A Word about Butter without Salt...

So lesson # 14526


Do not buy a package of butter without salt on a 104 degree day and think it will make it back to your house after an hour bus ride in Paraguay. It WILL melt all over you, the bus, and possibly someones metal roofing material. For anyone who doesn´t know, butter which contains salt is supposed to keep its shape longer - but without - well, might as well rub it all over your skin while in the 120 degree heat index of an oven, I mean bus...




So I got back from Asuncion the other day after a 5 day excursion. I must give props to my good friend, Katherine, who sent me the most wonderful Christmas gift, which I just got. It was a blue blanket just like Linus´s from Peanuts. Plus a crapton of shea body butter which must´ve contained salt, cause it DIDN´T melt. She also send me some winter slippers and hand creams. I am going to be PAMPERED this winter.



I also got gifts from my mom, which included ingredients to make green bean casserole, Kraft maccaroni and cheese, Peter Pan Peanut Butter, and Pumpkin Spice Nescafe! Yum Yum Yum! I can´t wait to put it all in my belly! I also received my camera, in which I will start taking pictures immediately as soon as I buy batteries today. My dad (as you may have read on the last post) sent me a DVD player in which to occupy my cold winter days sipping mate and rolled up in my new blue blanket. I have yet to get it, as I left the day before it arrived in the Peace Corps office. I might make a special trip here in a couple weeks just to go get it! Hooray! My Aunt Paula has been making appearances as well, by sending me tons of cards no matter what the occasion is! Sometimes, it´s just to tell me about Casey´s football team, or her winning her power lifting contest, cause she´s my new Aunt Conan!

So, If you´re looking for items to drop into the mail to your favorite PCV, here is a short list of all things Lilu:

• sugar free Kool Aid
• Burned DVDs
• hard copies of photos (to hang up in my house)
• tea
• burned music CDs
• candy that won´t melt
• yarn (I´m knitting again, but yarn is hard to come by here)
• magazines or used books
• deck of uno cards
• dominos
• johnny depp stickers (there´s gotta some out there SOMEWHERE)
• anything fun that will pick me up on a blue day
• a letter from you ;) (that´s schoo schweeet!)

Other than that, just moving into my house, and fixing the place up. I bought a 5 gallon bucket the other day that will enable me to transport water from the neighbor´s house over to mine. I will be able to have water at my house even if it´s not running. I also made a hand washing despenser our of an old 2 liter bottle, string, and a stick. I´ll have to take a photo of it to show everyone, but I really did feel like MacGyver when I was making it.

I also submitted a trivia page in our quarterly newsletter. Let´s hope people like it. I tried it out on a few folks in the ole PC office while there, and I´m a little nervous. I included such trivia questions as:

1. What was Rod Stewart´s profession before he became a singer?
2. From where does ¨the Whole Nine Yards¨ originate?
3. What country did McDonald´s build a special snowmobile drive thru?
4. How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop?
5. What ¨Muscles from Brussels¨martial arts actor starred in Breakin´in 1984?

I had about 15, and I got most of them from old triva and quiz blogs in my archives. I know, I cheated a little bit. But they all came from my depths of useless knowlege and most people only knew 1 or 2 of the answers. Can it be possible that Peace Corps Volunteers didn´t play bar trivia as much as the rest of us? Could they have been reading books on developing countries and conflict/resolution? Nah......