America the beautiful

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a day!  

We don’t have TV at our Patagonia house so we invited ourselves to the house of some Americans that spend 5 months a year in Junin fishing and relaxing.  They have DirectTV.  It ended up to be quite the celebration. 

The food theme was American..BBQ chicken, pigs in a blanket, hamburgers, potato salad, apple pie, brownies, beer for the grown-ups and milk for the kids.  Lunch was great but the event was the real treat.  And while I am not hung up on all the pomp and circumstance, it is impressive to see power pass in peace.  I just wish I hadn’t had to listen to CNN and their crew of  talking heads go on at nauseaum about nothing. I am quite proud of our country, of our first family and the fact that the world is forever changed with the election of this “improbable” man. 

Loved the clothes, Michelle.  I will keep my eye on you.

My dog likes rocks

We have two dogs: a four year old German Shepherd and her 6 month old son. Osa and Tevez. Osa means bear and she looked like a little one (Osita) when she became part of our life. Tevez is a more unorthodox name for a pet here in Argentine in that his namesake is a villa boy done good making his way to playing for Manchester United. Most people name their pets after animals (Osa, Zorro etc) or descriptive words (Morocho-dark, Flaco-skinny), usually not human names and never scrappy futbol players. Our Argentine friends give us weird looks when we tell them his name. While Tevez maybe be sweet and not so intellectual like his namesake, he does not have any of the ball aptitude of Carlito Tevez or for that matter his mother, Osa.

Osita is a compulsive retriever. She would do this all day if she could find some one to indulge her. I am pretty sure she likes chasing flying objects more than food, water and human companionship. If a ball is not available she will find a rock (any size rock will do, even potentially jaw breaking ones). She loves to have the rock thrown into the river or pond where she will expertly swim to the approximate location of the entry point of the object and dive (not unlike a bear diving for salmon) and retrieve a rock. I don’t know if she realizes it is usually not the same one. If balls and rocks are not available, sticks, also of any size (anywhere between 3 cm to 3 meters), will do. If we are somewhere she can’t find any of the above, dirt clogs, fruit off a tree or burrs will do. We are all pretty good at ignoring her despite her begging. Soon after scaring the shit out of any stranger that comes near the house with vicious and insistent barking, she realizes this is a perfect foil for her game. In desperation she has been know to present balls or rocks at the feet of the horses, apparently not realizing they are even stupider than she is.

Things I have actually said to my kids

• Ice cream is a privledge,  not a right

• As soon as I have had my coffee, I am going to kill you

• We are going to drive you out to the desert and leave you there*

• This is not working out for me, we have to send you back to the orphange

• Four is just too many, one of you has to go.  I will let you guys work out the details.

What the worst thing you have said to your kids?  Please make me feel better about myself.

* This threat was actually used against me a in a contract GM and I have with our oldest regarding behavior, priviledges, grades.  I had to promise to not make these kinds of threats in future.  I guess thats fair.

Stop the magic, please

I love Santa Claus and for the sake of cultural assimilation we celebrate Three King’s Day too. But I have had it with Raton Perez. In a period of two weeks, Along with Christmas and Three King’s duty, I have had to approximate three different visits from Raton Perez (and one was on Christmas Eve”). For those in the non-Latina world, Raton Perez is essentially the tooth Fairy but is a rat who collects teeth to build his house. Charming. But he serves the same purpose in that he leaves a gift and/or money (both seems to be the norm here) as well as the all important note to those who lose their teeth.

Just because this will sooth my need to make things whole

Most who know me would describe me as relaxed, laidback, unflappable or in my husband’s opinion, sleep-walking. I am in reality, anal and neurotic about a few things. There needs to be the appearance of order, it doesn’t have to be real, but I want it to look nice and neat and have continuity. Its has been months since I have written and I cant pretend tons of stuff hasn’t happened but I also don’t want to get bogged down in a ponderous blog entry about lots of unrelated events, hence bullet points!

• I am still soaking up the beauty of a democrat being in the White House again, Yeah!!!
• Had a big birthday party for GM and two friends at new house… Was successful in that a lot of booze was consumed, several lambs and suckling pigs eaten and we were up until 7:00 AM. Although, GM I think is right when he says when you stay up that late, nothing really compelling is happening, you are just staying up for the sake of staying up.