An exchange

Angela: That lightbulb in the ceiling is messed up.
Oli: Oh yeah, that was me.
Angela: Of course it was. What was it? Kicking a ball? Playing Star Wars dad with the broom stick? Swatting flies with the electric tennis racket?
Oli: I stood up abruptly.

Palabrotas

Today, Josie told us in Spanglish about a bad word she never says.

Skating, Minecraft, gardening & scrapped baby faces - Or - Semana Santa cont'd

[Note: This is one of those boring posts whose main purpose is to show our children, in the future, that we did do things with them.]

We're trying to stick to doing the things on our Semana Santa poster.

So far, no one has hurt anyone or been hurt (too seriously) during this staycation (Yes, I used "staycation". Sorry.). We are preeetttty tired of telling Lili to stay at the table at meal times and of hearing her whine about food, which we now do one additional time each day since she's home for lunch, but, but, well, there's nothing we can do about it. She lives here.

We are enjoying getting back out into the city. Been a long winter and have forgotten what's out there.

Skating frenzy

Monday morning we hosted a skating event at our place for all Lili's friends. Our building has the big patio, so we have to aprovechar. There were about a million little girls there. It was fun, though Oliver, who was leading the pack in games on his skateboard, reports that every 5 minutes a child was crying (either because of falling or perceived injustice) and that little girls only play games for about 5 minutes and then someone will invariably get bored or think of a better game and long discussion ensues before a decision is made to change games or continue with the current game. I was busy keeping Josie from jumping off things, so I did not notice.

After lunch and siesta-ing and watching "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", which was on our poster and Lili was desperate to see for the first time, we went out to a very windy Ciutadella Park. We recently gifted Lili our old hand-held digital camera and she's been quite the photographer. Lot's of photos of people on the street, the backs of our heads, the floor and plants. She did stalk the family of ducks shown below for a good 10 minutes before managing a shot, so at least she's showing dedication.

Everyone took off to play and I was left with a stroller holding a skateboard and scooter, looking like a mentalist.

Beach with buds

Tuesday Lili went with some friends and their parents to the Passeig Marítim for some beach, picnic and more beach. When I picked her up at her friend Gerard's house, she was being bathed and then blown dry by his mom, then had a Camomile tea before leaving, wearing Gerard's clothes home. It was very sweet.

Then we went home and cheekily watch "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" during and after dinner. [Why is that movie not called "Honey, I Blew Up the Baby" ??? Sounds much better, no?]

I snapped this shot at lunchtime before I left her on her own with the crew.

That afternoon while Oli was at work I took Josie out for a long play at Joan Miró park, where almost immediately I managed to let her scrape her face from top to bottom.

She was stepping down from a tree stump that was about 3/4 of an inch high, caught her toe on the ground, and plummeted down. Her hands caught her, but slid out from under in the gravely sand, so her face took the rest of the sliding hit. When she got up her face and mouth were covered in sand and she was pretty banged up. She recovered in under a minute and seemed to be more angry that I was trying to take the tiny stones from her mouth than that her face was scraped. She ran away and giggled at me naughtily while she chewed and then swallowed them.

Chill out

Today was chill out day. It was supposed to rain, but didn't. We acted like it did.

Lili played Minecraft on the iPad and we did some other stuff.

And we managed to tick another thing off the Semana Santa poster: Clean up our 'garden' on the balcony. Swept and wiped, cleared away the dozen or so pots of things we killed (or transplanted) last year and planted some marigolds seeds.

Please ignore the fact that we have a dead Christmas tree on our balcony.

  

Radio silence, and then, a fat baby.

Inevitably, I have disappeared from the Internet now that I'm back at work.

A quick post to say, after a few exposures to rice cereal, Josie thinks she likes the stuff. Ate two bowls full yesterday morning. 

In other news, she is fat.

Oh, I am quite full. And fat.

Wooo. Being fat is fun.

Hm. Let's see what happens when I do this.

Ah! Sorry!

(Have you understood that my baby is fat? And I like it?)

In search of a firmer butt.

Alas, I have reached that point when it has become clear that I either:
a) accept my sagging butt, hamstrings and squidgy middle or
b) work out (a little)

I have chosen option b. Mostly because I'm actually pretty thin, but pregnancy has made a few bits of me hangy....and no one, NO ONE, likes the look of a skinny person with saggy bits in a bathing suit.

If I'm to enjoy the beach without being self conscious this year, I must get to it.

Thus, the other day I walked up and down our 11 flights of stairs 5 time. This really only made my calves burn the next day.... But was surprisingly an enjoyable way to start the day. Monotonous task that got the blood pumping.

Am currently working through some butt firming workouts on Fitness Magazine's website. Had to create a free account to view them....but thus far, no spam.

This one seemed to do nothing for my butt but made other things burn.
The Booty-Camp Workout

This one made it burn a little.
The 15-Minute Bootylicious Butt Workout

Still have to try this one.
The Short Shorts Workout

Idea is to pick the best one and do it and the stairs often. With hope, you who live in Barcelona will be able to bounce coins off my bum come June.

We painted

Lili got a bunch of cool new pots of paint from various friends for her birthday. I had bought a bunch of nice fat new paintbrushes for her birthday party craft. And we already had a big roll of paper. Thus, fun sloppy painting.

 

Lili recently learned about Picasso at school and went to the Picasso museum here in Barcelona. She was inspired to paint this cup and two flowers into our mural. I can't figure out which painting of his it is...but she swears she saw it...a cup and two flowers in these colors. ?

The blocks in this one are inspired by a painting I bought in Seattle that hangs in our bedroom. The doodles in between were meant to be Miró-esque (Lili sudied him last year and likes copying his doodles).... but we ended up with a Picasso cup and BIG flowers once we opened up that pink and saw how great it was. 

Baby for sale

In which after some shouting and tears, we cook.

Ugh. I'm getting a bit nervous about how things will be when I go back to work in a month....or 4 short weeks. I'm just capable of showering and getting dressed, feeding us all, getting children to where they need to be and meeting up with friends here and there as it is. Add 20 hours of work per week on top of that and where does that leave us?

Had a minor meltdown when at 8pm I knew I was too tired to cook all the meals I had planned to prepare for the week. Oli tried to keep things cool and prevent me from starting an argument. Josie woke up after just an hour of sleep and while breastfeeding her and ruminating about all the things on my plate, I started crying when I got to 'get a hair cut', because on top of everything else, I'M SUPPOSED TO BE PRETTY?! Eck.

In the end, Oli cooked two dishes and I cooked two and we talked about his struggles with learning Catalan.

Sigh. Some Colbert Report and then bed!

2 cottage pies, chicken and carrot pesto pasta, Morroccan-style chicken, fish pie. Violà.

Skeleton

Lily drew this the other day. Why a skeleton? Don't know.

I liked that he had knees and elbows.

Those things between the two 'Lili's are hearts, by the way.

it's gonna gonna gonna rain from Oliver Seeley on Vimeo.

Calamares

Lily loves calamares. But for some reason, we haven't made them at home for a really long time. Bought some from the market and put Lily to work. Last time we put breading on fish she loved making it, so now if we bread things, she does it all on her own and I just have to throw it in the pan or hot oil. Noice.

Loft bed

I've changed Lily's room...AGAIN.

This time, there's a loft bed involved.

See photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=202282&id=659342526&l=46bab63edf

Good day

POINT NUMBER 1: Caga Tio

Yes, I already posted this Caga Tio video on Facebook. Now I post it on my blog (not everyone is on Facebook!) with extended detail.

Talking to a neighbor the other day, I finally got what I think is the straight dope on Caga Tio. Why a log that we feed, then beat until it shits out presents?!!?!

Well, back in the days of the pagès (pah-zhes), the peasant farmers who populated the valleys of northern Spain and Southern France, etching out a living where no invading Moor bothered go, leaving behind massive stone houses (masias) that have endured 700+ years, man's dependence on and subjection to nature was foremost on the collective mind.

So, at Christmas time, or possibly pagan holiday time, families took to wandering the woods to find a hollow log to love and care for as a way to give back to Nature. On the big night, they may or may not have hit it, but certainly would have filled the hollow log with dry fruits, nuts, bread and other simple foods that "Nature" would then give back to them, possibly by shitting, as a reward for their weeks of care. This was Christmas dinner.

I like this tradition more and more each year, and this year, for the first time, we plan to get our own Caga Tio (today in the Christmas market near the cathedral!) which we will take to England, hide and the woods, and take Lily and other to go find. Yeah!

POINT NUMBER 2: What a great day.

It's confirmed that I have the job with this indie record label, correcting their English lyrics and artists accents when they sing. Sweet.

I spent the morning making pumpkin/carrot cream soup and egg croquetas (so we can stay out late as a family later and have food to warm up for dinner), am off to work to collaborate on developing a resource wiki (fun!), and then to meet Oli and Lily at the Christmas market.

Life is good.

~

Wah-wah

I write about what Lily does a lot, but what about meeee?

Today I worked on some online inscription and payment forms for work, in preparation for a meeting tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will work on an online job board and an html email with tips for our students preparing English certificate exams.
Oh, and will meet with colleague about setting up the term end party which is also a film fest.

Lately, one day a week I work on learning MySQL and PHP for me, you know, for kicks. (Thanks Marty for suggesting that; it has worked out perfectly since a friend is doing a degree and her current course is with experts in database driven websites, so we can study together.)

I think you all now see why I write about Lily.

:)

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.

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):

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.

Chug a choo choo

Must....begin....school and work.....back to grind stone.

Actually quite desperate for routine to return to life! Three months of vacation (with some working) can be quite overrated. Sorry. I know that's an annoying thing to say.

Despite yearning for return of routine....can't....quite....seem...to get back on the....ball.

Lily starts school proper tomorrow and had summer camp all this last week. I am hoping that school will kick us all back into gear. C'mon, School!

I can't really be asked/arsed to write more. Until I can get my act together, here's a link to our non-Slovakia summer photos of activities with the Seeleys and Ruiters in France, Engand and Spain:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=152337&id=659342526&l=bde3476caa

Found a lizard on my bedroom ceiling last night. Don't know how he ended up on an 11th-floor ceiling. But, he's awesome, with little gecko-y feet. Think we'll keep him a few days, then release. I forgot I had bought my brother two little lizards when he was younger and that it was super fun playing with them. Lily had him running all over me this morning. Was cute, 'til he tried to wedge himself between the kitchen cupboard baseboards. Oh, instincts.

Fickle

I'm over my funk. (Man, I mis-type that word every time.)

Today was a lovely last one in BCN, for three or so weeks anyway.

Clearing up my apartment since the Americans left and the French were arriving. Welcomed Franck (a French student who lives in BCN) and his parents who are visiting him, and they were such a cute little family I ended up staying for a long time with them. The parents spoke no English or Spanish, so it was sort of a Spanish-French free-for-all, with lots of gesturing and smiling. The dad Claude was such a dad: "Where can I buy a French newspaper? Where can I buy tobacco?" And the mom Regina was such a mom: "How does the washing machine work? There's a market up the road?!" It was all that much more cute because when Franck had come to see our house a couple months ago, he was specifically pleased that we had a big balcony with a view ("For my father to smoke his cigarettes and look at the sea.") and were near the Hostafrancs market ("My maman hates supermarkets.")

Met up with Rodolfo for a final coffee before our respective vacations. Reading material exchanged.

Then zoomed off for one last clothes shopping session (We've entered segunda rebajas, people! Super low prices on great stuff. Wrah!)

Then to Adam and Leeann and Violet in Barceloneta....where Leeann mended two articles of my clothing on her sewing machine, fed me gorgeous homemade food for the third time in as many weeks, and was pleased to see I was wearing the earrings she had made me (They are perfect for my head! I wear them every day almost now.).

Now at Antoni and Marta's café using their internet and drinking their coffee....then it will be home to shower off my many bike-rides' worth of sweat, two episodes of Entourage, and bed.

Have received a little email from my monkeys and am in the quiet happy pre-viaje mode. Mmmm.

Single days

Greetings.

This week I come to you from l'auberge espagnole.

That’s a cheap reference to the 2002 French film about coming of age in a Barcelona apartment filled with young Europeans (you can watch it on YouTube). It’s actually a pretty shit film, but since young Europeans, unlike young Americans, have few coming-of-age films to latch on to, some people really cling to this one and its sequel Russian Dolls. To be fair, it has its awesome parts, like how the only American is a real dude who has a guitar and when all the main characters are drunk in a plaza one night, he leads them in singing No Woman, No Cry…thus seducing the British girl. I have actually seen this happen…twice….*shudder*.

Anyway, I find myself in just such a flat this month.

Last year when Lily and I were in America and we rented out our home in Barcelona, Oli stayed in a room usually rented by a girl on his football team who would be away during the summer. The only other person living there was a Spanish (I think) guy who owned the place. He was nice, but not really a riot. Oli taught an intensive English course to teens for the duration of July, which included teaching all day and grading papers all night. Add to that that we didn’t have as many friends as we do now, and you can understand why he had a pretty lonely month.

Flash forward to this year and oh my, have things changed. I’m having a ridiculous blast.

As mentioned in a previous post, our friend Daz is away teaching in a summer camp, so I’ve rented his room for July. The apartment is rented by two guys who happen to live abroad at the moment. So, their other flatmate, Kristina, who is Czech, manages the place, keeping all the rooms full with renters. Right now Kristina and her boyfriend Roni (from Bangladesh) have one room, I have Daz’s, and Raúl, a Spanish guy from Cáceres just moved in. There’s one more bedroom, but it is kept free for friends to crash in. Also, the people who are the contract-holding renters but live abroad tend to come by every few weeks and use that room. They’ve both been here this week.

The apartment itself is one of the great 1930/40s ones with high ceilings and tile floors. A bit crumbly, but someone has taken care to paint every doorframe and door a different bright color, and that mostly makes up for any crumblies. My room is a nice sage green, and today Kristina and Roni are painting their room lilac. Kristina will be back to studying full time for her master’s in a few weeks, so they thought it important she have a nice happy place to work in.

I’ve been here two weeks now and man, does time fly. The night I moved in, I arrived at about 9:30pm with a big suitcase. Kristina, who I had only met once for 5 minutes, opened the door, shouted, “Hola, guapa!”, grabbed my suitcase and dragged it to my room. Then she asked me if I had eaten. When I said no, she showed me the massive platter of curry Roni had made (he’s a cook), made me a plate, poured me some juice and sat me in front of the TV with her and Roni, as they had just started watching Bend it Like Beckham, in English with English subtitles on an 8-second delay. I was home.

Kristina talks more than I do. I feel a bit bad for the neighbors who have to listen to two foreign broads talking at a ridiculous pace in ridiculous Spanish about things like if Brüno’s dancing penis in the Brüno film was really Sacha Baron Cohen’s. We think so. Still have to check on the Internets.

Yeah, the one down side to old buildings in the Eixample neighborhood of Barcelona is that you can absolutely hear everything happening in every other apartment that opens onto the interior light wells. I’ve never known what a blessing my 1970s apartment on the 11th floor is. Here, I awaken in the morning to the two children across the way and their cartoons. Sometimes mom yells. Sometimes she sings. There is an obnoxious American who lives over one and down one. Another guy speaks cute foreign English on the other side and up one. There was a party the other night over one and down two, and they were lucky I was drunk when I went to bed, otherwise I’d never have been able to fall asleep with them singing along to George Michael and La Bamba (although, it was the first time I understood the words to La Bamba).

Otherwise, I’m living the sweet life. I wake up late. That’s pretty fun. I go to the beach. Also good. I buy foods I don’t normally, like delicious steak, and take silly amounts of time preparing Mediterranean salads for myself, in addition to buying myself Bifidius yogurt drinks (intestine bacteria drinks) like a proper middle-aged woman. When I’m good and ready, I grab a Bicing bike and ever so leisurely ride to work, being sure to enjoy the view and give pedestrians who stray into my territory quick drive-bys from behind. Shopping for clothes is also a high priority. My wardrobe sucks and this month is sales month in Spain, so that has worked out well. I’ve not bought too much yet, but consistency is the key. I stop into shops regularly to have a peak, and only buy things I love. There’s too many thing in my wardrobe that are just OK, but don’t really grab me. They’re going.

Work-wise, I do 20 hours a week of work for Oxford House on a completely open schedule. I’ve published the new homepage and site design. I’m organizing a language workshop on Common Errors of Spanish Speakers for this coming Saturday. I’ve gotten digital frames up in reception, advertising courses, activities and other things, and have made some more online forms for various staff members who need them. Also am getting a new domain special for our business courses and services and have to get that site up and running.

I’m running “technology sessions” two days a week for two hours for the kids doing our summer courses at the school. As I said before, I have 5 to 15 year olds, so I ultimately asked for an assistant and was awarded one: the owner’s 18-year-old son. Everything has gone well. The little ones love digital camera scavenger hunts and posting photos of their favorite things on our course web site (“Somos famosas!” shouted the girls when they learned that indeed, the site was viewable anywhere in the world, except China) and the big ones like playing on Facebook, building Google sites and making Walls (www.wallwisher.com). Is cool.

Besides that, I cover reception sometimes when they need me, which is good practice since I’ll be doing that 15 hours a week starting in September when one of the receptionists goes on maternity leave.

And beyond that, I’ve been hanging out with Kristina and Roni, going dancing and beaching with Sara (the Italian) and her crew of Colombians, and had Matt visiting (our old flatmate from 2004 – from Oli’s hometown) who currently lives in London but is moving to Hong Kong in a week (!). His visit was three sloppy days filled with drink, pursuing Japanese girls on the dance floor (she got away, but not before falling on her butt in front of everyone else in the club), street-fighting with Moroccans (Matt saved me), visiting Lawson in his bar, and searching for Czech beer at 10 in the morning in the back alleys of the Born (a hostess gift for Kristina). We also had a lot of deep conversation, but it doesn’t make for very good blogging.

Fin.

(PS - The only photo I have of any of this is one of Matt and me taken by the Japanese girl using Matt's phone. It's not flattering. My neck is super stressed and Matt's doing a peace sign...)