It in exchange for bouncy balls and silly bands. Bed bugs. Mack the Magic Man. Drinking beer on the roof, waiting for the Milky Way. Cape Coast, Beyin, Busua, Accra, Kumasi, Tamale, Larabanga, Mole.

Love Tours (part 3 of 3)

The finalish stop on the epic Love Tour of 2010 was northern Indiana for a family reunion. I'd literally been home about a week after Lake Charles when it was time to go again, but this time I had Shannon, Leiah, Renee, Ben and Sacagawea with me. Sacagawea is what we named my mom and dad's minivan last summer when my parents did a Lake-ation tour around Kentucky, and boy did she come through when it came to babies on the road.

We loaded up on road snacks (Doritos for the pregnant lady, beers for Aunt Shan the navigator, goldfish and fruit snacks for the babies) and left after Shan got off work on a Friday. The drive was pretty uneventful thanks to the in-van DVD player, but there were moments of toddler potty training emergencies. When they gotta go, they gotta go, and one time Renee, who'd been seduced by the promise of peeing in the grass at Aunt Tina's house, insisted she get to pee in the grass at the gas station. Luckily it backed up to a corn field, like most things in Indiana, so Auntie Am, Master of Peeing Outside in a Forward Squatting Fashion, helped Renee fulfill her dream of peeing in the grass.

There was also that Wizard of Ozian tornado that threatened us the last 11 miles of the trip, but Shan broke out a beer to cope with the fact that we may have to lay on top of babies in a ditch and everything was fine.

Once we got to Tina & Tony's house, things settled into awesome. I swear there were so many boys there it felt more like a fancy fraternity house than the residence of a middle-aged couple whose kids are grown. But then, really, that's just how Tina & Tony's house has always been -- the place to hang out, lose track of entire seasons, eat good food, and drink beer out of oversized cans.

Our cousins Nate and Tee showed the babies the kitty in the barn and gave the city kids a lesson in feeding sheep. I'm a proud member of the city kids. Then our cousin Andrea, with her due-soon belly, her husband Mitch, and her uber cuties Kennedy and Jaden, came over to hang out too. We crowded into the kitchen over one of Tina's famous veggie pizzas and talked way too much while Renee pushed one of Tina's chihuahuas around in a baby doll stroller.Saturday, after the babies had a nap, we hit the road to Hoover for a Scott family reunion at Uncle Carl & Aunt Bea's pig farm. We used to go swimming in the pond at the back of the farm when we were kids, and you'd have to drive through some of the grossest smells ever and a small creek to get there. They've moved the pigs somewhere downwind (thank god) and moved what used to be the bridge to my Grandma's house over the stream at Carl and Bea's. That's progress, 12 Mile-style.
Ben and Renee seemed to be having a nice time walking through the tall grass and over a bridge to a little island in the middle of the pond, which was drained for some reason. Leiah, Shan and I sat and watched them throw sticks and rocks into the empty hole, and Ben got his chance to pee outside, this time on a tree.

I am such a good influence.
The family reunion was good, although I greeted most of the people with, "Hi, I sort of remember playing with you. I'm Amber, of Greg." Weird for a family reunion, I know, but thanks to Facebook, next time I'll know who these people are. Although thanks to Facebook, they are probably dumbfounded at how they can be related to my Buddhistish Socialistish Unemployedistish ass.

At least the babies were adorable. Babies make everything better. Other people's babies that I am the auntie of, that is.

And I found my long lost foot twin. I always wondered who needed smacked for giving me these Flinstones... turns out it's all Scott.
Spending a couple hours at the pond helped Ben and Renee recalibrate their standards, so by the time we visited Aunt Becky, Uncle Vince and Cousin Isaac that evening, Ben had settled into running around shirtless and falling in the grass and Renee was just fine eating dirty strawberries out of the garden.
Our cousin Ryan came over to drink Miller High Life (it's better than low life, haha!) and introduce us to his fianceish Jessie.
We sat on the patio, cracking up at our hilarious Aunt Becky and trying to fight off the mosquitoes with citronella lamps. In the middle of one particularly painful laugh session, Uncle Vince came to the door from inside and said, "I just want you to know that the children are naked and I had nothing to do with it."

Then Ben in his Toy Story tennis shoes and Renee in nothing but her birthday suit came running out of the house having the time of their lives being crazy deliriously happy naked babies. Too bad they didn't pull that stunt at family reunion...

Becky's house had really felt the brunt of the storm from the day before (corn was blown sideways and trees were down everywhere), so we decided to go back to Tina's house since we weren't sure if they were going to get the power back on at Becky's. By the time we left, it was past 11 pm, we'd visited no less than 100 people and, holy smokes, there is only so much love to go around.

As we were pulling in to Tina's we got a text that Mitch, Andrea's husband, had collapsed at a wedding and was on the way to the hospital. What a panicked, awful night that was. Mitch spent a long time in a coma (he had something aneurysmish) but came out of it and is in therapy now. And Andrea just had her baby, Brogen Wayne, a couple days ago.
Finally, I am up to date! Ish.

Love Tours (part 2.66 of 3)

(Yes, this has been two-plus months in the making...)

Soooo, after Memphis, it was time to head to Lake Charles, a place that should be left to mosquitoes and alligators and parasites and a place that I would never visit if some of the best people in the world named Amy and Liz didn't live there. I'd visit them in hell (both of them are very good Catholics, so it's more likely to end up the other way around).

The last time I was in LC was for Amy's wedding, but this time I was there for Liz's wedding AND to see Amy's baby, a chunky butt who is so cute she's lucky I'm not a kidnapper.
Liz's wedding was jam-packed with get togethers starring giant amounts of food and more family members than can really fit in a normal sized house. But somehow, they all squeeze in and fill the room with loud laughs and answers to any question you might ever have.

The first get-together was a Hey, People Are in Town So Let's Barbecue. To Cajuns, barbecue means eat outside, so instead of firing up the grill, Liz had Chris pick up a pizza that was so big it would only fit in an SUV. (I had a picture of Liz and a baby with the empty pizza box that really showed off this pizza's enormity but the computer goblins snatched it.)
After cleaning out that box (and another one half that size), we all sat outside and watched sweaty kids run around the backyard. At one point Amy and I got them organized into a game of red light green light and then there was a pretend eye injury that lasted a couple days. It's like they always say, it's all fun and games until somebody gets a pretend eye injury.

Liz's dream wedding involved a photo booth area, so we did a little web searching and found a way to finagle her computer into a photo booth that automatically prints photos. The night ended with a practice round, and once that final piece of the puzzle was slid into place, Liz officially relieved herself of wedding duties.
The next night was the rehearsal dinner night, so we headed over to Chris' parents' house to cram dozens of people into one house, a house unified by rice and ettouffe. I'm telling you, these Cajuns have a knack for making plenty of room, no matter how many people you have.
After a brief fire performance, the distribution of presents and letting Sam put a spell on me with his sparkling green eyes, we all went to Annie's, my other best friend in Lake Charles, to toast the soon-to-be Domingues.
I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but I think Liz's peacock-inspired wedding may have been partly inspired by Annie's. It's total kitch, total biker bar, totally worthy of being one of the bars Patrick Swayze "cooled" in Road House... really nothing like what Liz's wedding was except in its shared awesomeness and peacock-y bathroom.
Wedding day was a blur of last minuting and beautifying. We popped over to the reception hall to set up the photo booth, grabbed some Middle Eastern food (LC is coming up in the food department... that stuff was delish!), and watched as Liz transformed from cozy Saturday girl to stunning bride-to-be.
Brides are always pretty. White dresses and styled hair and professional makeup has a tendency to do that to a girl. But Liz, she was the most beautiful I'd ever seen her before. She took my breath away (and her mom's and her baby's) with how gorgeous she was.

I'm so happy for Liz. I've known lots of her boyfriends over the 20 years we've known each other, and finally, FINALLY she picked a good one. I think she and Chris are definitely going to be a happily ever after.

Congrats my dear Elijah. I love you so much and am so grateful I got to share this day with you.

All I'm Sayin' Is You Better Be a Girl

I know, I know, I promised you Africa and I owe you Liz's wedding and a family reunion and a full account of that impromptu open heart surgery that's officially a Scott tradition, but there's CPR classes and dieting and moving sisters and pregnant ladies that just keep getting in the way. Plus, I miss Jen.

It'll all be here this week or else it will be forgotten and we will move on/resume in present time.

In the meantime, here's Leiah, a rotund 17 weeks and counting. We're not sure yet if it's a boy or a girl, but we are certain it's Mexican. We are also certain that it will be wearing girly clothes if it is a boy. We are also certain that WE WANT A GIRL!