Drip, drip and more drip

To say that I am fed up with the rain is an understatement. What's up with this weather??? I mean come on! I haven't seen the sun in like months now! There is apparently a shy appearance every now and then, but of course it happens when I'm in the office and ergo do not see it. It teases, a ray here and there, and then vlam! a thunderstorm, a freak rain shower that turns every street crossing into a battle with the rapids. Yesterday I had to fold-up my pants and take off my shoes to cross an avenue so that I wouldn't go into involuntary surfing. Not pretty I'm telling you.
Needless to say that I have not done any gardening and have only gone once to the pool. This morning I went into the garden before going to work to check things out and can almost guarantee that the tomato plants have become possessed: There is a mangle of branches that have no beginning or end sprawling all over the place. No tomatoes of course...
The strawberries? never mind those, it's a horror story. Yet the grapes have decided that they do not like their new habitat and have maintained their comatose state. The weeds on the other hand are happy campers and I'm sure are stinking their tongue out to every plant that we've planted claiming their kingdom back.
This weekend is supposed to be OK and so I find myself in a quandary: Soccer or garden? for many of you it would seem like a no-brainer but I'm hooked on this World Cup. And so the dilemma becomes to either watch the matches or save whatever self-esteem the poor plants still have. Oh if I could have both. Maybe I'll run from one to the other and do the best I can. The World Cup is once every four years, the weeds? If I were ever so lucky...

Reminiscence

Do you remember when you were a kid and as the summer neared its end you felt the knot at the pit of your stomach slightly tightening? You knew that the care-free days were almost over and that soon you would have to sit in a classroom day in and day out, and do homework!
Well, as adults most of us don't have the luxury of a couple months off before starting to get that uncomfortable feeling, now it's limited to a weekend.
That's basically how I feel on Sundays during the summer. It's like I want to squeeze as much "me" time in a few hours. The fact that I feel cheated out of my weekend due to the weather might explain my sudden flash-back into childhood. I watch the clock as the day progresses and do an automatic count-down. "Yeah, I still have 6 hours." How sad.
Could it be that my week is not satisfying? maybe it's just that summer reminds me of the simple pleasure of just waking up. During the winter you have to find things to keep you busy and uplifted, whilst during the summer the mere fact of walking around your neighborhood might be enough.
I feel like I'm being robbed of that luxury. The weather is lousy and forcing me to stay indoors when I should be in the garden or the pool, or just out!
The elements, my biggest enemies...

The power of words

Most of us have stumbled at one point or another upon one of those books that we wish did not end. That is exactly what I felt while reading "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd. Although I cannot say that it is a literary marvel, it did make me smile, laugh and even sometimes cry. It is a coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s South Carolina and it is mainly written for a female audience.
The endearing relationships between the young narrator and the older women trying to empower her are written in a simple yet quite realistic way. You find yourself immersed in their world and wishing that the author did not stop, well, where it ends.
As I said, I would not recommend this book as a must in a "classic" kind of way, but it is an easy read that brings you the flavors and smells of the south, making it a very appropriate companion for the summer.
On the other hand I am now reading "Les Hirondelles de Kaboul" or "The Swallows of Kabul" by Yasmina Khadra, an Algerian writer, and I must say that I am in awe of the language. It takes place in Afghanistan during the time of the Taliban and intertwines various characters' lives.
I have not finished it yet, but I am fascinated by the fact that although the plot itself is hard to swallow (no pun intended) the way it is written has me enthralled. I almost read it aloud to feel the power of the words, the way they combine to form beautiful and yet extremely strong sentences.
I would be incapable of highlighting only one, I have read over half of the book and find the whole thing pure pleasure.
So far it is definitely not an uplifting novel, but if you ever come across it, do pick it up. I cannot vouch for the English translation, but if it's anything like the French one, it will leave you with a feeling of reading a masterpiece.

Little bits of nothing

I'm watching for the umpteenth time the Star Wars episode "The Revenge of the Sith". Yes, I'm a Star Wars fan, I belong to the generation that grew up with R2 D2, Luke Skywalker and (oh boy) Han Solo.
The more I watch it, the more I find myself analyzing those characters that were probably meant to be one-dimensional, specially if you just rely on the acting.
Let's take Darth Vader for instance, or Anakin Skywalker as he was known before he joined "the dark side". In the movie they mainly show him as a soon-to-be malevolent character that had the genetic make-up for being evil. Yet, as I watched the movie over and over again, I started thinking that he was forced into becoming the bad guy. I mean, he had all this power but yet was never trusted by the good guys. So it goes back to the nature vs nurture dilemma: if he had been shown trust, would he have turned his back on those that were meant to be good? He was let down by the people that he loved and respected. Granted he seemed to be weak, and I'm not talking about how bad he acted, although he did, but if a weak personality is not influenced and nurtured by the "right" people, what can be expected?
I know that for those that do not know the characters and/or the movie I'm making no sense, but really, as cheesy as this saga seems to be, I find that when analyzing it, it carries a lot more insight into the human psyche. And seriously, it can be eerie.

back...ahhhhh

Friday night: a nice glass of rosé and my husband's teasing. Saturday: Checking e-mails, making phone calls, emptying suitcase and going out for a beer. Sunday: yoga, swimming-pool, watching football, going out for a beer and watching basketball's finals. All this with the lingering smells of bouillabaisse as a backdrop which was a "welcome home" gift from Nadir.
A weekend that not only reminds you that being away for a week is too long, but makes you feel oh so grateful to be back.
I've spent a week away for work reasons and as much as I appreciated the having the bed made and all the cares that come from staying at a hotel for the first 2 days, I was more than ready to come to my own "turf" quite soon.
Home is home, and I love to be in it. Please remind me next time I complain about dishes not being done...

Unfortunate things

I've discovered another use for the dishwasher: dish-rack. The damn thing broke down and I've come to realize how much I rely on it. So now we wash the dishes by hand (yeah) and put them in the dishwasher to dry. Soon, very soon, we either get it repaired or get a new one, because it is one thing to stick your hand down the toilet to clean it since no one else will do it for you, another is to have the possibility of having a machine do the job and the damn thing not working—I'm sure you see the logic here.
And I've said damn twice... I hate doing dishes.
Besides the dish-washing adventures, coming back to reality has been an arduous task. We've been back for a week now and I'm still in Spain with mom and grandma. It was hard enough to go back to commuting, because let's face it, taking the subway is definitely not a joy ride, but this past Friday I had to walk across the bridge, again.
It seems that due to the torrential rain we had on Friday the tracks got inundated and so they shut down all subway service between Manhattan and Queens. Lovely. As I was almost paddling through the puddles insulting myself for wearing summery sandals, I realized that in 5 years I've had to walk from Manhattan to Queens 4 times: 9/11, the blackout, the strike and now the damn rain (there goes "damn" again). I've decided that even if I look like an 80s Wall Street secretary I'm going to start bringing sneakers to work, at least in a bag. No more blisters in case of a walkathon.
It could have been worse though, I could have been wearing plastic flip-flops that make you an instant ice-skater, like I saw a few passer-byes become.
I kept my cool as my pants were sticking to my legs (did I mention that it was raining, a lot?) and surrendered to my fate, knowing that at least this time hubby was going to pick me up at the end of the bridge (there was no way he could have driven into Manhattan.)
The weekend was a wash-out. The only positive outcome of such weather-related catastrophes is that the closets are now organized and the house immaculate.
So much for a weekend where the only task should be deciding at what time to hit the pool...

Skee Ball?

I was reading Medusa's blog and realized that many of us have our 80's guilty pleasures. I am relishing one of them right now: I am listening to Abba. My husband has sought shelter in the extra bedroom and closed the door. Granted he didn't say a thing, but the self-imprisonment talks louder than words. Meanwhile "voulez-vous" is blasting in the living-room while I make a tortilla so as to use the last of the potatoes and onions before we go away, all the while twirling around... Do I really like that group? I don't even know but it brings back memories of being young and full of energy, therefore it feels good.
Yeah the 80's!

The right stuff

I got up at 6:00 AM to finish up a paper. Yup, I like what I'm doing. Now I'm dead at 9:00 PM. It's a price to pay.

Oh my

The worst thing about getting ready to see your mother and grandmother after too many years is looking at yourself in the mirror. You realize 1) that you've aged and therefore 2) gravity has started to play tricks on your body, 3) that you haven't been careful and have some really awkward patchwork of a suntan because you've been in the garden —wearing t-shirts, tang tops and gardening gloves— and therefore dread the moment you have to get into a bathing suit. I am tanned, but in a scoop kind of shape from the neck up, the arms but just between the edge of the sleeve and the gloves, and I had the great idea of folding up my pants so my legs could get a little color... up to the knees. Not a pretty sight when you see the whole I'm telling you. If I go to the beach I'm going to look like some tan and white quilt... my grandmother will surely deny knowing me.
And then there's the eyebrows that in a fit of terror while writing a paper I plucked... never ever touch your eyebrows when you're stressed. I have bold patches above my left eye that will surely not grow before I meet those that think I'm perfect.
Instead of meeting the young perky thing they know, they'll see a middle aged woman with a bold spot on one of her eyebrows who looks half tanned, half dead. Hopefully they'll only see the happy person I've become. Maybe I'll hide their glasses so they can't see me up-close.

But who's counting

T minus 8 days until the end of the semester. One 10-page paper down, one more to go. In 12 days not only will I be done with the semester, papers, classes, readings, but I will most likely be enjoying good weather and looking forward to some savory foods for lunch and dinner while planning future meals. All this accompanied by two great ladies and hubby, sitting under a parasol in the southern Spanish town of Calabardina... Yeay! I shouldn't think of it right now because somehow the thought of grilled seafood accompanied by anything that tastes like something does not mix well with a book analysis...
It's going to be interesting to say the least to see my husband surrounded by three generations of women in my family. One thing for sure, being the only man and the tallest (yes, we're all midgets) will most definitely guarantee him privileged treatment. The way I see it he will be getting a glimpse of the future. My grandmother, my mother and I look exactly the same, with a few wrinkles here and there to distinguish us from one another. Characters on the other hand have been subdued as generations pass. In other words, my grandma is the judge, my mother the lawyer and I the diplomat. My grandmother has the strength, if not physically definitely mentally, of a bull. My mother has the strength of endurance, the woman doesn't stop, the amount of energy she has is incredible. Me? well, I'm still trying to figure that one out.
But I can already see it. If Nadir (hubby) happens to do his stuff, like, oh I don't know, clear the table after dinner, either my mother will get up in a dash to do it before him, or my grandma will tell me to do it so that he doesn't have to because "that's not how you keep a man" or "that's not right" ;o) It's all good. I'm looking forward to these interactions, and being the diplomat that I am I will smile and wink at Nadir, so as to say "maybe now and here... but wait until we get home". As long as I'm fed, I'll clear the table.

Hooky

Today I played hooky from work. It seems that I don't take enough days off or take the wrong ones, and so if I don't use them they will be gone next year. I don't get the actual difference between personal, floating and vacation days. Although they've tried to make it simpler by narrowing it down to personal, vacation and sick, I still get confused. I've apparently taken vacation days when I should have taken personal and to top it off I never "call in sick" unless I'm in my death-bed. For me, you get a bunch of days and should fend for yourself. But no, and so if you call the day before saying you won't be in it counts as sick (which makes sense), if you organize it ahead of time you can choose between personal and vacation, now where's the logic in that? If you are a woman and are pregnant, do you take personal, sick or vacation days? you're not really sick unless you're throwing your guts up, it's not really a vacation (I have friends that can more than confirm that), but is it personal? Anyway, I decided that instead of having my "sick" days go to waste, I would call saying that I wasn't coming in. And so I woke up at my regular hour and called the office. Needless to say that I feel guilty taking a sick day when in fact I'm not sick. I prefer, for my own peace of mind, to think of it as a "mental health" day...

It was a beautiful day (I apologize in advance to those that were being responsible and worked), but a bit chilly so I didn't go to the garden. Instead I took my time shopping for food for the whole week - yes, it's become a culinary entry yet again-. Nothing like going to the supermarket when everyone else is working. You share the aisles with the elder, which in this case suit me just fine. No hurry, no racing to the cash register, taking my time to look at labels and savoring what each meal will be like. In my years of buying food I've discovered one little pleasure that comes almost guilt-free: Turkey bacon. You see, I grew up with a grandfather that had a heart condition and so salt was sparse and food health-conscious. Now I have a husband with a family-history of heart problems. When you are Mediterranean this dietetic situation can get a bit tricky, but some bright soul invented olive oil, so all is good. Back to my turkey bacon. The purists might be cringing but I can vouch for it. It tastes like bacon, since it's smoked, but doesn't have as nearly all the fat as real bacon has. Somehow I try to make things tasty without much of the fat that comes with all the greatest meals. No sour cream (I'm still crying over that one), no using butter for cooking, and I still call myself French... Tonight I decided to use some healthy bacon galore. I'm simmering onions with fig preserves so that they can caramelize. They in turn will be topping the serving of calf's liver with bits of turkey bacon. All this accompanied by a cucumber and yogurt salad that has been condiment-ed with papalo (got you there, ask me about it) and my ever-faithful mesclun salad that has... bits of turkey bacon! I thought about adding some feta cheese to it, but that might overkill it. Tasty but healthy, somewhat. Tomorrow I'm back at work, lingering smells of cooking in my mind, of summer days to come, but specially of some great meals to have when I'm in Spain shortly!

Delicious

Mesclun salad with a simple vinaigrette topped with pan seared salmon that has been marinating in green lemon juice, fish sauce and lemon soy sauce. A salad of crab meat with cilantro, grapefruit,a tiny (really tiny) drop of white truffle oil and jalapenos to start with. The smells of a mild evening coming through the wide open windows to finish it off. Now that's what I call a summer meal after a day of gardening.
Tomatoes were planted. Space for the basil and the coriander was made. The parsley, thyme, lemon thyme, sage and oregano are in place. I, my dear friends, are happy. Good weather is here! I have revived.
I am not made for winter and so my blogs shall become sparse. Why? look me up in the garden ;o)

Oh

Almost forgot about my promise in Nonsense. I did get a (very) good grade ;)

Finally!

It's spring! yes yes yes! The trees are blooming, the first flowers are showing their colors, the birds are chirping. Even the dogs look happy while peeing on the sidewalks and no longer have that "hurry hurry before my paws freeze and I get stuck here!" kind of expression. Misery is no more, happiness is in the air. Pants are being tossed in the back of the closet and skirts get shorter as temperatures rise (not me mind you); flip-flops do their flippy-flapping in a wishful way although it's still a bit nippy out there. The moment it gets above 50F (10C for you mathematically challenged) New Yorkers don their summer attires so as to dare Old Man Winter to show his face again. I often see them shivering stubbornly in the evening, with a sweater around their waist and refusing to admit that they might be very close to hypothermia. I sometimes feel like reminding some of those dare devils that we have had snowstorms in April, but hey, to each it's own.
I, very wisely, have learned the lesson and carry my faithful pashmina around. Don't want to look like an old lady wearing the "just in case it gets cold" buttoned up sweater, discreetly admitting that they have the right idea about the "evening chill". And so during these spring evenings generation gaps become painfully obvious...
Anyway, spring is here and so I open the windows, start considering the million variations of salads I will be making, buy flowers that never fully satisfy me and patiently contemplate the soon-to-be-here dips in the pool.
Somehow it's harder going to work during springtime than during summer. I guess that since spring is the first hint we get of any outside activity where layering is not involved we feel like being outside all the time. By summer we get used to it and even look forward to air conditioning... right now the simple thought of AC makes us roll our eyes and say "pleeeease". Any second we are out there we inhale as if to take it all in, sort of like letting our lungs fill in with the new and get rid of the stale air winter has.
And so spring is here. I am going to playfully skip on to the kitchen and make a wonderful herb and mushrooms omelet accompanied by, what else? a nice mesclun salad, the whole finished by a nice lemon sorbet, my pashmina nearby just in case I get a bit of a chill...

%#@$

AP: "MEXICALI, Mexico - Despite its name, the All-American Canal has been leaking water to the Mexican side of the desert border for more than 60 years, nourishing alfalfa, onion and cotton crops that might otherwise wither. Now the U.S. government is preparing to line the earthen channel with concrete.Mexican farmers' loss will be California's gain: Scarce water that will no longer be able to seep away instead will help flush toilets and water lawns more than 100 miles west in San Diego."
It's a sad day when lawns and toilets become more important than people's livelihood... I'm outraged.

Nonsense

Lately I've become more of an observer than an active participant, I read more than I write. Not because I have nothing to say, but I am going through a "must know as much as possible" period that is taking pretty much all of my time. Granted, it probably has a lot to do with the tons of reading I have to do for class (not complaining here) but it might just be that I'm getting tired of my own monologue. There are so many images, theories, names, sentences that are crowding my mind that I would make no sense to anyone but me. There is something to be said about interactions, reactions, feed backs and whatnot's.
For example, I gave a paper this past Tuesday to the professor and it's killing me to have to wait until next Tuesday to know what she thought about it. Instant gratification, or mortification, is my drive. This might be a sign of insecurity, the wanting to be patted on the shoulder. Just thinking about that frustrates the hell out of me. When will I grow out of the teen-age stage of needing other people's input?
Spring is coming, I should start making sense in no time. I'll let you know about the paper...only if I get a good grade...

Remembrance

Writing is work. And I mean work in the sense that you have to make a conscious effort to sit down and actually hit the keyboard. Often I find myself composing entries in my head after I have seen, heard or felt something that I deemed worth keeping into the archives of the written world. But then those moments become a task, and more often than not I either forget about them or just do not put them down. I am sure that I've missed remembering infinite memorable things from pure laziness.
I have composed rhymes about the sounds branches make when the ice weights upon them, stories about pigeons building their nest at the subway station, thoughts about the peddler I see every evening when I go home. But they are lost in my mind, mixed within all the images and sounds that I experience every day.
A long time ago I started writing a story called "Nameless Faces". A story that described all those people we see day-in and day-out and never talk to. Those that we eventually nod to and might even throw a smile to for good show, but never get as close to as to ask them how they are doing.
I remembered it this morning because the one person that at first made me think of writing about the "known strangers" is no longer there. He was a man that I saw every morning as I was walking, briskly and determined as every New Yorker does, between the 7 and the 6 train at Grand Central Station.
He was in a wheelchair and had no legs. His face was aghast and he had no front teeth, but always greeted everyone with a smile and carried with him a map of the subway in case someone had the time to stop and ask him for directions.
I ended up saying good morning to him after I marched by for over 3 years every day, but I never stopped to talk to him. With an ever rampant imagination I had multiple lives for him, reasons for his disability and who his family was, but never once did I confirm my theories.
It's been almost a year now that he hasn't been there. The last times I saw him he was looking even thinner that he ever did. I do exercise my imagination sometimes to an extreme, but this time I won't.
I am often too tired to write down what I feel, see or hear, that which has any impact on my psyche. But tonight I put aside my laziness and write about this man in the wheelchair who had become a constant in my morning commute, so that at least he can be remembered and will continue to be present for the duration of these words.

Nada

I'm beyond tired and don't want to write, yet I feel the need to write that I don't feel like writing... how convoluted is that?

Cold sense of humor

I have come to the conclusion that the elements have a personal vendetta against me. The weather, I have found, has a sick sense of humor. You wake up in the morning, it's a beautiful sunny day and because you are in the sanctuary of a temperature-controlled ambiance your brain immediately thinks T-shirt. OK maybe sweater because half of your brain is awake and remembers that it is still February after all, but never would you think of layering your whole wardrobe ! It's been 20 years and I still fall for it. I took the precaution of wearing a coat on top of the T-shirt I wear to the gym... it's a big coat, I froze my buns off. Still, I refused to go back and get a sweater... to the gym for crying out loud! It's difficult enough to get myself to go, but if on top of it all I have to dress as if I was actually going out forget it, it wouldn't happen.
So I came back to the house after the gym and stuck my tongue out to the sky as I mumbled "I'm not going out today anymore, so there". And the day continued to be bright and sunny, but I had been hit, literally, by the reality of freezing temperatures.
I am so ready for Spring it's not even funny, at least a sunny day will mean warm weather and not this tease we've been getting.
Oh well, back to making myself a hot chocolate, crawl under the covers and reminisce of days to come.

Little Creepers

Today I woke up in a horrible, no, more like murderous, OK maybe not as much but most definitely horrendous mood. There really was no reason for it, I went to bed early, slept quite well and woke up somewhat refreshed. Yet every little single thing was annoying the crap out of me. The fact that I didn't see the logic behind it made it even worse, until I hit the shower and realized that I have been overtaken by some invisible entity, or entities in this case. My body is plagued with hormones breaking havoc, partying like it's 1999, as they do on a monthly basis.
It seems like their parties are getting wilder as I get older, making me think that they are taking revenge to my ignoring them for so long. You see, my theory is that those little creepers overtake the body during teenage years, when they make you see, hear, react in such strange ways that no one understands you, much less your parents. Then somehow they are tamed by our intellect for a few years until they decide that they've had enough of their sedentary boring life and go back to their unruliness of years past.
This time, instead of just annoying their landlord with physical proofs of their presence (read pimples) and sending boosts of paranoia, they become all out aggressive. I am sure that they are well organized, maybe even unionized groups that get together for about 20 days to decide what their next maneuver will be, and then, for about 4 days go on a rampage until they get together again plotting and analyzing how successful was the attack.
They might decide to send little troops to the nervous system, making every sound seem like a aggression, every physical sensation a personal vendetta from the elements. Sometimes the objective might be the brain, materializing as thoughts where everything is negative and wrong. In those instances the attacks come as full arguments with yourself, interesting if you are just an observer, but frustrating when you're the one doing the arguing since you'll never let yourself win the argument... ahem.
Parenthesis- As I imagined the scenario, I started thinking at the irony that it is estrogen and progesterone the ones provoking this and not testosterone. It would have been so much simpler if it had been the other way around so that I could say "of course, figures", but no. Most likely the testosterone is staying on the sidelines and enjoying the show... pff.- End of parenthesis.
So although it made me feel slightly better imagining that invisible army being the culprit of me needing an exorcism, I still found it annoying (of course, they won't let me win this battle) that it is completely out of my hands. I like to be in control, and having my body turn on me is the ultimate treason.
But I won't let them have the last word. I will sit down quietly in my corner today and just watch their strategy as objectively as I can without giving them the pleasure of becoming an active participant. But if any of them decides to get into my head... well,then, there will be hell to pay!