Blogs for an Alternate Universe

I've been thinking about writing a blog post about our three-and-a-half-year-old. She is totally into dandelions. She cannot pass a groups of them - or indeed, a single dandelion, without wanting to pick it and take it home, usually for me or my husband.

Dandelions on our street

 It's really cute, even if it does mean I end up with dandelion bits in all of my pockets. There are worse things (like pieces of crunchy granola bar in your pocket. Seriously. Note to granola bar manufacturers; re-sealable packages). But I digress. I wanted to write this post because I remember when our almost-seven-year old was into dandelions, too.  It's a particular cute kid phase, where for a while they're into picking you flowers, and then, they stop. They move on. Suddenly your counters are no longer filled with flowers with impossibly tiny stems, picked by your preschooler.

As I thought about writing this post, I wavered back and forth. Should I write it? I don't tend to blog about the kids (although they are definitely part of the blog.)  I write about travel, about language, about Scotland and living overseas. At one time I was a mommy blogger; if you look far enough back on this blog (and I mean far back, like pre-2010) I wrote about becoming a parent and my now-almost-seven-year-old's achievements when she was a baby. It was what I did when I wasn't writing my dissertation.  But I'm not a mommy blogger anymore.

Which led me to think: in an alternate universe where I wrote blog posts and actually got paid for it in some form, what would I write about? Here are my ideas.  Feel free to state your favorite in the comments here, or on Facebook or Twitter, if that's how you access my blog. If there's support for one idea over the others, I'll start up a Wordpress blog and, as they say here in the UK, I'll give it a go.

Blog Possibility #1: #Myhusbandsrants
This would be a co-created blog because as the name implies, it would be made up of my writing down, and commenting on, my husband's rants.  He rants on a variety of topics, and they are almost always humorous. The content for this blog would be similar to my post The Beard.

Blog Possibility #2: Spiritual Evolution
This would be a blog about links between religion and life written by me as a liberal, non-evangelical, open-minded Christian. The title is inspired by the first question I often get when I tell people that as an undergrad, I majored in biological anthropology (centrally about human evolution and human adaptation) and minored in religion. That question is, "How do you reconcile evolution and religion?"  I have written a few blog posts that talk about Christianity or church but as far as I can tell from my blog statistics, they are not very well-read.

Blog Possibility #3: Productive Me
Hopefully if I actually write this blog I wil come up with a better title for it. It would be about how sleep, daily rhythms and vacation can help you work harder and smarter. This would draw on some of my academic work on sleep and also coverage of these topics in the press.

Blog Possibility #4: #FuturecastingFriday
This would be closest to what I now do on Twitter.  I think I would have to publish each Friday, given the name. But basically I would be interested in writing and sharing information about three areas - the technological future (which I tweet about currently for work as @digitallifespan), the health future (which I tweet about currently for fun as @kayorzech) and also possibly tools for helping groups (especially policymakers and businesses) consider the future (futures toolkits), which I've been researching recently for work and find interesting.

Thanks for reading and I'm interested to hear what you think of these ideas!

Speaking the language

I've given in...

1) You stop using z's (realise, organise) and start adding u's (colour, favour)

2) You start thinking (about your visiting American guests),  "I wonder if they'd fancy a boat trip on the Firth of Forth?"when previously you had thought it sounded hilarious when new Scottish friends asked if you "fancied" something.

3) You can understand that when someone says "I ken twa wee bairns," they mean they know two small children. 

4) You call it America instead of the United States because that's what everyone (including your 3 year old) calls it here [as in "Mummy, when we go back to America, can Audrey and I get bunk beds?"]

5) You visit London, and you miss the way Dundonians greet you in the shops with a cheerful "Hiya."

6) You realise you can now almost sing a verse or two of Muggie Sha' (see the women's singing group I am part of singing it here).

7) You get your kids to sing "Wind the Bobbin Up" when you're brushing their hair.(although all the Youtube versions of this seem to be sung by Americans, I had never heard it until Library Rhyme Time here)

8) You start putting two syllables in girls (gah-uhrls) and world (wah-ruhld).

9) You pronounce Menzieshill "Mean-es-hill," Kirkcaldy "Kir-coddy," and Glamis "Glams."

10) You respond to good ideas with, "Brilliant!"

11) You start thinking "You Canna Shove Your Granny Off The Bus" is sort of catchy (although not very good for your dad's mom, because you find out later in the song that you Can shove her off the bus!) 

12) You say "cheers" back when people say it to you.

So, cheers to you all, seek out the bonny (beautiful) , and avoid the mingen (gross).  Oh,  and when you're singing that song about Loch Lomond, make sure you "tak" the high road or the low road, don't "take" it.

A Bonny Day in Edinburgh

It has already been established that we are American.  This distinguishes us in many ways from Scots, not least of which is the way we handle vacation (or holiday, as they say here).  One of the ways in which Americans are unique (some may say "crazy") is that they tend to cram a lot of vacation activities into a small stretch of time.  You can see this tendency in our previously documented trip to Oban/Mull/Iona/Staffa.

But oops, we did it again. Fortunately our visiting friends are also American so they don't find our "cram everything into a day" behavior odd. We didn't really do everything in Edinburgh, but we did visit two high points (literally) in the Scottish capital in one day, and came home exhausted.  But it was a lovely day.

First we went to Arthur's Seat.  For those of you not familiar with Edinburgh, this is the top of an extinct volcano.  Sources online had tipped me off to the fact that you can drive about halfway up this mountain and then take a 15-to-30-minute (depending upon the source) walk up to the summit. Uphill, sure. But not that far. Allegedly.

Later, in the taxi. The taxi driver regales us with a story of two Canadians who flew to Edinburgh, got a train to Waverly Station, got in his cab and asked to be taken to Arthur's Seat. They had an urn with them and it turned out the ashes belonged to one of their fathers, an Edinburgh native, who wanted to be scattered at the top of Arthur's Seat.  Because the adult child and his/her partner were quite overweight, they took one look at the hill and decided they were not going to make it, so they asked the taxi driver to make the climb.  He obliged, saying it wasn't really the kind of thing you could say "no" to.  But he quoted 45 minutes up the hill and 30 minutes back down as the time for the trip.  And I'm thinking, 45 minutes? For one man and an urn? Without two seven-year-olds and a three-year old who is probably going to need to be carried? We may be in trouble here.

But it turned out OK. Six out of seven made it all the way to the top of Arthur's Seat. And #7 was an adult, so it was okay. 

Kathleen climbing up from Dunsapie Loch where the taxi let us off.

Patrick waiting for me maybe 1/3 of the way up the mountain (Arthur's Seat peak behind him)

Paul, Claire and Patrick, nearly there (Claire rode on Paul's back most of the way)

Success! Paul and the kids at the peak.

More success: John and Patrick

And me! I'm there too! John bemused by girls channeling their inner divas.

But we weren't done yet. As the old saying goes, what goes up must come down.  And so we did, down the other side of the mountain to St. Margaret's Loch, where we had a picnic, and were filmed for a training video.  Not sure what they were training on - the proper art of picnicing? Staying a safe distance from swans? It remains a great mystery.

St. Margaret's Loch, with tone of the 2-person film crew.

Post-hike picnic.

Then, on to the iconic Edinburgh attraction - the Castle. Located, of course, on a big hill at the other end of the Royal Mile. So we called a taxi.  After a brief snafu (Paul: We're at St. Margaret's Loch, at the car park. Dispatcher: We can't send a taxi to you unless you're at an address. Paul:(phoning back after walking 100 feet) Okay we're at #1 Royal Mews. Now send a taxi!))

Orzechs by the Castle Gate

MacCubbins by the Castle Gate

 Once inside, we spit up, though everyone did see the Scottish Crown Jewels (except Paul, who had already seen them twice and has a better memory than some of us who went again because we had forgotten some of the experience...)

After the jewels, there was time for photo ops near the Scottish War Memorial, near the forewall battery (a collection of cannon), and of course our historic meeting with Queen Margaret (later St. Margaret) in the Great Hall, fit in around the all-important afternoon tea.

Claire posing outside the War Memorial.

Kay and Audrey selfie near the forewall battery.

Girls with Queen Margaret in the Great Hall, Edinburgh Castle. 

Finally it was time to head back on the train, in time for a beautiful sunset over the River Tay.

Patrick entertaining the kids with Uno in the train station.

Tay sunset from train window.