Friendship

Reading Medusa's blog brought up some thoughts that I've been having over the question of what a friend is.

As time passes the concept of friendship starts to evolve and metamorphose into a more precise and concise meaning. When you are a child, a friend is someone that you've met 5 minutes ago in the playground and whom you''ll spend a whole of 30 minutes playing with. And even though you might not see him or her again, right at that moment he or she is your bestest friend.
Later on, your best friend is one you can share stories with, complain about your parents, teachers and anyone who represents the adults that cannot understand you. A person that, like you, is going through the hardships and denials of becoming that adult. As a teenager, friends are the most important people in your life: They make you or brake you, which incidentally can happen from one day to the next. In college, on the other hand, a friend is one that shares your interests and your way of life. And so on.

As you take on responsibilities you become more selective. You realize that being a friend implies subtle things. It's not a person that you hang out with, or a person that depends on you. It's a person that you know is there when you need them and you are ready to drop anything you are doing when they need you. It's a person that knows your fears and pleasures, but not necessarily your everyday problems. A friend for me is someone that knows who I am, that can feel when something is not right without me having to draw a map, and vice versa. True friends should and must respect each other, in the true sense of the word.

Throughout life we come across acquaintances,buddies, pals. But real friends are counted on the fingers of one hand, and those, are for life.

Left-overs

When there are limited edible things in your refrigerator and you don't want to go out shopping, your imagination feels free to reign and explore. Often extremely happy accidents occur, if the mind-frame is right, others it's an utter disaster.
Today the stars and the planets seem to be with me. I had a minuscule piece of pork loin left that was pasted in mexican achiote, and so the sauce was to be kept. I had an eggplant looking a little lonely, prosciutto, goat cheese, and decided to make a meal with it all.
The eggplant peeled and sliced was breaded and baked. And as I searched in the pantry I came across pancake mix... oh the imagination...it took over. I mixed the pancake mix with some herbes de provence, garlic powder and the said pork loin sauce so as to make it quite watery. The thought behind being that I didn't quite want thick, breakfast pancakes, but more of a crepe consistency.
The "crepes" are being filed with goat cheese and prosciutto, accompanied by the baked eggplant and sliced tomatoes... I guess letting your imagination take over isn't bad sometimes. Just don't do it when you are having people over, you never know what your luck-of-the-draw might be.

Changes

After a week of nothing special, comes a weekend that looks like nothing special as well. I've started classes and I'm taking them on Saturdays so that they do not interfere with work, it's a choice. Apparently the professor was told only a few days before classes started that he would be teaching it (that's Hunter for you) and so was not available today. Next weekend I'll miss class because I'll be in Spain, and the week after it's veteran's day weekend, meaning I won't being going to school until my birthday, how appropriate.
The course seems interesting enough: Child Development, encompassing psychological, biological and learning theories that, knowing me, will have my mind reeling as to the whys of whats. The professor was kind enough to e-mail us all the readings we will be doing for the semester. I don't know if it serves the purpose of making us save money or to try and convince us to drop the course. There are loads and loads of reading to do. I'm going to be up to my elbows in Freud, Piaget, and the likes. Hopefully my rantings will not become psychobabble and make you all run for cover. I do enough two-cents analysis as it is.
The trip to Spain. My grandma is not doing too well and so I'm going to see her and lend a supporting shoulder to my mom. The strangest thing is to go unto the unknown. It's not like taking a vacation, or going for a specific purpose. It's just going to be there, and I've never done that before. It will most likely be the last time I go to Spain and so it gives it a different kind of feeling.
As children (here we go, and it has just been a class!) we tend to see everything as permanent, as going on forever. Your grandparents' home will always be there, there is no reason for you to think that it might not; the trees will grow and you'll remember how tiny they were, but will always see them, no reason to think that maybe they'll become someone else's trees one day.
We have no problem thinking of ourselves as mobile, ever-changing beings, but those that represent our childhood stability are incapable, to our eyes, of doing it.
It was strange enough that my grandparents moved from the north of the country to the south, the change of scenery was welcomed but awkward at first. We all have memories of that first (for us the grandchildren) apartment we spent our summers in. The fact that when my grandmother goes there will be nothing to attach us to the country is even weirder. I, for one, feel closer to Spain than I do with France, and so it will become like being a stranger in my childhood's land.
Sort of like Mexico. After 12 years of living there I could not go back (and haven't since 1986). Nothing worse than feeling like a tourist in your own home.
It's funny how ready we are to embrace the future but have problems letting go of silly things of the past. It's a balance that should, when done properly, make us whole, but when confronted with it can become a fearful moment to conquer.

Luca

We have a neighbor named Luca. Well he's not really our neighbor, he's our neighbors' son. One month old son to be exact.

Luca is the newest addition to this what I call, the community. You know, the one we live in, the building with the strangest group of people I know. Well Luca, as a good son of his parents, does not represent part of that "strangeness". He is the cutest little shrimp I've met.

I've mentioned to Tosh and Anna (the parents for those who want to know) that I needed my Luca-fix from time to time, and they've obliged. Luca came to visit us tonight (granted in his father's arms, and most likely not from his own volition) and showed us that he is starting to learn how to smile. It was more of a smirk, with his little pout not quite knowing where to go, but it looked to the adults around him like he was making fun of us.

The best part of holding that little body in your arms is imagining what he's thinking of. I'm sure that somewhere in that little head there's a: "what are these awkward, H-U-G-E people talking about?" (and I'm being polite here, because I'm sure that he doesn't know bad words yet... I think...)

He's going to be a smart one, I can already see that, and I wish him to continue using his little pout to poke fun at the world. Even if he doesn't, he'll always hold a dear place in my heart.

September

It's the beginning of September. For many of you it just means that you're back at school, or that summer is over, or even yet that the holidays are coming (which some of you actually look forward to). For me September is the dreaded month for all of the above given reasons, and because it means the imminent approach of my birthday...

Apparently it might be a genetic thing. I share the same anxiety my great-aunt did about turning one year older, although not to the same extreme. The woman used to close the curtains, lie in bed and cry for the whole day, we could not even call her to wish her a happy birthday less we wanted to be perceived as evil people.

And so I've told myself numerous times about the whole "getting older-getting better" thing, but no, I still don't buy it. So OK, it's nature and it's all in your head, blah blah blah, well my head is still young, it's the damn years that won't stay with it! I mean the body looks different — and don't try to fool me, it doesn't look better—. It also feels different: you have the same aches and pains that your mother had (and you made fun of), wrinkles you thought you were impermeable to, the hair changes, the eyesight changes, your memory is not the same... seriously, where is the "better" in that? So you're wiser, well you better be! if you don't learn anything from time, what the hell will you learn from?

Nadir, for the past decade, braces himself when my birthday nears. His sweet, non-confrontational wife (or girlfriend at the time) goes from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. I have no patience, everything is an affront to my well being. Even my dog died in September, Fine,eons ago, but I still remember it because it was... well, in September.

So, like I said, I hate this month. I wake up in a bad mood and go to bed in a bad mood. It's like going through PMS for 30 straight days.
Feel sorry for my poor husband, I'm going to turn 39 and this pressure cooker is about to pop (not really, but I also have a tendency to become over-dramatic).

Luxury

I decided to make rosemary chicken today. No big deal, it's a common dish. The worthiness of me mentioning it is how I got the main condiment.
Once the dish decided, I grabbed a pair of scissors and went to the garden. I proceeded to grab some fresh rosemary (for the said dish) and picked some basil for the accompanying pasta. As I was tendering to the basil, a neighbor came and said that she was also in need of basil for some fresh tomatoes a friend had given her from her garden. When she said that she also had eggplants I offered to pick some oregano, lemon thyme, sage or.. ahem.. rosemary for her. In a gesture of appreciation she, in turn, brought me an eggplant and a beef tomato from the afore mentioned friend.
So I now have a kitchen smelling of fresh herbs, since I stocked up in everything that smells good, a chicken that has been cooking in rosemary, a sliced tomato with basil to start with — which promises to taste divine—, an eggplant waiting to be baked and me feeling like a true agrarian. Doesn't take much to make me happy now does it?