My glasses!

Glasses broke. Until I can afford new ones, had to figure out a way to mend them enough so I could at least still wear them at home at night when the eyes are tired of contacts.

In the end, I resorted to melting them back together.

The old poop and talk

Recently Lily has taken to reading while on the toilet. This means that she will often disappear for up to 20 minutes when doing a number 2. Generally about 18 minutes of that is reading time, during which she might call me twice to show me a magazine photo.

Yesterday Lily was on the toilet when her cousin Hannah called from England, having very recently returned from visiting her mother's family in South Korea. Lily was thrilled to be reading, pooping and talking, though most of the conversation consisted of "No Hannah, YOU'RE a stinker bum. No, you're a WASHING machine! Ha ha, ha ha."



After about 10 minutes, the conversation moved on to our front hallway where Lily carried on like a 13-year-old. Incredible.


In other news, Lily still loves Santa in a deferent, worshipful sort of way. She calls him Christmas because the British call him Father Christmas, and she doesn't quite get that you're supposed to say Father and Christmas.

We walked past a bakery yesterday with this jazz-playing Santa and in typical Lily-loves-Santa style, when she spotted him, she stopped abruptly and gasped in a quiet, serious, awe-struck voice, "Christmas."


We stayed 10 minutes watching him play jazz. She hugged him. She gently held his hand. Amazing what a big bit of dancing plastic can summon from the depths of a child.

3-year-old therapy sessions

I've said it for 10 months now: I hope with the next kid, I can just birth a 3-year-old.

Lily's just so fun, inquisitive and thoughtful. Using Stephen Covey's old "talking stick" method really works on her and if I just shut up, it's amazing the deep thoughts that come out.

The best recent example relates to her school life. I try to encourage Lily to talk about "nice kids" and "naughty kids" to get her thinking about what actions she likes people to do to her and which she doesn't, if the "naughty kids" are "bad" or just having a bad day, what she can do to help the "naughty kids", and when to just leave them be. Usually when we're snuggling in bed, or at dinner, I'll ask who made her happy and who made her cross today at school.

Observations she has made on her own include,

"Marcel gets sad when his mummy isn't there. He's scared and then he hits. I don't like it, but he's just not happy."

"Gerard (her best friend) hit me today on the playground. I was playing with Valeria (her friend from music class), so I think he was just jealous. I told him no and he went away."

A commonplace event on the Spanish playground is that kids shout "malo!" or "mala!" at each other, which means "BAD!". I really don't like this one and Lil says it from time to time when someone commits a minor transgression against her. When she was talking about Marcel, I brought this up, asking:

"If Marcel is feeling sad about his mom, so he hits someone, what will he feel when someone calls him "malo"? Will he feel better, or sadder?" I mimed sad body language, slumped shoulders and sad face when I did it, and got even slumpier at the "malo" part.

This seemed to drive the point home and her face went really serious. "No, he'd feel sadder," Lily responded grimly. We left it at that, so I suppose it will stew until the next time it's relevant.

Things to make you smile

Paintings made by Lily while she grooved along to Actium by Aphex Twin:


Apple cider we made the other day:
(3 cups nice apple juice, boil for 5-10 mins. with the following things set in it either in a strainer or a cheesecloth:
- slices of one orange's peel
- slices of 1/2 a lemon's peel
- 6 whole cloves
- 2 cinnamon sticks)




Amazing rainbow that appeared around 6:30 this evening after 2 days of typical wild change-of-season Barcelona rainstorms (the sky was also filled with fantastic orange light):

Mas Peras - FAT II

Some friends here have a 700-year-old house in the country. I visited for a party in the summer and knew that Oli and Lily had to go there.

Luckily, last year they started an annual Festa de l'arribada del tardor (Arrival of Fall Party), which is a weekend-long party inculding a film fest called FAT, and required guests to bring an under-5-min home made video, so they got their chance to visit this past weekend.

Here is a taste of what the Baix Empordà region of Catalunya is like:


And HERE are even more photos.

Malibu gecko

We found a lizard in our house and since our contract says we can't have housemates, we made him his own Lego house.

Efforts

As I still live life on the academic calendar, now is New Year's resolution time for me.

As I look back on years gone by, my regrets always center on not having realized how fleeting the lifestyles I have passed through would be. That is, my life tends to completely change every few years - city, house, work, friends I see regularly, day-to-day tasks, restaurants I frequent, etc. I would always think I had time to "perfect" how I operated within those lifestyle - being a better friend/sister/daughter/worker - and that I'd have plenty of time "later" to take full advantage of the place I lived. And then something would happen or I'd make a decision that eliminated all the usual day-to-day stuff and replace it with new stuff....before I ever got a chance to perfect my rhythm and really enjoy myself!

I'm often too busy trying to organize my life into manageable chunks that I don't live it.

My blog posts illustrate this perfectly: Instead of regular quick posts about a single recent noteworthy thing, you get infrequent tomes of evaluation. Perhaps this can be the last of those....at least for a while.

A new effort has been put in to play to enjoy Barcelona and the friend group that has been forming over the last year. One day we may not live here, all these friends will likely move away at some time, and Lily will certainly not be this age forever, but it doesn't mean I shouldn't invest in now.

Recent efforts include:
- Go to lunch/have coffee with co-workers (most of whom are my regular friends anyway) regularly
- Play with neighbors in our building's garden a couple times a week
- Do fun girly things with female friends like "clothing exchange" dinner occurring next week
- Make commitments that require us to be creative like friend's parties to which attendees must bring a short film they have made
- Trying out new marketing angles at work that require me to get to know people who work for magazines and social event planning organizations around BCN

Clearly, I'm still organizing....but things seem more fun this time, and life seems to be getting richer faster. Instead of thinking of what I want to do and then trying to make it happen, I'm just trying out what's right in front of me.

Times

Am fond of these pics recently added to facebook by friend Jarad.












Those Gaspar Project days were fun ...even though I was generally sick to my stomach with anxiety pre-show Wednesdays. One evening sticks out for some reason. It must have been fall and was already completely dark at like 6pm. I was nauseous with the usual nervousness and walking over the knolly grassy area leading from the six pack, past the McDonald's (What was that McDonald's building called again? Something with "Orange" in it, right?), on my way to practice in Lincoln Hall, before heading over to the Channing-Murray for warm up and the show. I was thinking, "Why?! Why do you do this? Why are you in improv if it makes you so crazy? Aren't people who do this supposed to be psyched and fun with it?" I was trying to calm myself and get excited at the same time. Then I suddenly just thought, "Man. You are so lucky. This is awesome. Go have fun, you big douche." And I started whistling, totally happy walking through the crispy cold autumn air. I think one of the guys "smoked" from his "vagina" in the show that night. Or maybe it was the night of "Sugar Cookies". Or maybe the night in which during practice, I forgot I wasn't really on a trampoline, just jumping on a classroom floor, and I did a somersault flip onto my back. All that class just runs together in my mind.

In any case, I'm glad to still be friends with those/you guys. Only wish I'd spent less time stressed and more time having fun! Although, really, there was quite a lot of fun. Remember that terrible gig at the posh dorm?

Things here are good. Lily's in her third week of big-kid school and is liking it. She's coming out with full sentences and explanations in Catalan and Spanish with us now, not just her teachers. I always wondered what it would be like if our kid did really end up speaking another language. It's as enjoyable and weird as we thought it'd be.

And that's about all I can must. Man, I am tired. I actually can't type any more. Woop.

~

Lily wrote a story

Lola and Lisa are playing princesses and kings and queens and doctors in Lola’s room. Charlie comes into the room. Lola and Lisa scratch and pinch and bite him. Charlie jumps.

They all go downstairs and eat breakfast. It’s pasta and salad and carrots. Lisa’s favorite food is water. Luckily, there’s water for breakfast, too. During breakfast, the kids get down out of their seats and run around. The daddy runs after them and puts them back in their seats. But the kids run away again.

The daddy catches them again and says, “No, bad, I’ll throw you in the bin!”

The kids respond, “No, we’ll throw you into the sea!” and they throw the daddy in the sea.

The daddy yells, “No, no, no! Water, water, water! I’ll throw you into the sea!” And he does.

The end.

Fall flight sale Chicago - Europe

Yo, Punks.

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/offerus207/public/en_us

Check out above link to British Airways flight sale on flights from Chicago to Europe. Maybe do a little searchy search on flights to BCN - El Prat?

If you're going to get a sale, may a well be with a non-US air carrier (personal TV, decent food, reasonably nice staff who don't bite your face off every time you ask them something because they're preoccupied with how they're going to get laid off preeeettty pretty soon.)

Do it. Go on. Do it.

~