Cantankerous-

I only brought two sets of shoes to Europe. I have some red Nike shocks and some brown hiking sandals. Do you remember the 90's when it was ok to wear those to church? Well, the 90's are back baby, and my sandals at church proved it. Danielle says that's skanky.

Does anyone else know what skanky is supposed to mean? It's supposed to mean hoochy.  You know, loose. I don't think sandals to church makes a person look loose. Heck, I wouldn't want to get to know a man who wore socks with his sandals. Much less be tempted by his obvious availability in the dating world. Anyhow, Danielle says skanky means white trash. 

The definition of skanky was brought out the day we went to church in Holland and I wore a patterned sweater with a differently patterned skirt. My sweater is grey, red, and black; my skirt teal and black. I guess that is one definition of skanky. I would have said the outfit was tacky...but not skanky. Point of this conversation: I need to get me some church shoes.

Some sexy church shoes. So all the women can rest their cares about me being skanky in the trailer park sense and raise myself to skanky in the loose sense. Hah. Didn't seem to matter to the friendly English man in the Holland ward. I keep saying Holland b/c I'm not sure what city in Holland we were in for church.  He was age 45ish and I'm almost positive he hit on me. 

Now don't get me wrong, I don't want you to think badly on this man, but here's what happened.  He put out his hand and said, "Hello, I'm Kale." Then he gave me the look. You know the look and he gave it to me. 

He had two little girls and a wedding ring. Where was his wife? I don't know, maybe she was sick. Maybe he was newly remarried and hadn't erased the look from his memories. Maybe he's still trying to get off the hunt? He had an English accent and gave me the look. I was lost. Doesn't matter, I'll never see him again. Thank goodness. Someone please tell the man his friendly face looks awfully close to the tiger looks I've seen. Weirdly enough, I'm starting to fall for the older man tiger looks and it's sicking me out. Where can I get an accented man my age with that familiar tiger look? Europe of course. Why do you think I am here?

Speaking of that, a guy in Amsterdam saw me from his window and checked me out fully for 5 minutes while I passed...a long time. Then, I left his line of vision and all love hopes got lost. Kidding, he probably didn't speak English.

Last of the man stories, church. I've been excited for church because I heard there are: a 19 yr old and a crazy italian my age that are male. Perfect. I could not wait. Turns out the 19 yr old is closer to 16 yrs old, and the italian is inactive. Crap. Well, I suppose I can get friendly with the jail bait. Please promise you'll send me letters in jail.

The ward is actually half english, half german. It makes church hard to pay attention to. There is a person talking and the interpreter stands next to them, interpreting. That and all the little fussers. You know, the cereal scatterings and tantrums and giggling that goes on. It's fantastic.

The 1st counselor in the bishopric gave the Sunday school message. His name is Brother Bacon. Yeah, breakfast meat. However, he is going bald and reminds me of my brother-in-law Greg. There are three reasons for this: he looks similar to Greg, he's hilarious, and he went on his mission to Italy. Our class is made more entertaining by the fact the interpreter thinks Brother Bacon is hilarious; he sometimes has trouble translating because he's laughing too hard.

Relief Society was grand. The teacher is a German lady who's really nice. I don't remember her name, but her son is the 16 yr old I was checking out. Danielle was the one who told me he was 19 in the first place, so it's her fault.  I don't know if he speaks English though. I was trying to figure out if I should be cultivating a friendship with him since he's so young.

So much for boy options. On the American front I did get to instant messaging with my color festival visitor Ryan. I actually met him in Alaska my first year. He is a hoot. I've gotten him to check on my blog every once in a while and was tickled he's been mentioned on here three times. We were on facebook conversing for about 3 hours on Friday. It was like 1 am for me and 3 pm for him? I think it's an 8 hr difference.

We talked about many things. I've always been drawn to tattoos because of the bad boy complex. He's always been drawn to tattoos also. We traded tat dreams. We would never get one, but if we did, I would get a tramp stamp and he would get a star on his wrist. A cool star, that he could hide with his watch. Guess Danielle was right about me. The later it got, the more random our conversation topics. As you see.

I've been going to bed at 10 pm every night, so I was exhausted, but it was great to converse with a boy my own age. You know, since all the boys here are in hiding. They don't want to get drawn in by my magnetism.