So, now that I know the YouTube thing works (see my earlier posts of the day), I need to get the video camera out and do something with it. I always forget about it, unless there's a birthday party or some other rite of passage. Seems sad that when the kids are grown and gone, and we want to sit down together to watch some old home movies, there will be nothing but bday parties and Christmas programs. What about the day-to-day stuff? What about some good footage of Riley and Liam trying to beat the tar out of eachother? Or me, in the kitchen making dinner, screaming like a lunatic? Both of these scenes could have been shot today, btw. Video archives - another thing to get on my to-do list ASAP :)

Before I get going again, I have to step back to the last post (i.e. YouTube clip), where we addressed briefly the scary intelligence of the average American. Being American, I'm frightened. And curious to know why people's IQ's seem to be dropping at a very alarming rate. Is it possible to propose, instead, that the likes of YouTube and MySpaceVideo are just making it easier for us to see these morons? That perhaps they have always existed and not everyone had the capability to catch them in the act? And, on an unrelated note, I feel a strong need to comment on how the overall approach to 'America's funniest home videos' has changed in the face of the reality TV age. Remember Bob Saget (who, again off the topic, makes a fantastic cameo appearance in my new favorite HBO show, Entourage)? Bob didn't really ever want to hurt anyone's feelings or make them feel terrible about themselves, he just wanted to make people laugh. What happened to the good old days, man? The poor people being exploited on YouTube for the pleasure of others, ignorant as they may be, don't really deserve to be flogged for eternity for one screw-up, do they? In the end, I'm just totally perplexed by pop culture, internet pop culture in particular. Should I ramble more??

Oh, I also wanted to share with you a map that I found on a blog somewhere (I guess I should probably know where and list the artist as part of my official blog-bibliography, but I have no idea where I found it). It's really a nightmare of a statement, but I think there's an ounce of truth in it.

Geez, I hope that doesn't make me a bad American. It's really just a case of me passing on of information, no? And since I haven't lived in the US for ten years, it's really not my place to have an opinion one way or another on the future of America. I can say, however, that for someone living abroad, the US news and television programs people see on this side of the pond aren't always the most flattering. Who knows, European civilizations could be moving in the same direction, I'm just not local enough (or clued in enough) to recognize it. Since I officially came out of the closet earlier as a Hollywood gossip junkie, something I may have alluded to before, it's been established that I'm no geographic wizard or political brain trust. Just to clear up any confusion though, I do know where America is on a map :)

Ok, enough productive blogging for one session. At least I accomplished something today. Almost 1am and my eyelids are telling me it's time to call it a night. xoxo.

RE:Miss Teen USA 2007-South Carolina answers a question

I have to tell you, I really like funny videos. And in the wake of the Miss Teen USA South Carolina debaucle, which I had to log on and see for myself, I found this one on YouTube. Although neither of the video clips do much to encourage those of us living outside the United States that the average American citizen has a clue, I think the sweet old lady in this one is somehow the winner. Poor Miss Teen USA South Carolina, YouTube has pretty much yanked her out of the running for an academic scholarship.

Why can't there be 48, or even 72 hours in a day? It's Thursday evening, nearly the end of another week. I had at least thirty things I was going to accomplish today, in cyberspace and around the house, and I got to about five of them. Why can't I focus? Perhaps it's is because I am 100% ADD, which is becoming more apparent every day, or perhaps it's because I continue to be distracted once an hour with something on the internet. I laid in bed Tuesday night with my day planner and an empty notebook. I started to-do lists for every facet of my life. to-do, to-do, to-do. And today was the day I was going to get my ass moving. I had emails to write, blogs to update, to-do items to cross off the list, and other important things to do in the very short span of 'me time' I had today.

Instead, I wound up watching ridiculous videos on YouTube, downloading music, looking for my dream home (even though we don't have any specific geographic location we're working with), dream-shopping online (i.e. updating wishlists on my favorite websites), finding recipes on WeightWatchers.com, and frivolously sitting here for the whole damn day, like Paris frigging Hilton waiting for her next engraved invitation to the LG Malibu Beach House. Oh yeah, I forgot one more important part of my day - getting the scoop in Hollywood gossip land. It's a vice, admittedly a really sad, pathetic one, but I do soooooooo love being in the loop (or at least thinking that I am). I have absolutely no idea what's happening in Iraq, or on the US presidential campaign front, but I can tell you that Kate Hudson is indeed back on the set of her new movie today :)

On the topic of up-to-the-minute reporting, I have decided to explore the amazing world of YouTube meets Blogger.com. In doing so, I will now attempt to import a YouTube video and see what happens. Again, more silliness. Guess I have to finish this post and then start again. Back in a minute....

Two weeks in a row - it's a miracle of modern blogology!!!

Monday morning here in Provence. It's rainy and cold today but I'm hopeful it will blow over in time for my daily regimen of sun worshipping. Everyone here is still asleep, Bill's tennis match having been cancelled and the boys not required to be on the court until 10am. I realized something yesterday-I have a family of tennis players and I don't know the first thing about the game. I don't even know how that whole 15-30-love scoring thing works. I know, I'm very polished. Liam came home from the camp very pleased with himself yesterday that he learned how to serve. Wonder what he's been doing in Budapest twice a week for the last two years?

So, when I last left you, we were planning on a trip to Nice. Oooooooh la la it was super. Tons of people this time of year, but not so many that you felt like a sardine. We met up with our Magyar friends near the old port in the morning and spent the whole day on the beach. The boys were in heaven. The waves were so strong that they both ended up with a rash on their stomachs that I guess you would call rockburn. The rocks were really big where we were, but smooth and round, and as the boys came crashing into the shore with the waves, they also crashed with the rocks. I went in wearing my Tevas and still had a hard time maneuvering around. Keira and her friend Panni, who is also three, spent the day on the beach eating non-stop and chasing pigeons. I'm sending some more photos to the photo blog this morning, btw, so you can see Nice. I had no idea how big the beachfront was, or how developed. We decided at the end of the day that we must have been in the area most frequented by the gay population (not a problem, just an observation), and it was confirmed as I looked up and saw the rainbow flag flying amongst the French, EU, and others. We stopped for dinner in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Mambo Pizza, where Bill ate one of the best pizzas he's ever had. The boys slept over with our friends and we headed home for a quiet evening. I think I was sawing logs by 9pm.

We met up with our friends again on Sunday for an afternoon in Grasse, which is the perfume capital of the world. We skipped touring the perfume factories, which is more or less a complete racket (ten minute tour, leading you directly into the overpriced gift shop). We walked through the old cobblestone streets, had a terrible minus-five-star lunch for 70Euros, took a little train through the city, and sat in a park surrounded by pigeon shit. Why are there so many friggin' pigeons in the world? They really are beyond disgusting, and they are everywhere.

Anyway, the highlight of our day in Grasse was something out of a scene from The Outsiders. Riley, Liam, and their friend Abel, starring as Ponyboy, Sodapop and Johnny. Actually, they would have been the Soc's in this scene (you know, Greasers and Soc's), but I don't remember any of their names. We were sitting on one of the main squares, waiting for Le Petit Train de Grasse (the little train of Grasse :), and the three boys were standing inside a big music pavillion listening to their echos nearby. Unprovoked, three little hooligans started whipping rocks at them. I've never seen anything like it. They were maybe 5, 7 and 8, no parents in sight, and didn't even acknowledge that we were sitting there watching this madness. Our boys, with the testosterone reflex, started throwing the rocks back. Pretty soon they were actually going at eachother, screaming obsenities about the others' mother and using hand gestures only appropriate for incompetent drivers. What in the world? I didn't even know that my little angels had that in them. After about ten minutes of this, Eszter (Abel's mom) and I grabbed them and headed for the train, whereupon the street urchins followed us and sat next to the train, giving all of us the evil eye. Absolutely no respect for adults, even my glares back and body language didn't deter; they didn't even flinch when the train driver went over and tried to send them on their merry way. One of the three little demons actually ran alongside the train through the streets of Grasse, cursing us all the while. There is a huge population of people from Northern Africa in Southern France, mainly from Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, and as we drove through a bit of a rough neighborhood on the edge of the tourist area, I noticed alot of small kebab restaurants and tea houses full of these groups. There would be a group of 10-15 men, seated inside and outside, smoking like chimneys and drinking tea. And another 200 meters down the road would be a group of teenagers, sortof a snapshot of our little aquaintances ten years down the road - same mundane but evil existence, nowhere to go and nothing to do. It really caught us off guard because it was, at least for me, such an unlikely scene in an otherwise pristine, affluent little town. I realized two things after this little sidenote to our excursion. (1) My young sons are about as streetsmart as the Pope, and (2) they definitely have some redneck qualities.

Yesterday we had a quiet day. Bill took the monkeys for a kirandulas (outing) 30 minutes up in the mountains to a place called Pont du Loup for a tour of a candy factory where everything is handmade. He came back with all kinds of funky stuff, the strangest of which were crystallized rose petals and rose petal jam. The rose petals taste like soap to me, although I know alot of people like the taste. I haven't tried the jam yet, but apparently the kids really liked it. We had crystallized clementine oranges with vanilla ice cream for dessert last night, which was also an interesting taste. Needless to say, my diet has been pummeled by the French palette in the last two weeks, but Bill and I have both vowed to get back on the Weight Watchers track from Saturday.

Will sign off for now, I really need to get the day rolling. A big Happy Birthday wish to my friend John in Moscow. Also, my thoughts and prayers are with my brother and his wife today as they head to the hospital to welcome their new baby girl. xoxo.

Dear long lost readers,

Almost three months later.... Geez, I'm really bad about keeping up with this. As one friend has recently reminded me, nobody is going to log on to read about what's happening if I don't post once in awhile. So, what's happening out there? Haven't heard from lots of people in a really long time, would love to hear from someone. Maybe someone from across the pond? Also, I'm wondering if I shouldn't just start to have a 'topic of the week'. Maybe that would motivate me. I mean, how many people (besides you, John) really want to read about my existence on a regular basis?

Anyway, I'm sitting here, finishing my third (or fourth? or fifth?) glass of wine thus far this afternoon, so I might as well ramble. The McGann Clan - at least our little branch of it - is currently in the south of France, Provence to be exact, about five kilometers from a city called Grasse (near Nice) to be more exact. I'm sitting on the terrace, looking out at a beautiful old church, the village, the mountains, and the sea in the background. The view, which cannot possibly be described adequately by me, is breathtaking. There is always a perfectly clear star-filled sky at night, with the church lit up on the hill, and all the lights from Cannes in the distance. Heaven on Earth, and that's an understatement. Saturday evening was apparently 'the night' of the year to see shooting stars, so we sat here and watched. I saw five, and that was before midnight when I headed to bed. So very cool. Bill and I would absolutely put this place in our top three retirement destinations. He's sitting next to me, and I asked him to rank it. He says that the place is great, but the culinary experience far outweighs anything else. The grocery store here compared to Budapest is like comparing Saks Fifth Avenue to Walmart. And even scarier, the prices here for everything are far more reasonable. We just bought a ten liter box of wine, very drinkable although not by any stretch of the imagination sophisticated (I don't even know what it means for a wine to be sophisticated), for 17 EURO. We decided that it would be more economical to drink that way, but I'm not sure that doesn't just make us drink more :)

We are here for two weeks, staying with our very good Danish friends who used to live in Budapest, Susanne and Ole. Ole (pronounce Oh-leh) is Bill's former boss, who retired in 2005, so they always have lots to catch up on. We spent lots of time with them in Budapest, and just generally love hanging out with them. A friend asked me last week how we could manage to stay in someone else's house for two weeks with three kids without someone (mainly the host or hostess) going bonkers, but I must tell you that this is one of those extraordinary places where it just works. Everyone pitches in with the meals, everyone is responsible for their own stuff, and everyone is in ultra-relax mode anyway, so it's all perfect. The daily routine goes something like this - eat breakfast, lounge around, eat lunch, lounge around, flip a coin to see who goes to the grocery for dinner, eat dinner, lounge around. Who could ever complain? There is a pool five steps outside of our bedroom, so the kids wake up in the morning and get ready to jump in. The boys are in a tennis camp here in the village (Cabris) this week, so they are getting a bit of French before school starts back on September 4th. We are also having private sessions of 'school by the pool' each afternoon for 30 minutes to get their brains moving again. I had the best of intentions to accomplish great things scholasticly this summer, to no avail of course. The summer has gone so fast, how can we be halfway through August already? Furthermore, how is it possible that Riley will turn eleven in nine days. God, I'm getting old.

We are trying to get a few outings while we are here (Language lesson for today - outing in Hungarian = kirandulas (key-rahn-dew-lah-sh), but it's so hard to motivate ourselves to leave the house. Last night we took the kids down to the carnival in the village, where we were given the usual extortion treatment, but they had a blast. Bumper cars cost 10 EURO for about 15 minutes of total drive time, and that ridiculous game where you fish for ducks and pick one with a number to get a 20 cent prize - 4 EURO. Nevermind, it's vacation. I often wish that Bill and I (or at least one of us) could just throw caution to the wind and spend money without thinking about it. Tomorrow we will go to Cannes in the evening to have pizza and watch the international fireworks contest taking place every Tuesday through the high season here. Each country puts on a big fireworks display, and the spectators go online to vote at the end for the best. Friday we will meet some new friends from Budapest in Nice and spend the day at the beach there. We found them by luck/chance in July when the boys were at pottery camp and Liam made a new friend, Abel. They moved to France a week later, and will stay here for a year so the kids can start to learn French. They will put the kids in the French school in Budapest from next September, so Liam will have a penpal (guess you call it a Skype-pal now) for the school year. Small world. Other than that, I have grand plans to get to the local farmers' market a couple times, and maybe to the new shopping mall in Nice, but that's about it. We stocked up on school supplies today at the local hypermarket, which was also a bargain compared to home.

We left Budapest last Monday, spent two days in Venice on the way down, and then drove the rest of the way here on Thursday. Three monkeys in the car, total driving time was 17 hours (including short breaks), so needless to say I was ready for a few drinks when we arrived. What can I say about Venice?..... It was beautiful but totally different from what I expected. Sort of run-down but charming nonetheless.

The kids are after me to get in the pool with them so I will finish later...

Friday morning. Where was I? Venice. We stayed in Mestre, just across the bridge and not far from the old part of the city. There was a bus 200 meters from the hotel, which was a 15 minute ride out. We spent the first afternoon/evening just meandering through the tiny alleys and along the canals. The kids had so much fun trying to figure out where we were in the maze. The second day we used the public transport (boats instead of buses) to get from one end to the other, and found lots of beautiful places to sit and watch the world go by. I would love to go back once more without the kids, as it was fun for them but is really a place where I could sit happily all day people watching. The Hotel Venezia in Mestre was good, not too expensive and in a great location. The carpet in the room was disgusting, that was my only complaint.

Accomodations are much better here in France, and the rate/night even better - free :) We've had a very uneventful three days since I started this post - was it Monday? The days just run together. Anyway, we have been enjoying the amazing weather and sitting on our big butts by the pool, which was the grand plan. The boys are having their last day of tennis camp today, unless they decide they want to go again next week, and tomorrow we will adventure off to Nice for the day. Last night we went to Cannes and watched the fireworks with 200,000 people. It was fantastic. We sat on the beach and the show was on the water right in front of us. As I mentioned before, it's a contest between seven countries to see who puts on the best show throughout the summer. Last night it was the Germans, and it was choreographed to music extremely well, as only the Germans could do. Ole told me afterwards that he still thinks the Spanish show last week was better.

Keira wasn't thrilled with the fireworks - she kept her fingers in her ears the whole time - but today she remembers it having been a great time. I'm convinced that for most people, kids in particular, the memory of the things/places they experience is much happier than the actual act of experiencing it. As I very often remind myself now when we have these family outings that inevitably turn out to be something different than we planned, we are indeed making memories. Having said that, if I could find a better way to just accept things as they are and move on we would all enjoy ourselves a bit more. I'm probably worse than the kids in many ways, because I'm the one who has an expectation about what a great time everyone should be having. Being children, they are very happy to just go with the flow and have no pre-conceived notions of how the day will/should go.

So, other than holiday news, there's not much to report from McGannland. We will head back to Budapest next Thursday, arriving on Friday the 24th. Keira will start back at the kindergarten the following Tuesday (she's home with me on Mondays but I may change it to Wednesdays) and the boys have one more week before heading back to school. The summer came and went in a flash, as it always does. Bill is still looking for a job. He is working with a few headhunters back in the US and has talked to several people here in Europe. I would say at this stage that we are leaning towards opportunities in the US, but nothing concrete. He could easily find something new and challenging in Russia or the Middle East, neither of which I'm really on board for. I would be happy to go somewhere totally different, like Southeast Asia or South Africa, but at the same time I would be more than happy to head home for awhile.

I have always maintained that I would prefer for the kids to have their high school and college educations in the US, or at least college. Once more, we can appropriately insert my absolute favorite saying here - 'life is what happens while you are planning it'. As I said, Bill is still in a very early stage of the job search, which didn't even gear up until the end of May, but it's fun to think about where we might be in a year. In talking about possibility of something in the US, we started out looking in the Philadelphia area, but we have also been looking at houses, etc. in the Ft.Myers, FL. area, and aren't ruling anything out. I'm happy to go anywhere, as long as the school district is good and I can return to a few of the civilized household accoutrements I've been missing for ten years. For example: a garbage disposal, a big, fat, double sink, a normal sized oven (one that's actually big enough for a small turkey), a walk-in closet, etc. I'm pretty easy, but if I get to have a couple of those things I will be happy.

It goes without saying that there are alot of things I don't look forward to in the face of possibly moving back. The biggest thing is probably the consumer/consumption factor. Our kids have spent ten years living in Hungary, where they don't have to wear the same thing as all their friends or have the latest trendy clothes/shoes. They aren't fixated on the have-to-have-it toy or fad of the moment, although there are occasionally things like trading cards, etc.. that they collect. I don't have to ever worry about walking into a store and spending too much money on things that I don't even need - it just isn't available. And when I look around at how the Europeans live with respect to what they need and don't need, I prefer the mentality here. Mostly, I worry that I will be the one who goes completely bonkers after being deprived for so long and becomes a serious shopoholic :)

Well kiddies, it's going on noon here, and shall now proceed to plant myself in the sun for a bit. I won't even promise to write soon, since I never do, but maybe I will surprise myself. xoxo. K.

One more note before I close - I have posted some new photos on the photo blog (http://mcgannphotos2006.blogspot.com/) and you can also check out my photos on another website, http://www.flickr.com/. The link to my photos is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcgannclan/. There are alot of the same photos on both, but the flickr account allows me to post photos directly to my blog. Next stop - myspace.com. I've been meaning to set it up forever, just never get there. Not enough hours in the day for this technical age of wonder.