Isn't It Ironic?

Irony #1
Tonight I was chatting with my sister Mary who was sitting in sweltering heat in Minneapolis trying to decide what to do with her family. She had to cancel sweet Anna's 2nd birthday party because its too hot outside.

At the same time I was sitting all cozy by the fireplace enjoying a hot mug of spicy ginger tea.

Irony #2
I'm in Africa.  Children die of hunger here every day.  I cannot remember the last time I was hungry.

They feed us all the time here and I think I've mentioned this before, but they get all offended and think its disrespectful if we don't want to eat.  Or, like my Aunt Ilene, they think that if you don't take seconds it means you didn't like the food.

We have breakfast between 7 and 8, then we have tea (with food) between 10 and Noon.  Then Lunch sometime between Noon and 2, then afternoon tea (again with food) and then supper at about 7:30 or 8.

The food is delicious.  Seriously, there is another post coming about how much I like the food here.  But, I could feed myself and at least 10 of the starving children with what I'm offered each day.

Irony #3
Chicken.  I'm having a chicken dilemma.  The chicken here is actually a bit nasty.  Its local chicken, which means that the birds are running around the neighborhood all day eating what they find and then going home at night to roost.  But the meat is all chewy and tough and you really have to pick it up with two hands and use your teeth like an animal to get it off the bone.

Then I think about the chicken we have at home that is juicy and tender and you can cut into it with just the side of your fork.  This is the kind of chicken where the meat just falls of the bones.  Those chickens however don't get to roam free in the village all day and I'm pretty sure they are genetically engineered to have more of the white meat we love so much.

So either birds are treated ethically and produce meat I actually want to eat, or the birds are literally "free as a bird" and I can't get any satisfaction from eating it.  (Whoa sorry, did I just get political there?  Oops!)

So these are just some of the things that are making me think (or think twice) these days.