New York

This was the view off the deck of our rented apartment

It was a week so jammed  with friends, food, new places, and beautiful weather I wont even attempt a comprehensive post.  A few observations.

• I think they may have sandblasted and renovated every building in Manhattan.  Every neighborhood has been gentrified.  Every park was beautifully groomed and maintained.  We are talking about places you would have gone in a million years like Alphabet City.  Its just beautiful.
• I played hostess to my European friends who were touring NYC with gusto.  I decided to take them up to the top of the Rock.  Highly recommend it over the Empire State Building.  Nicely done, we had no lines, one elevator up and an admirable try at a museum exhibit giving context for the experience.  In hindsight  should of asked if anyone was claustrophobic in elevators or prone to extreme cases of vertigo especially in skyscrapers.  One of the girls couldn’t breathe for the duration of the 60 something floor ride up to the top.  The other girl checked out the spectacular views from the inside core of the building.  Great host I am.
• Had beautiful fall weather, just perfect for walking around town.
• Had a session with a seer.  I am always willing to give a physic the benefit of the doubt.  I want to believe there are people operating at that dimension or frequency.  This lady just wasn’t one of them.  Her insights were things that could be true of anyone and even anything:  You have been hurt in the past, who hasn’t?  You have a son, actually three.  There are going to be changes in your future, An animatron Gyspy at an arcade can tell you that.  Weird enough, while she underwelmed me, she freaked other friends with unexplainable knowledge of  their lives.
• While in danger of appearing to be a full on freaky Yankee Fan, I have to say it was so cool being in NY when the Yankees won.
• I would love to live in NYC sometime (sin hijos)

A sight from the Highline, very cool city park/walk

27.

O y Mo: This is a photo GM took with cell at 1:45 am and Mo had about 2 more pitches to throw before wrapping up the 2009 World Series

The Yankees are still the best franchise that ever played baseball.  By a lot.  Congratulation Yanks.  And thanks.

Thank you for the best season of baseball I have ever experienced.  While this might not have been the most exceptional group of players to have played together, and maybe not even the best collection of games played, it was magical.  It was magical because Owen, who is at the great age of 9, learned to love baseball and the Yankees.  We all can watch a good game and as a family affair, its hard to beat.  But this season, Owen became extremely knowledgeable and fanatical.  He listened or watched almost every game, preformed a thorough postmortem of every game by studying the box score and watching all the recap video at MLB.com the next morning.  If the Yankees didn’t play that day, he would see if the Red Sox lost.  This season its been a blast to be a Yankee fan and all the more special watching Owen discover what it is all about.

I have a sad little story.  After watching or listening to close to probably 100 games, do you know where I was when the Yankees became World Champions after beating the Phillies in the 6th game ?  I was in a Town Car with three sleeping women heading back to NYC after a day in Connecticut.  Some of them were snoring.  The driver had recently immigrated to the States and wasn’t a fan.  So I listened to the last 2 innings in the car, by myself.

It wasn’t the listening to the radio that bummed me out.  I am a big fan of the Yankee broadcasters John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman.  It wasn’t like last innings were super exciting, either.  It was just so anti-climatic to be basically alone when something you have been watching closely unfold for over 6 months, finally reach its ultimate goal.  Alone, I said in a timid voice “Yay!” and had a big smile on my face.  I really wished I had been with GM and the kids.  One consolation was that soon after the last out, our Town Car drove right by Yankee Stadium and I opened the window just in time to hear the din of a happy crowd and the melody New York, New York.

Owen has a shrine in his bookshelves that was recently refurbished with newspaper clippings of the days around the World Series (which I hauled back in my luggage)

He also scored a new hat commemorating the win, and to the right of the Jeter Bobblehead is an official Yankee wrist sweatband

Halloween

Halloween was on a Saturday this year.  I don’t like it on the weekend, the only worse day would be Sunday.  Halloween and school related activities (parades, carnivals, classroom parties) in my memory are forever one of the best days of the year.  Everyone enjoyed it just fine.  This year we had the added fun of torrential rain showers just as we set out to Trick or Treat.  Didn’t stop us from hitting hard the few houses (expats) that were offering treats to those willing to do tricks.

Owen and Henry predictably were New York Yankees, Owen was Jeter.  Callum was a hobo, a word that is enjoying a renaissance as a result of an episode of the Simpsons.

And Georgie was a Peacock.  She was adorable and she knew it.

Almost Abandoned

Not really, just feels like it.  Definately neglect.   Between a week long trip to New York with girlfriends, the critical fail of my laptop and thousands of photos from mutiple birthdays, Halloween, and the Yankees continued domination to edit (without my laptop) I have be ignoring my little blog.  I am back (without my very sick laptop:() and have some catching up to do.

Bed Headed Birthday Boy

Thursday was Cal’s 12th birthday.  Today he is having 4 buddies over for a sleepover.  He is outside making water balloons as we speak.  He is a cutie and will always be a needy, cuddly but wonderfully funny and ironic teddy bear.  I think Cal enjoys his birthday as much as anyone.  Loves being the center of attention in a sweet self-conscious kind of way.  And yes, in the last photo,  those are almost industrial grade fireworks being shot off the cake, inside the house.  It very much de rigueur for birthday cakes in Argentina.

I think Owen's zeal has more to do with the Yanks being on the brink of a World Series than Cal's Birthday, and clearly the dog is not impressed by either.

A Study in Contrast

Yesterday was Mother’s Day in Argentina.  Several years ago I wrote about the Argentine version in this post.  It was also GM’s birthday so while it was Mother’s Day,  I couldn’t expect GM to cook his own birthday dinner and make his own birthday cake.  Although I spent quite a bit of yesterday in the kitchen, I was not forgotten.  Georgie brought GM and I some really bad coffee in the morning, GM cut me flowers from the garden, GM’s mom brought me some goodies from Vermont and I was surprised with a beautiful new lens for my SLR.  Yeah!

I also received my favorite hand made cards for Mother’s Day.  These days George and Owen are the only senders.  Cal and Henry are entirely too cool and self involved to take the time to acknowledge their mom on Mother’s Day.  Or Henry’s case, he just really cant stand me.  So enjoy these sweet tokens of their love while they last, it wont be forever.

First up is Georgie’s Photo/Poem Gift

She made the frame with cardboard and flowers from clay and sprayed the whole thing gold

Found on the back is a sweet declaration of her love for me in Castellano

Owen in the other hand….

Once you unfolded it from its accordion pleats, you find a funny little man wishing me a Happy Mother's Day

Scatch that, the funny little man is apparently me!

I think the odds of anymore Mother’s Day cards from Owen are pretty small:(

Osa’s Photo Shoot

Osa was not happy about the blog entry that featured photos of her son Tevez.  She demanded her own editorial with creative imput.  Here is the result.  It was a late night shoot on her bed/living room couch. Hope you enjoy it.

Cooking with Georgie

This past long weekend we had an asado.  It was a gorgeous spring/summer day and Georgie decided we needed brownies to go with our requisite ice cream.  We combed the internet for a new and interesting twist on brownies and found this recipe that called for peanut butter.  GM returned from his US trip last week with a 1.13 kilo container of Skippy so we are flush with peanut butter.  Our only modification was to throw some chocolate chips on top of the batter and cooking it less than the suggested time (again, we like it gooey).

Georgie likes to crack the eggs. Interesting technique, huh?

Georgie's favorite part

Swearing in Argentina

This is a post about swearing.  Hence there will  be swear words.  If they are offensive to you, it’s probably not a good idea to read on.  You have been warned.

As passionate as Argentines are about food, wine, futbol and family they really come up short when it comes to swearing. After you have lived here for a minute and have had your first encounter with Argentine driving, a good swear word or more would be handy. The reality is that while there are some creative curse expressions that Argentines use, there are not  that many swear words in Castellano that a woman would use to blow off steam.

I do swear.  Its how I express myself when I am frustrated or am adding emphasis to an adjective.  I didn’t grow up swearing.  As kids we weren’t allow to swear at home. Although I heard my father on occasion let one loose.  I became  fluent in swearing from sitting on an uspstairs trading desk for 8 years.  Almost twenty years later, while I was able to kick a 1+ pack a day tobacco addiction, swearing is a habit that I haven’t even tried (or want) to kick.  I find the word fuck indispensable when I need to make my point.  It is a potent word in my arsenal that I try not to use around my kids.

There really is no comparable word to fuck in Castellano.  If you watch an English language movie with Spanish subtitles they pretty much use the word maldición (a curse on you) for every English swear word including the F word.  They of course do have some fun words that you might be familiar with like  puta (whore), mierda (shit) and pendejo(asshole). But none of these expressions are used by women and usually are bantered about in the context of drunk buddies or sport fanatics, not really as a verbal assault. Not that any of that is a bad thing, but give me something to say to the asshole who almost kills me on the road everyday.

What is the typical shout out to a bad driver?   ¿Qué paso viejo(a)?  What happened old man (woman)?  That flaccid remark is cutting here because everyone, especially women, are desperately doing whatever they can do so as not to  get old. Calling someone viejo is as low as you can go with the insults.  How boring and unsatisfying.  So with no real meaningful Spanish equivalent  I have resorted to using an embellished version of fuck (and hopefully silently if I have spawn in the car).  It’s just going to have to do.

Healthy Humpday Snack with Kid Review

My kids were getting sick of oatmeal everything.  I always use whole wheat flour but I cant pretend that this week’s recipe is healthy.  Again,they are not processed and my nurturing energy has been baked into them, but they are chock full of  butter and sugar.

Regarding this week’s recipe.  Recipe is hyperbole.  Although there are numerous recipes on the internet for this bar, that is how I was inspired, it hardly warrants one.  It is a brownie chocolate chip cookie bar.  Its a brownie that has chocolate chip cookie dough cooked on top.  So make your favorite brownie recipe, bake it for about 10 minutes before slopping approximately 1/2 to 2/3 of a chocolate chip cookie recipe (make buttons and freeze the rest) on top of the semi cooked brownies.  Return it to the oven to finish cooking.  Probably between 30-45 minutes of baking at 350 in a 9×13 baking dish.  They are brookies or chip cookie brownies (we like them gooey), easy to make and require a glass of cold milk.

Cal is back:  Excellent but could have been better if the brownie was bigger.  I didnt get a really good taste but think it was  a 4 out of 5.

My sad reality.  I am trying to learn how to use my SLR.  I am taking some on line classes and unfortunately for my family I practice by taking pictures of them doing almost anything,the dogs, flowers, and food.  Food turns out  not to be naturally photogenic and is quite temperamental.  I was trying to photograph the brownies and the natural light was crap.  So the photo is not very sharp and doesn’t really do a good job of capturing its very tempting texture.  The photo is not great.

Henry likes to play with the camera and has a very natural instinctive relationship with it.  He screws around with the buttons, has a decent idea about how to use the creative mode settings but doesn’t seem burdened  by them, like me.  He came up with this concept.  He half closed a shade in his room and turn off all the lights, it was late afternoon so there is was some natural light. He left the camera shutter open for seconds and moved the camera around. They are pretty cool.

Someone is praying for me! and other interesting facts

And thank  God someone is praying for Alan Colmes too.

Republicans are going to spontaneously combust one day soon: well said by Rachel Maddow and John Stewart.

I have never been a fan of Tom Friedman and I find the vehicle chosen for  this column kind of childish.  Obama doesn’t need any help writing speeches, Tom.

And a good gift that keeps on giving.  Another walk off by the Yankees, this time in the 11th.  Mark Teixiera does the honors but not before A-Rod ties it up in the bottom of the 9th to take it into extra innings.

My search for THE lemon bar recipe is over…

I love me some lemon or any citrus based desserts best.  Key Lime Pie is my absolute favorite and its my go to recipe when I want to impress at an asado.  That recipe is for another time, today is the lemon bar recipe which will now be my go to lemon bar recipe.  I have paired Ina Garten’s lemon filling with a simplified and generic shortbread recipe that I made with a few modifications, see below.

• 2 cups whole wheat flour (this makes it nutty and interesting)
• 3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for dusting
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 sticks butter, at room temperature but cool

I pulsed the above in a food processor and slowly added the butter until crumbly.  I patted into a 9×13 pan and baked at 350 for 20 minutes or until the edges started to brown. Pour Ina’s filling onto the warm crust and return to the oven for 20-25 minutes.  Cool completely, dust with powder sugar and cut.

I found some of  the crust recipes so overwrought.  Do not over think the crust.  You shouldn’t have to roll it out and the refrigerating the crust before baking is optional.  I forgot about lining the baking dish with baking paper and it turned out lovely, it’s a bit crumbly but melts in your mouth and is nutty and sweet.  The filling on the other hand, you could just hand me a spoon and I could eat an entire bowl full of this lip smacking tart filling all by itself, YUMMY.

There is no kid’s review on this baked good.  These bars are entirely too good to share with spawn.  Since they freeze beautifully, I have my very own stash.

Beautiful but Cruel

Every night before I go to bed I have to check Owen’s blood sugar, he is a diabetic.  I then visit the other three.  I suppose I do it to check and make sure they are safe in their beds.  But I also like to remember them this way, totally relaxed and soft and peaceful.  It reminds me how much I love them and even though they spend much of their waking hours torturing me with perfectly age appropriate but still incredibly annoying behavior, I still love them more than anything.  It also reminds me that tomorrow I can try to be more patient, be more engaged, be more present when I am with them. My children are beautiful and when they sleep they are even more beautiful.

Now to the cruel part..taking these photos.  Henry would kill me if he saw this.  Georgie actually woke up to avoid the reading lamp I was trying to use for light.  Cal and Owen are use to my visits and lights being turned on, so they were none for the wiser.  Do you think doing this was cruel?

Out like a Lamb

The weather is changing.  It feels like we have hit a threshold now where winter is has been permanently retired and spring  has begun to leave behind the cool mornings and dry air.  I can see it in the garden.  Those early blooms of spring are tired and new hardier blooms are on the way.

Here you can see the jasmine waning while the roses have just erupted in the last few days

Tevez

He is as dumb as a brick.  But he is sweet, attentive, loving and lovable and as you can see, beautiful.  He is also hopelessly devoted to his nutjob of a mom.  What is not to love?

Who is Lonny, by the way?

In the corner of the blogsphere known as Homedesignland there was a party yesterday.  It was a coming out party for a new on-line magazine called Lonny.  Its been a tough year for print media and an especially tough one in the world of “shelter” magazines.  So the launch of Lonny by several Domino alums had been anxiously anticipated by many.  Design blogs were all a twitter, literally, ewing and awing at every vignette and hyperventilating at the fact you could click on a product and immediately go to the e-commerce website for that item and buy it.  I wasn’t so impressed.  Some of my thoughts:

• I still find reading a design magazine on-line difficult.  I either need a bigger screen or they need to use a different size and proportion for their pages.  Its difficult to read the print without zooming and then you cant see what you are reading about.  I think this will always be a issue when you are digitally reading something that depends on a visual like design mags do.  And besides, I want to get into bed with these types of magazines and have the tactile experience of paging through the magazine with my head on my pillow.
• If you loved the late Domino (as they referred to it several times in the copy) you will love this new mag, its almost exactly the same visually.  It is not a problem, I was just expecting maybe a new spin.  But after Domino folded people were despondent over its end and I guess there are a lot of happy campers now.
• I would suggest they stay away from fashion.  It seemed like an afterthought and the clothes and the model were boring/bored.
• The photography was good, but you know I see great photography on home related blogs from self taught people every single day…good photography has become a commodity
• I am not sure how I feel about the click to buy feature.  I think of interior design mags as inspiration and not as a design by numbers tool.  I understanding its helpful to see sourcing info but again, I think it takes the creative process out of creating a home if you are slapping someone else’s template on your home.
• This is the thing the bugs me the most and I see it on blogs and I saw it yesterday in Lonny; styling rooms within a inch of their lives.  I bet if you looked at design mags from 10 years ago you would see more real spaces with furniture and paintings and objects that actually have meaning and belong to the people who inhabit the space.    Examples: Vintage bowling ball bag under nightstand in bedroom, tall pile of books on the floor (not good for bindings FYI), a frosty drink glass on an end table,  colored juice glasses lined up in the dish dryer on the counter waiting to be put away (the stylist couldn’t do that?)

I asked friend, who is a real life designer why this compulsion to set design for these pictorials? her answer:

… To be a stylist now is to offer your services pro bono and have absolutely no other way to fill out your day. Also–if you are a designer, photographer, or ex hooker sleeping with an ex hedgie, or if you have ever shopped don’t you think you could style your shoot?? It’s like hiring a specialist to bring flavored mouth washes to the dentist…

I am aware this is not a Lonny image but it epitomizes what I am saying, is this an art installation or someone's home?

With all that having been said, if I could get my hands on a glossy version of Lonny, I would gladly climb in bed with it.

Its not funny anymore

I think today the line has been crossed.  This isn’t about crazy ignorant people making a bunch of noise about something they don’t understand.  Today a journalist/analyst/douche (granted for a piece of shit media outlet) made the argument that a military coup would alleviate the “Obama” problem.  You can read it here.  This is a screen grab someone captured before NewsMax realized it had a firestorm on its hands and took it off its site.  Its bad enough that someone would think it, bad enough someone would write it and even more unbelievable that a pseudo legit news organization would think they could publish it without most thinking people feeling extremely uncomfortable with it.  I understand these thoughts and ideas are all protected by our freedom of speech (not God given you idiots, the Constitution, Duh) but when someone publishes the idea of undoing our democratic election in the name of democracy..I get concerned and wish for the good old days of the stoopids….

THHHHHEEEEE Yankees WIN!!

Owen and I listen to the game on our crappy internet connection supplemented by phonetogs coming from GM and his friend, Geary who were fortunate to see the Yankees, in their new stadium, make it official, they are AL East Champs.  Here is a tribute to the Yanks for a great season and for Geary who took these bad photos with his phone but made it feel like we were there.  Try to imagine Frank Sinatra singing New York, New York, not the lame audio track YouTube replaced the intended Yankee anthem with.

It’s your birthday George!

Yesterday was George’s birthday.  She is seven years old.  She woke up to a new outfit for school.  Normally she is in an uniform, but on her b day she can wear whatever she wants.  Up to this birthday I always bought her a dress, this year jeans and a groovy t-shirt and shrug.  Kind of sad, she is over dresses and pink and all but her most special dolls.  Getting old, aren’t they all.

She also woke up to her breakfast of choice, chocolate chip pancakes, fresh OJ, bacon and her favorite, hard boil quail eggs.  The kids always beg to open up one of their presents in the morning so I always make it small and school related.  Georgie got 2 technical pencils which she loves in some cool colors and some birthday related stickers.  Not surprisingly, I believe the extra pencil leads are already lost.

Before we left for school, I took this photo of the two of them.  They have a complicated relationship, but I would like to think this is how they really feel about each other.

Georgie when to school with brownies to give out to her classmates.   And when she was away at school, all of the party fairies were making preparations for the party that followed with her friends.  We were lucky given the rainy spring weather we have been having here and had a beautiful sunny afternoon.  Not summer warm, but since the kids were busy doing non stop track and fields events (Georgie wanted a “sporty” theme) the lack of warmth went unnoticed.  It was a success.  No one fell in the pool (except Osa went in voluntarily to retrieve balls), no one was red carded during the futbol match, and the cake that Jenny made was awesome!

One last picture, its from the postmortem breakfast meeting the next day.  Georgie chewed on some old pizza and regaled us with highlights from her big moment, favorite gifts, favorites friends and ideas for next year….

All the kids love being told the story of their birth, Georgie even more so.  I try to make it interesting but in reality all my labors were fast, natural and uncomplicated (well actually Callum was almost born in a car).  She was born in a beautiful birthing center in Derby, Connecticut.  I had a gorgeous room where I gave birth and recovered and stayed for 2 days before I went back home to my three boys.  The labor was fast, 2 1/2 hours, and the delivery even faster, one push.  I guess the real drama happened when the entire nursing staff screamed “its a girl!” and I realized that this baby who I was convinced was a boy and had named George was actually a Georgiana.  Its hard imagining our family any different.  I have a daughter, the boys have a sister and GM is now paying for his crimes from another lifetime.

Smoking has its consequences

I feel like crap.  Just trying to hold it together until after tomorrow and then for sure I will  collapse and sleep 18 hours.  Tomorrow is Georgie’s birthday  and there are 25 little ones coming over for three hours tomorrow to be entertained.  Birthday parties for kids here deserves its own post, but not today, remember I am barely functioning.  But needless to say, there will be a giant inflatable jumpy thing and I will have several energetic young girls organizing games..its a sporty party.  But there is still a million little things to do.  Kids parties here includes alcohol and food for adults.  Fresh flowers, a blow dry and manicure are standard for the proud mother.  I am telling you, its work!

What does smoking have to do with any of this.  Smoking is why I feel bad.  Not the pack a day kind of smoking.  I gave that up almost 20 years ago.  Its cigar smoking.  On occasion I have been know to enjoy a Havanna.  Last Friday we had a cocktail party and since I am not a big drinker I focused my efforts on cigar smoking, which a lot of people seem to do here.  I smoked 2 large Havannas and numerous “woodies” or cigarette sized cigars.  I chained smoked cigars for 7 hours.  Not surprising I felt yuck the next morning, but that was almost a week ago and I still can feel it in my chest.  When I work out I feel like I am going to die.  I guess I am paying for stupidity and I am getting old.  But then again, I didn’t inhale tequila through my nose with a spoon.  And you know who you are…

I will try to get some good photos of the birthday girl, she is going to be 7!!!

A little birthday eve somethin’ for my big girl: