Engaging with the Community

As I walked home last night with a few friends, we passed a restaurant where a man was smoking outside with his son.  We had had an unexpected snowfall that day, so the boy was entertaining himself by making snowballs and throwing them at passersby.  The three of us were on the other side of the street ignored the boy (he was about 10 - no need to encourage him) and he proceeded to come and throw his snowball at us.  I am no wilting flower so proceeded to give the kid a hard time about throwing snowballs at people, telling him that a snowball was *exactly* what I needed to top off my evening and thanking him sarcastically for it.  (Note - father said nothing).

I then walked face first into a pole.  Ouch.

Of course, kiddo thought this was frickin' hysterical and what I rightly deserved for having the gall to tell him it was inappropriate to throw snowballs at strangers on the street.

I got home, sore and my face throbbing, and I was really pissed.  Not at the boy, really, but at the adult who stood and let his kid throw snowballs at strangers with no regard to his relationship with the community.  I can only imagine what sort of holy terror this kid will grow up to be.

This is a common problem where I live, parents do not seem to be engaged in their children's relationship with the community around them.  No one bothers to teach their children how to interact with strangers and how to be a functioning member of society.  This might explain the number of rude and infantile adults around here as well.  

It can be truly unpleasant to go out into the world some days when common decency seems to have fled.  So what can we do?  My husband thinks that if every single person who had been hit by that kid's snowballs had taken the time to tell him off, he would have eventually gotten the idea, but I also think that he was probably looking for the attention.  Also, is it our responsibility to teach kids manners?  In some cases I think it probably is society's responsibility, but it is also a parent's responsibility.  

What do you think?  How can we engage with our community and deter undesirable behaviour?  Can we teach kids good manners when the parents don't seem to care?  Should I have kept my nose and dignity intact by not talking to the kid (and therefore not walking into the pole)?

Cooking Abroad

As a Canadian living in the UK, I am forever discovering the fact that some ingredients I want just aren't sold here (usually at the last moment, in the store, looking wild-eyed at some poor employee who has no idea what I've just asked for).  Case in point - canned pumpkin.  

For Thanksgiving this year, I decided that I was homesick and that in defense I was going to cook a turkey and some pumpkin pie.  Upon discovering that I was cooking a dessert pie with a vegetable, most of my British friends looked at me skeptically.  When they learned that this same pie was made using a sludge of the same veggie that came in a can . . . I wouldn't blame them if they backed away slowly.  Undeterred, I found the desired sludge online, and made my pies (they were delicious by the way) and fed them to my friends.  My Canadian husband thought they were lovely and we both ate quite a bit, but none of my British friends came back for seconds. . .  While this meant there was enough for breakfast (don't judge), it also meant that they weren't won over by my veggie-pie-from-a-can.  Oh well.

Now I am crossing another hurdle.  I expressed a desire for butter tarts the other night, and was once again met with blank stares.  I described that butter tarts are essentially tiny pies made with sugar, butter, and sometimes raisins and were often quite runny and almost unbearably sweet.  Once again, my friends backed away slowly.  My plans have been put somewhat on hold though when I discovered that corn syrup is awfully hard to come by over here.  I've been told that golden syrup is quite similar, so I will be attempting the substitution tonight for my girly night.

This really brings home one of the reasons it is so hard to be an expat.  Getting homesick in your own country is hard enough, but you can always run down to the local Loblaws, pick up some stuff and make it just like Mom does.  When you live an ocean away, no matter how hard you try or how good a cook you are, it is never going to be "just like Mom does" because you are starting with different ingredients.  My butter tarts will be yummy, but they won't be "the same", and I suspect that instead of making me less homesick, they will actually remind me even more how hard it is to be far from home.