There's no place like home

Nice, quiet night. Made a kick-ass arroz con pollo, put the kid to bed, sat back on the sofa, and watched the moon and its reflection over the lake.

So looking forward to Friday....

Good night, moon. :)

Serenity & twilight walks

I'll admit it, this was a tough move. When I finally lay down long enough to get a night's sleep, I woke up with a flu that lasted a week. There are still boxes to unpack and remotes to find, but we wake up every morning with an unobstructed view of a calm and serene lake. I spent the weekend watching Season 3 of Weeds. It doesn't get any better than that.

Seriously. It really doesn't.

Some photos from this evening's walk.

:)

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard'
Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Miami - Parrot Jungle

Debo's third birthday... spent at Parrot Jungle in Miami, trying to keep the goats from eating Malena's clothing...

birthday girl

a nice salad

the llama that stared in a way that made everyone uncomfortable

brown baby

I Sold My Soul to the Devil for a Dishwasher and a Pool

When I first came to this country, .... (sorry, channelling my ancestors for a second, there)... when I first moved back to the US from a brief sojourn overseas, I moved to Queens, New York. I had 2-bedroom apartment in Woodside, with hardwood floors and a great cross breeze. There was a clothesline out the back window, and a fantastic Chinese takeout on the corner, in addition to yet another Irish pub in Woodside, not surprisingly filled with Irish. When I walked into the pub with one of my girlfriends, a row of Celtic construction workers at the bar would look up, one after the other, nod, and politely mutter "How are ya". It sounded like "How are ya, how are ya, how are ya, how are ya" as we passed the bar towards the tables at the end. Every once in a while, on a Saturday, around 4am, one of the locals would leave the pub and walk home, mournfully playing a bagpipe. The sound would come in through the open window and wake me, and I'd smile and fall back asleep. A short walk away was the Indian neighborhood. I shopped there on the weekends, for fresh vegetables, incense, bindi, and sag paneer in a carton. They had gorgeous Hindu festivals, full of color and music and things that just smelled good, and the sidewalks were filled with bright stains from red paan.

Like any other glimpse into a working person's life in New York, it wasn't a complete fairytale. The streets were dirty. The subway stairs smelled like piss. There were cab drivers that would rip you off, and men at the laundromat that leered, and $5 quarts of milk at the convenience store. But when you're young, and you live in New York, you tend to focus on the things that sparkle and simply accept the less-beautiful things for just the way things are.

Now I look around and wonder what happened to me. I am completely content, no, make that deliriously content to live in a perfect townhouse with perfect walls, with a perfect view of the lake. Last night I went for a walk with Malena on an unnaturally curved path, across a bridge, over a man-made canal that serves no apparent real purpose. I drive her to daycare down manicured streets, and I shop like a Stepford wife in a supermarket with wide, clearly-labeled, sparkling clean aisles. The other morning, I came home to find a landscaping truck filled with Hispanic guys, all wearing identical green landscapers' outfits, with bandanas around their heads in the 96-degree heat. They stopped working for a second to politely let me walk by, and as I got to my stairs, they started again, like indistinguishable ants frantically building a hill. If I leave my garbage outside the door, another truck of workers comes around at an hour where no one will see them, and magically whisks the garbage away.

Have I sold out? Did I go Stepford? Is this what it means to move up in the world?

Do I care?

Oh Joanna! My new dress! How could you do a thing like that? Just when I was going to give you coffee! How could you do a thing like that? I thought we were friends! Just when I was going to... how could you do a thing like that... just when I was going to give you coffee! Oh Joanna... I thought we were friends... I thought we were friends... friends... coffee... how could you do a thing like that? Like that? Like that? Like that? Friends... friends...

American idyll.

I watched the sun fall tonight behind a row of terracotta-colored houses. From a chair on the screened-in balcony, I sat and listened to the frogs and the birds and other little things that go chirp in the night. I watched the trees' reflections on the lake as a duck made a slow V towards his little duck family waiting on the opposite bank.

There are 230 homes in my development, and I can't hear a single neighbor.

Not a one.

Not a sneeze, not a cough, not a game show, not a noisy muffler, not a "hey, get me another beer", not a "fuck you, asshole, I'm not your goddamned maid", not a bachata, not a merengue, not a salsa, not a Lil' Wayne, not a Young Jeezy, not a Nirvana cover by the drunk white guy in the back on his gee-tar. Not a fart, not a flush, not a sinkful of dirty dishes, not a screaming child, not a peacock on the loose, not two stray cats fucking, not an argument over cards, not a headboard banging against the wall from the cow next door.

Nothing. Nada. Niente.

I'm the happiest girl in the world.

:)

The Emily-Inspired Haircut

It's the height of summer, and super-sticky outside. I fell in love with my friend Amy's daughter Emily's hair, which is cut up to the nape of her neck and angles down against her jawline. (No, Jackie, I am not turning into that crazy woman that spends hours every morning braiding and curling and taking pictures of her daughters' hair, and I couldn't find that website again if you had a gun to my head).

I didn't cut it as short as Emily's because a)I have no idea what I'm doing and b) I would have kept evening out both sides until her hair fell at eyebrow level.

She looked in the mirror and exclaimed, "I look beautiful!".

I wonder where she gets THAT from??? :)

A Steamy Day

Recently we met up with my friend Amy from Missouri, who is visiting Fort Lauderdale while her husband attends a conference here. Amy and I were pregnant together, but Malena decided to make a grand entrance three months early, so she and Amy's Adam are actually three months apart.

We went over to my favorite park. It was raining lightly, and we set out on a nature hike. By the time we had looked at bugs and flowers and made a trip to the bathroom, the sun had returned and the park had become sticky and humid. We trekked back to the car with the kids (I won't lie, I selflessly carried everyone) and spread out a blanket under a tree while Malena and Adam filled up water bottles from the ladies' room and watered the grass.

Doesn't Emily have the best hair? I took a million photos of it so I could sneak up on Malena with the kitchen scissors and try to replicate it. Emily and Adam are the best kids ever, and I can't get over how sweet they are with each other. There was no beating over the head, hair pulling, purple nerples, or wedgies of any kind. (By the kids, I mean. There's no accounting for me.)

:)

A Girl of the Times

Somedays, I'm just a guinea pig trying to get a food pellet.

It was about 12:30, and I was frantically searching the Starbucks website to find one near me that was open past midnight. My mind was mentally mapping a route to one about 15 miles away with a drive-thru that I was almost sure was open until 2am. I knew I had some work to do tonight, and an appointment in the morning so early that sleep would be more wasted downtime than anything, and I was in desperate need of caffeine.

That's right, I said "wasted downtime". What part of "single mother" are you not getting?

The real annoyance with the Starbucks website is that all the store locations say "Please call this store directly for store hours". Why?? That just means I'll have to talk to someone. No-o-oo, thank you. That is why the internet was born, and I intend to celebrate that concept to the fullest extent. Why not just write them a letter, include a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and ask them to mail me a brochure? Call the store. Jeez.

Frustrated, I walked into the kitchen for a glass of filtered water, because Oprah says we're not using bottles anymore, and it turns out water comes right out of a faucet in my kitchen, anyways. That's when I spotted the thing with the plug on the counter.

Coffee maker. Riiiight. I opened a cabinet, and spotted a bag of... what do they call it? Ground coffee... and it even had the nice Starbucks logo on the side. Thank goodness, or I may never have put two and two together.

Now I just need to go and wake up my neighbor, so someone's in the house to hand me the coffee when I drive up to my kitchen window.

It's Got a Basket, a Bell That Rings and Things That Make It Look Good

I woke up in a crappy mood today. It wasn't intentional. I'm trying to figure out the cause of my insomnia, so I'm in a "test phase" while I try and determine why I can't sleep and how I can start sleeping again. The crap mood was just a result of getting three hours' sleep.

I realized the best thing for me was to get on the bike and ride, so I headed over to the park for a little while. It was so hot out that the park was practically empty, but I did see a fantastic turtle, a cardinal, a racoon, and a bunch of bright green iguanas that looked like miniature dinosaurs running across the road. For a girl that grew up in New York, I get really happy when I get to witness small moments in nature by myself.

The bike ride did the trick. I rode about 7-8 miles. I would have done more, but I had to work. It was so hot out that I was totally covered in sweat by the time I was done, but my mood had improved by 1000%. I was listening to Pavarotti and cello concertos on my iPod and singing along as I rode the loop under sea grape trees and oaks.

So now I know that biking and singing in italian can improve my mood - I just wish I knew what would knock me out so I could avoid cranky altogether. I think detaching myself from my laptop may be a fabulous first step. :)

How are you? Shut up.

Today I was at Whole Foods. The cashier made eye contact, and said "Hello". I said "Hello”. He said "How are you?". I said "Fine, thank you, how are you", and he said nothing and started ringing up my groceries.

Why do we ask each other how we are?

And why, when someone we don't really know or have any particular connection to asks us how we are, do we say "fine, thank you, how are you"?

Seriously. Do you really care how I am? And seriously, am I ever really going to tell you? What if the answer was "gassy" or "in love with your husband"? What are you going to do with those bits of information?

What you're really saying with "how are you" is "I'm supposed to be interested in your well-being" or "I care about people other than myself". Do you really? Tell you what. I don't care.

Hello.