Jeeeeeeellly?

The other day it rained, and this was the view of the Andes from the balcony of my apartment...

Blog love/New things/Babies redux/metric system redux

Well, well, hello. Hello there land of the blog-readers oh so eager to hear from me again. I know it's been a while...quite a while...and I've got a lot to tell and lots of blogs coming up now that I am - how do you say... - reinspired. so let's get right down to it....

Lots of things have changed, namely my apartment (new downtown one with an awesome view and also a cousin in the adjacent room) and my job (social secretary to an Ambassador) and...my ipod, which is, of course, very important. I don't want to tell you that I now spend my days listening to music, answering the phone, confirming invitations and a myriad of other activities the Ambassador invents for me to do...but yeah it's pretty okay. Although, I have to say for the record, my boss is completely insane but this will all get detailed in time now that the blog has resurfaced.

Babies...

Yes, they are back, fortunately or unfortunately and to stay. They're adorable but sweet jesus, joseph and mary are they a handful. I'll tell you one Tia who will not be taking anyone to the zoo anytime soon. Although thankfully this time around I don't actually see them all that often. More stories on them coming up as well.

Here is a problem I realized recently I still can't get past:

So, I went to the doctor (I won't say which, but for purposes of this experiment it's relatively irrelevant) and the doctor of course asked all the usual questions doctors ask...medical history..?... I think that's it. Anyway, as part of all this questioning he asked me the most basic and simple of questions which led me to a very unfortunate (for both of us) ten minute explanation: "How tall are you?" I looked at him and stuttered a bit 'uh...umm...uh...it's that...uuhh,' and he kind of looked at me like 'Hmmm, that's weird because she doesn't look mildly retarded.'

Then I considered my three options. I can, 1. say 'I don't know' and look like an idiot, 2. say 'Oh, I can't tell you in meters' and look like a weird idiot, or 3. Give a ten minute explanation on how I grew up in the states and I've never actually been measured in meters and I'm so sorry but I think in feet and inches and then look less like an idiot and more like a douche. Guess which I chose. So, after my brief autobiography the doctor pulled out his calculator and figured out what my height would be in meters. You'd think that would have been a good time to memorize that number so that, should someone ever ask me my height again I'd be able to give it. But...not. I've been living here over a year and I still have no idea how to convert feet to meters or kilos to pounds or inches to centimeters. I'm thinking seriously about investing in a ruler, although that might be a little lo-tech for a homegirl.

Oh, bloggie, I'm so glad to be back.

Loves,

- E

my life is a zoo

Today we took the twins (THE twins) to the zoo...

...

...

I'm dead.

...

I am not alive.

Also, I am never ever having children. And now I've printed it.

I'll stick to dog-bears instead.

(This is Pelusa. Love her.)



Thank you. goodnight.

- E

Twins. Death. Love.

So, remember those two year old twins I posted in the last entry? Well, they have been visiting their grandmother for the last week here in Santiago and guess who has spent every free moment helping her aunt take care of them?...that's right, 'Tia Eugenia' who - sidebar - is an awesome pseudo-aunt.

Anyhoo, because of this fact I am generally exhausted and also my conversations have been pretty much reduced to the following token phrases:

'Don't hit your sister.'
'Don't kick the dog!'
'Come on, eat. Please eat.'
'Don't touch that.'
'You want me to sing to you in english?'
'Stop kicking the dog!'
'Please let your Tia rest for two minutes, for the love of god.'

As you can see, quite fullfilling. It's fun to go out with them in public because people assume they're mine and they give me that 'oh, look at that poor thing. she has twins. she looks tired as all hell' look. and then they give me their seat on the subway/bus which is always awesome. SO, long story short, I love babies I just really really don't want to have any of my own anytime soon, especially because even the smallest possibility of having twins makes me want to cry out in pain. Not physical, although I do have the bruises to prove babies are not all the balls of fluff and love they're made out to be. trust me.

this afternoon we will possibly take them to the zoo, which should be quite an adventure. i shall have the pictures to prove it. more on that after it does/does not happen.

In the meantime, let me tell you that I have discovered two things. One, that the problem with my computer speakers was that I needed to fix the balance in the volume control. Duh. Two, that MacCenter guy really really does love me. Yesterday we had this HILARIOUS email exchange which he, by the way, started that ended with him telling me if I ever need anything he could come over to look at my computer. ...Relax father, brother, mother, I have no intentions of having him come over to look at my computer... but I thought it worth sharing because he really does know infinitely more about me than I do about him. Creepy and yet somehow kind of sweet.

What else?....man, every muscle in my body hurts from playing with these babies and let me tell you that I seem to have 2 year old fever now because I spend ALL day singing children's songs in spanish in my head. This little number is their favorite, it's called 'Los Zapatos de Papa' (excuse the lack of accents. i can't even think to look at the volume control i certainly will not bother with figuring out accents on this keyboard):

Los zapatos de papa son grandes y pesados
Al andar sonando van boom boom boom
Los zapatos de mama tienen grandes tacos
al andar sonando van cli cli cli cli cla
Y los niños chicos
con piernas muy gorditas
corren tras papa y mama
tiki tiki tiki tiki ta

Oh, if you had the melody to that song right now you would hate me soooo much because you would never EVER get it out of your head.

And off I go to the land of the two year olds again.

Will go into exile soon...and start behaving like an adult again.

Loves(Baby loves),
- E

Personal Questions

I have a few things to discuss and some pics!

So, I officialy have my computer back and it's almost the same but not quite. One, because it has inifinitely more memory now but also because one of the speakers isnt working. They were both working when I took it in and I'm not sure what the freak at the MacCenter was doing to my speakers, but I am pretty determined to find out by doing an awful lot of yelling and maybe a bit of cursing (possibly in both english and spanish).

Speaking of which, picking up the computer from the Apple hospital was really bizarre. First because one of the first things the guy who was handling the process asked me about a million personal questions including but not limited to:

"How is work?"
"I called you a bunch of times. How come you didn't answer?"
"There's no one at home to pick up the phone when you're not there?"

So now here are some of the things he knows about me:

- I teach english
- What part of town I live in
- That I live alone
- That work is slow this time of year
- My house and cell phone number
- That I went on vacation recently
- What kind of music I listen to

This is what I know about him:

- His name is Luis


I'll be surprised if he doesn't show up at my doorstep in a couple of days with replicas of the both of us dressed exactly the same.

He also made this comment that made me really uncomfortable while I was checking to see if all my pictures were recovered. He said (and I quote) "Oh ALL of the pictures are there. I looked through all of then and made sure they were all there." After that was when he said something about me having gone on vacation.

Yep, that's right. I have no further comment on the topic. I'm looking forward to submitting myself to another round of interrogation when I go bitch about my speaker.

Yay.

Let's backtrack now.

I spent Christmas in a cabin in the south with three cousins, a wife and SEVEN children. Precious, precious things that they are. I'll share some pictures for you to love and admire and if I didn't say it before, Happy New Year!

Here is a view from the bathroom window I took during the crossing from the continent to the island of Chiloe:



My cousin's twin two-year olds and I:



And just for shits and giggles, here are some salmon jumping around in a salmon cage at the salmonry (?) (Salmon are gross):

new years/computer hospital/text messages

So, this is the new year.
And I don't feel any different.

Or do I?

I kind of do.

One of my theoretical new year's resolus was to try and blog everyday. How quickly did that go to shit? Pretty damn quickly. Which leads me to the next topic...

My computer crashed. It's terrible and flirting with the guy at the MacCenter has done nothing to help my case. Basically, the hard drive needs to be replaced and I've been having laptop withdrawl for about a week and a half now and also I'm certainly not looking forward to the money withdrawl I will be experiencing when I go pick up my baby tomorrow. Sadness, I know. Although on the plus side the MacCenter guy is kind of adorable and I will likely recuperate most of my information AND (big plus) my new hard drive is 80G - my old one was only 30. So....yay? Kind of. I pretended to almost cry when I went to drop it off at the service center and, well, we all know I don't cry so this was an effort for me. But, to my dismay, I didn't manage to get much of a discount.

Tomorrow (I hope) I will be back to the world of the connected and I will try and live up to my already destroyed new year's resolu (are you digging my abreviation of the word resolution? or should I give it up immediately...comments/questions?)

On to the good stuff.

I do this really amazing thing that I've never written about before but after last night's adventures I feel that it deserves attention. You know those people who drunk dial/text message all the time? I have this very effective system that keeps me from doing those kinds of things. It takes a hell of a lot of will power but, damn it, it's worthwhile. So, if I have an urge to call or text message or email anyone after the hour of midnight I will write an email or text message to this person saying whatever it is I think is important and then I will say to myself 'Okay, tomorrow when I wake up, if I still feel this is important enough to say I will send it.' In this way I don't lose what I, at the moment, think is a significant thought and said person does not need to receive incoherent messages from me very late at night. Everyone wins.

This means I have some really hilarious messages saved that I never sent.

Examples...

'What you doin'? - abby' - this is a message to someone from abby while she was here...from my phone...keeep in mind this person does not speak english

'you're a disrespectful jerk. bye.' - moment of enlightment

you get the idea.

Anyhoo, last night I lost the battle. I was out with a friend of mine and while she was busy with other things I was trying to look busy by playing with my phone and, damn it, I sent some text messages. I also wrote a text message to myself which I then saved of some thoughts I had while watching my friend to make sure she was okay. Let me share...

'I'm a bad bad influence. Shit. I'm a bad person.' - my thoughts to myself. It took me about 30 minutes to type out the word ' shit'. awesome.


(I'm sure Abby won't mind me sharing a piece of the message I sent to her)

' I got your lip gloss. Wearing it now. Thanks so much. Can't wait to get back to nyc. Hate boys.' - I believe that last part was quite subtle and poetic.

Long story short (·insert colon here I can't figure out where it is )I may have destroyed lives last night. I'm a bad influence. Lip gloss is awesome. Boys are generally hated by me on Saturday nights. My system of embarrassment avoidal has failed miserably. I'm funny/slightly insane.

Missed me, huh?

Loves,

- E

Batteries

I need a new battery for my digital camera. This has caused me much anguish in the last month or so for two reasons:

1. You can't find a CR-V3 (which kevin pointed out sounds like C3PO) anywhere in this city.
2. No one understands how difficult it is to find this damn thing and most of the time my 'I can't find a battery for my camera' comment is followed by 'Why don't you just charge it?' As if if I had the option to recharge I'd be looking for a damn battery. Are you people really that dumb?! Bejebus!

So, the other day I went to this store that FINALLY had this ridiculous CR-V3 battery, which I'm still convinced is just two double A's batteries attached by a very flimsly little piece material. Anyway, the battery costs 18,000 pesos, which is roughly 36 dollars. 36! Dollars! Needless to say this price seemed a little bit, oh, excessive, and I considered storming out immediately yelling things in French and kicking babies. But then I saw they had a relatively reasonable alternative: a rechargable CR-V3. This might be something, I thought. So I had the guy bring one out and test it to make sure it works and all that jazz. And, of course, the thing didnt work. Lights were blinking and it looked like things were happening but really there was nothing except the guy from the store fiddling with some kind of screwdrivers, some little machine with numbers and this idiot battery charger that couldn't have charged Whitney Houston's ass on crack. So, he tried to tell me it doesn't work because it's 'too new.' I, in turn, gave him my very famous 'do i look THAT stupid to you, because fine i would have totally still bought this thing if you had just told me it works but now that you said that i know you're full of shit' look.

He was prompted to order up another charger to test, cocky in his feeling that the next one would either work or he'd pretend it did and sell it to me anyway. I was prompted to pick up the little paper with instructions (in english!) that came with the charger and read it. When the next charger came out — after I had already been at this store watching this guy fiddle for a charger for 25 minutes — it, again, failed to even pretend like it was charging. I then had the following conversation with the sales guy:

Me: "The light is supposed to be red when it's charging."
Sales guy: "No, no, it's charging now."
Me: "No, it has to be red when it's charging. This one is just blinking green like the other one was. That means that it's ready to charge but not that it's charging."
Sales guy: "No."
Me: "How are YOU going to tell ME how the thing works!" [pulling out little paper with instructions] "The paper that came WITH the charger says it has to be red! You can't tell me how it works, it says it right here! That light is not red"
Sales guy's friend: "Haha, you have to learn english"
Me: [cocky smile] "well, I mean that's what the paper says. See here where it says 'red'" [pointing to the word 'red' on the paper] "that says that the light has to be red. Red. Not green. I'm not going to buy some thing that doesn't work. I may as well just throw my money at you."

Suffice it to say I left that store feeling pretty awesome and knowledgeable for...well, basically for speaking english and being able to follow simple directions and sales guy felt pretty damn crunchy.

I hate sales people and love english now. Also, my mom is sending me two (!) CR-V3 batteries that she paid 15 dollars for. So, take that city of Santiago with your overpriced batteries. (Thanks mom!)

Suckers.

- E

p.s. I saw at least three really, really bratty children today that made me geniunely thank the lord for the horrible cramps I get once a month, 'cause you know if I had a kid he/she would be the world's most hyper-active spoiled terrible thing on the planet. And I'd definitely have to consider (i said consider!) accidentally driving away while he/she is peeing at a gas station - one that's very far away from home and from where our path cannot be tracked, naturally.

I lika da sodah

Since I arrived in Chile, there are two things that have continuously made me feel - how should I say this - mentally deficient. (Is that how you spell deficient? see what I mean...)

The first relates to the following excerpt from an email I received from my father (do you love that I'm publishing these things, father?):

'Jei Dóter: Aim sorri zat llu ar sic.'

Now, take a moment to process that, if you can.

...

Anything?


....

No? Well, you would be right about where I was when I received this email if you have no idea what the hell that says. I thought, German?...Hmmm, no that would be weird. But then again...well, it is my father.

But no. Get this - my father was trying to write out this:'Hey Daughter: I'm sorry that you are sick,' except he was trying to write it phonetically as someone who speaks english with a spanish accent.

Clever huh? .....yeah....hmmm...

Anyway, how does this relate to me feeling mentally inferior, you ask? Well, it's because of this: Whenever I use a random english word during a conversation in spanish I have to pronounce it as though I were speaking english with a very thick spanish accent. Otherwise people will just not understand what the hell I just said. Have you ever had a situation where not pronouncing something correctly causes misunderstandings? It's really very very bizarre. But, the thing is that I relax on this matter when I am with people that I know speak some english or will understand. Cut to last weekend when I was with a group of cultured folk some of whom speak english. Imagine us having a conversation about dried, salted meat. Imagine me saying 'Oh! Beef Jerkey!' and then imagine three people repeating the words 'beef jerkey' in a mocking tone trying to imitate the way I say it. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like a douche for saying things PROPERLY? I don't know if my brain can handle much more of this backwards world.

That's the first thing. The second thing deals with my inherent lack of ability to maintain some kind of balance while I walk. Or, you know, the fact that I fall. A lot.

In the US when you fall you know how people do that thing where they look at you and for a split second they're maybe concerned but then once you hit the floor they're already giggling at your dumbass? I find that comforting. Here, people are actually concerned. Mostly the men because they have to be all chivalrous and help you up and all that shit when what you really wanna do is stand up and walk away like it never happened. But they, meanwhile, wanna have a conversation about whether or not you're okay and how, hey that last step is a doozy.

When my cousin got married (the legal civil ceremony not the church one) I was wearing these pants with cuffs and these heels and I always have this issue with the heel getting trapped in the pants and whatnot. I should probably be more cautious, considering, but alas. Anyway, I was walking down these stairs and right as I was about the reach the end of them my heel gets stuck and I trip and fall down like three steps right into this lovely little mud puddle type thing. I knew that it was bad because when I finally looked up like eight people had stopped in their tracks to look at me and they had an oh-my-god-that-girl-is-definitely-dead expression on their faces. I was actually fine but then I had to have a conversation with the guy who sells juice about how my pants were dirty with mud. At least twice I day I do that little trip thing where you kind of go forward like you're about to start jogging but then catch your balance again. At least twice a day some guy on the street catches my arm like he's the hero of the century that keeps me from falling. Then we have that awkward like 'hee hee thanks...I was just um...waaaahhhh!' and then I cry and run away. I think it's the crying that makes it awkward. Also, the fact that I cannot seem to keep my balance for longer than 10 minutes. It's probably because while I walk I am trying to figure out how I should be saying 'Sprite' so that people understand me when I ask for one.

Espriii?

Eh-sprite?

eh-sprithe?

It's a hard-knock life.

- E