Donkeys and mother's fears.

We're having a meeting at work tonight....yup, you heard that right. A meeting at 7pm on a Friday night. Um. What is that all about? The difficulty is that there are classes every night until 9:45, and being Spain, no one has had dinner yet, so obviously that is out, and some of the teachers work elsewhere in the day, and some are university students...but really, would a lunch meeting be THAT impossible?

Hmmmm.

Chuck is doing much better, full of energy and is being naughty. He is also ravenously hungry...rice, carrots and yogurt do not fill a pup up it seems. I gave him more.

The eldest kidlet is off to a friend's house tonight, and I think that the youngest is having a friend over and maybe more, although with my Catalan, I am not sure. I went and bought gucky stuff to feed the grublets when they get here....chocolate milk and nutella on cookies seems to be the usual after school fare...prep for a coffee dependent lifestyle - and why is it those kids are hard to teach at 5:15? Hmmm. Anyway, I couldn't quite go so far as nutella, so I got Maria cookies, kind of like digestives, (I managed to not buy the fiber added whole wheat kind) and store bought creme caramel...at least it has milk and eggs, then I am going to bring out fruit, and milk. Without the chocolate. They will just have to live with the embarrassment.

On that note, I may have mentioned that kids here can drive any sort of Vespa type motor bike from age 14 on, as long as it is less than 49cc's. Indeed, as I pump people here, most of the kids do have these. This means that in three very short years, my eldest, who can barely ride a bicycle will be pushing me to get her a moped. I am already nervous. *EEEEKKkkkkk* Can you imagine 14 year olds on bikes touring around cities and up and down mountains in the rain and the dark. Imagine it. I may be living it, and I am already nervous. They cannot get a drivers licence for a car however until they are 18. I figure the reasoning behind this is a genetic approach to improving the countries driving record. You know Darwinian survival of the fittest. If you make it to 18 with all your faculties intact, we will consider giving you a drivers license. I guess they figure that with a moped you can pretty much only kill yourself, yet with a car, other folks are in danger too. I will grant that the mopeds are not allowed on the highways. *gee thanks*

We were talking about this at dinner last night, and I was joking with the eldest that instead of a vespa we would get her a donkey....a very traditional means of transportation here, that was in common use 35 or 40 years ago. The eldest looked at me stunned with horror,

"Mom, that would be the most embarrassing thing on the planet. Everyone else has motor bikes, and I'm riding a donkey!"

What was funniest, is that she was worried that I might actually do it. Maybe Spain should institute this as the law, they have the second worst driving record in the EU, only Portugal has more motor vehicle accidents and deaths. If all the kids were on burros, Catalan for donkeys, the numbers would probably drop.

I have however found the perfect threat for if she is even suspected of behaving irresponsibly on the bike, if we get her one...."If I see you driving that bike (fill in the sin here), I'll sell it so fast, you won't know what hit you. Next thing you know you'll be riding 'Pepe the burro' to the party on Saturday night!"

I won't even have to yell.

Bwahahahaha