Friday List!

Jill's List:

First off, the only flight attendants banned from decking themselves out in pink lipstick, fancy nails, and platinum blond hair.  Well, at least we won't risk suffering from "impaired visual integrity" on our flight to Istanbul next month.

Image from Into the Gloss.

Ugh.  In other airport news this week: decapitation while strolling along the tarmac  at N'Djili.

Image from here.

A visit with a midwife in Uganda.  (By Jennifer from World Mom's Blog.)

That set up looks familiar!  Image from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Such incredible, eerie photos.  There are so many abandoned houses, boarded up in Virginia.  I always wondered what was inside...

Image by photographer Niki Feijen, as seen in the Daily Mail.

Damn it.  Congo makes the top (bottom?) of the "toughest place to be a mother" list.  Again.

In DR Congo, one in 30 women die from pregnancy-related causes, whereas in Finland it is one in 12,200

Image by J. Humphrey.  From this post.

And, in a completely different universe: a new-to-me-known-forever-to-everyone-else beauty/style blog.  I've known and adored her boyfriend's street style for ages, but Garance Doré's collection of illustrations, flashed-out photography, and product reviews is superb.  Even better, if I'm feeling particularly classy and/or motivated, I can switch to the French version for a little practice (ha.)  However, after reading this post, I may have asked Johan, "So, what would you think if I ordered a $150 face oil?"  Hmmm.

Image from  Garance Doré.

Best juice ever.  Fresh squeezed + local ingredients = a super rare find around here despite the crazy fruit selection.  I've only found it at La Patisserie Nouvelle and Eric Kayser.  Can you buy it elsewhere, Kin folk?

Image from here.

Sarah's List:

When I saw this article, I gasped. Here is my ridiculously awesome extended family in the New York Times(!) Caught in Methodism's Split Over Same Sex Marriage. I could not be prouder/angrier. The last time I saw Tommy Ogletree he was dancing his head off at one of his children's same-sex weddings mentioned here. Just as any father/theologian should do. Best quote of the week:

 “Sometimes, when what is officially the law is wrong, you try to get the law changed,” 

Dr. Ogletree, a native of Birmingham, Ala., said in a courtly Southern drawl over a recent lunch at Yale, where he remains an emeritus professor of theological ethics. 

“But if you can’t, you break it.” 

Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times

“I actually wasn’t thinking of this as an act of civil disobedience or church disobedience. I was thinking of it as a response to my son,” said the Rev. Dr. Thomas W. Ogletree of officiating his son’s marriage to another man.

Here's a list of 12 Countries Where the Government Regulates What You Can Name Your Child. Okay, before we all freak out about China restricting names to ones with characters computer scanners can read, the USA told us Annaïs was not allowed her special character on her passport or birth certificate because, "We don't have that button." Fair enough. Even I still don't know how to make a trema on a PC. I usually go into Word, add the special character, and then paste it in. Seriously. Ah, a mother's love is never-ending. (Wait, just looked it up. Alt+139, really?)

Did you see this study that says having three children is the most stressful number? Maybe makes you want to reconsider this post. Note in the photo below how excluded that poor "third child" is. (Also of note, look at those babies! My, how they've grown.)

Photo from Jill's post, The Third Kid.

I've often wondered about this. How on earth are babies supposed to learn to walk while wearing those bulky diapers? Especially cloth diapers. I've always thought that the hindrance of the bulk of cloth diapers, also worked the other way to cushion the fall when learning to walk. But it turns out it's true that "once freed from the albatross of that bag of pee, babies walk less like babies." Go figure. I wonder if diaperless Congolese babies walk sooner? For sure they do! But maybe it's just because they've been expected to help fetch water and balance things on their heads at the same age my kids are just learning to crawl.

You'd have trouble walking in one of those, too.
Photo by iStockphoto/Thinkstock

And finally we're making this dessert for a dinner party this weekend. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to secure graham crackers, cream cheese and a can of cherry pie filling in Congo. All at the same time. Here's how: 

1- Fight for the graham crackers brought by the embassy worker at the Christmas gift exchange.
2- Bring the cream cheese back frozen from the States. 
3- Happen upon a random can of imported cherry pie filling in the bowels of the Indian grocery store. 

A dessert one year in the making.

Paula Deen's Cherry Cream Cheese Pie