This post is part of Blog Action Day, a day of environmental discussion and participation by bloggers around the world.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No, it’s our laundry. Our humble jeans, shirts and towels hanging on a $9.99 clothes horse, saving us a bit of money and helping to fight global warming.

Did you know that dryers use five to ten percent of residential electricity in the United States? That cutting the number of times you use your dryer by just one load a week reduces CO2 emissions by 200 pounds a year? Hard to know what that means in the global scheme of things but every little bit helps, right?

Dave and I were both raised in South Africa, where the hot, mostly dry climate means that the vast majority of people dry ALL their laundry outdoors in the sunshine on washing lines. Our childhood memories are of folding crisp, bone-dry towels, of chasing our siblings through lines of flapping bedsheets and of learning to hang t-shirts so that they didn’t dry all pulled at the peg marks. (more…)

I am too close to this to blog objectively. One TN visa, two H1-Bs and six years later, we are still playing the Green Card waiting game.

And trust me, more than most I know that this is a complex issue. But this news is so big and feels so very surreal for folks like us (especially seeing that we moved here from British Columbia) that I couldn’t not touch on it.

From their press release yesterday:

“Microsoft Corp. today announced that it intends to expand its presence in Canada by opening a new software development center in the greater Vancouver, British Columbia, area. The Microsoft Canada Development Centre will open in the fall of 2007 and will be home to software developers from around the world.”

Bill Gates and Co. have long been lobbying government to make things more viable for the thousands of technical professionals working and living in the US on H1-B visas or standing in that ever-so-long line for a Green Card. I guess they know nothing’s going to change soon.

More in the National Post today:

“The company has long been pressuring U.S. immigration officials to increase the number of foreign workers it can employ in the United States. The U.S. government typically issues about 85,000 visas annually to foreign workers with specialized skills and warned in April there would be a shortage this year. Canada, meanwhile, does not impose similar quotas.

Microsoft and other companies have been saying for a long time, ‘If you make it so difficult for U.S. companies to bring in talented foreign nationals that they need, companies are going to fill those positions abroad’ said Ted Ruthizer of U.S. law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis and Frankel.

‘This is just the fulfillment of this promise,’ said Mr. Ruthizer, who runs [Microsoft's] business-immigration practice.”

This week at Crazy Hip Blog Mamas, the theme is Something I made that I was really proud of.

So. This goes waaaay back to my college days in Canada, when I submitted this and a second story to a la-di-da literary fiction contest. Ahem. Talking With His Hands won and the other story placed fourth, out of hundreds. Trust me — no one was more surprised than yours truly. And though I preferred the other story, I was still thrilled this one had won. A big prize. Me.

Dave and I went over to Vancouver to rub shoulders and drink beer with the very erudite Creative Writing types who ran the magazine. Had to do a reading, which normally doesn’t bother me, but it was a bit daunting in front of the small group of very smart, talented people who had driven in to UBC that night in the rain — gulp! — to hear me read my little story. 

Haven’t thought about Talking With His Hands in a while. It sits in a virtual drawer with a bunch of other stories in varying stages of being written and rewritten. Somehow moving to a new country and having a baby kinda got in the way.

That said, I thought this was a good opportunity to dust it off, and for those of you who don’t know me personally, to show you this little part of me that’s still lying neatly folded at the bottom of the drawer, cherished and not forgotten. Enjoy.

Talking with His Hands 

            When Cyrus wrote that he was soon to be married and would not be returning home to Keimoes, his father did not reply for two months.  When the letter finally came, Petrus Leshoa asked his son only this:  “What must I now do with this house I have built for you?”

            Cyrus had not thought about the house the four years he’d been in the States.  He did not consider it his.  That his father built it for him now made some sense; Petrus was a man who spoke with his hands.  Realizing this made it more difficult.  Cyrus could not tell his father that he finally understood, could not explain that the gesture made little difference.  He could not bring Chlaris home.

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Tertia at So Close spent the Freedom Day long weekend in the Pediatrics unit of her local hospital first with one and then the other of her twins, both sick with a stomach bug.

Like other North-American readers, I was surprised that her kids were admitted so quickly — would never happen here in San Diego. Even though we have great medical benefits and a wonderful family doctor, it is hard to get to see or speak to him and doctors typically take a wait-see-and-keep-them-hydrated approach with tummy bugs. You tend to get stuck in phone purgatory, talking to receptionists and waiting for call backs from nurses. Either that or seeing doctors at walk-in clinics who don’t know your kid. Case in point, our recent three-week bout with Rotavirus.

Tertia has readers from all over the globe. And having lived in South Africa, Canada and the US, I can echo the comments on her blog posting.

Medical care in South Africa? Extreme disparity between the high and low ends of hospital care, and access to great family doctors and specialists if you have the cash or good medical aid. The cost of medical-aid premiums rests firmly on the shoulders of the individual in most cases.

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Ah! Spring has sprung in our fair neigborhood,
and the aloes are blooming!

I ran this through some pretty strong graphic filters.
The original picture was unremarkable.

And yes, Dad, about the Jacarandas,
Oktober is die mooiste, mooiste maand!

We have a couple of friends that are pregnant who, like ourselves, are damn furriners.

Says one of the husbands in passing the other day, “We even have one of those cots that start with a G.”

I thought that was kinda cute considering that in a year’s time he will probably know more than he cares to admit about the virtues and shortcomings of every item of baby gear on the market — not to mention exactly how to press that very awkward button just so to collapse his Graco Pack ‘n Play.

Which got me thinking on how we learn to talk about babies as new parents who were raised in another country.

Sue, some time back now, staring at the daily daycare report: What’s a binky? 
Daycare teacher: Binky?
Sue: It says here, “Tau’s binky…” Oh … oh! Soother.
Daycare teacher: What’s a soother?

This is what you get for living in Canada for twelve years and then moving to yet another country.

Sue: A binky. A soother. Mn … pacifier?

She gives me the look of sympathy, as if she knows the sleep deprivation is talking again.

Daycare teacher: Soother?!
Sue to self, too polite to yell out loud: Honey … you’re lucky I didn’t drop dummy on you! You would have had NO clue!

See Dave’s 40th in our Yahoo! photo albums!

We had a great time celebrating Dave’s birthday in the Okanagan Valley. On July 20th, we flew up to Kelowna, British Columbia, then drove an hour or so south to Naramata, a small town at the end of the road on the quiet side of Okanagan Lake.

The Okanagan Valley has flourished so much in the twelve or so years we have been vacationing there. The region, which boasted 15 wineries a decade ago, now has over 150, many producing top-notch, yummy wines! Naramata (population 2000) consists mainly of small vineyards and orchards set up right on the lake. The town has one pizza joint, one pub, a small grocery store and a great coffee shop — what more could a birthday boy ask for? Naramata is super-secluded compared to close-by Penticton, which gets pretty ugly in the summer heat what with tourists, traffic, loud powerboats, etc.

Most of Dave’s family (around 20 people all together) made the drive to the interior from Victoria — we suspect this had to do with many of them not having met Tau yet, and joked that Dave and I could have slipped away for the weekend sans kid, and no one would have noticed we were missing! Dave’s Aunty Mary was visiting from England. It was a special treat to see her, and we thoroughly enjoyed the delish fruit cake she made for Dave’s birthday.

We ended up staying with Stu, Kristi and Kai at a small private flat (with shaded BBQ patio) just off the main drag, with the rest of the family at the local motel just a block away.

We started most days with coffee and a breakfast bagel at the cafe, then slowly wandered down to spend the morning and lunch time at the lake, then did a bit of wine tasting in the afternoons, and usually wound up barbecuing and sampling more of what we’d bought at the wineries in the evenings. BC was experiencing the same heat wave we’d left behind in California, with temps hitting 38 degrees C, making the lake temperatures perfect for swimming … and the AC in our flat an absolute necessity at night! Tau and cousin Kai spent their days and nights in diapers only, and had a great time in the water!

On the Saturday night, we had a very casual outdoor potluck. The family had collaborated to make a scrapbook for Dave’s birthday (thanks to Trish for organizing), and it was fun to look over the pages of Dave’s past and reminisce. On the Monday, Dave and I visited Glenda, a friend from Victoria, who is now growing grapes on her property for one of the local vineyards — it was interesting to get the inside scoop on the industry. And on Tuesday we said our goodbyes to the last of the family and made our way home.

Sigh — why do vacations have to come to an end? We had a wonderful time visiting with all the family, and look forward to many more holidays at Naramata.