Hard Sale

We finally reached that point and my husband invited me to go and look for a new car. I've mentioned lately that I would like to have a 4WD, mostly because of the mountains. I love to go on trips crossing the mountains but the weather not always is nice and in those opportunities I wish I had a 4WD, so I wouldn't have to get off the car and put chains and freeze my hands off. Also it gives me a (maybe totally false) sense of security. Being trapped on top of the mountains in a snow storm surrounded by semi trucks is far from being desirable.
I've been thinking of going for a Subaru because is not flashy and it has a good mileage. I'm not a Hummer person. I'm more of a Mini Cooper sort of girl. I love that they are so small and minimalistic and yet they have the sport side that gives me a little of an adrenaline rush. They say "I'm small but I'm still kicking your ass". The Hummer in my opinion only says "I'm huge, expensive, SOOOO not fuel efficient, and the guy that drives me is a complete asshole". Unfortunately a Cooper might not do very well in the conditions I described before.
I heard on Car Talk that a Subaru Legacy is less fuel efficient than a Forester so I decided to go for the last one. I'm also fond of Honda because they are a very good quality vehicle and I was sort of curious about the new CR-Vs.
SO I went for a little trip to the car dealers and my first stop was Honda. And here comes my horror story. As soon as I got off the car a sales person immediately greeted me. I told her I was very reluctant to buy anything but I was curious to see what was on the market. She immediately went off to show me the sedans. The problem, I explained, is that due to control issues I like to drive a manual transmission. She explained to me that they did not have these in Sedan and proceeded to show me the CR-V. It was beautiful, all I ever dreamed off and the smell was so good. She must have notice my delight because in no time I had the keys and I was going out for a test drive. Soft soft drive.
I was confused by the clean ride, I'm so used to do hard changes with the transmission that it was very hard for me to figure out with this one which gear was I getting into. But I absolutely loved it. And that was the end of the nice experience. As soon we were done I became a hostage. I was their pray and they would not let go until getting every single drop of my blood. I was scared and wanted to run away. For some sick and perverse reason my husband was actually enjoying himself. He was so amused by the way they kept on lowering the numbers every time I told them I would not buy the car before going home and think about it first. They offered me numbers and more numbers, and I started to feel dizzy and more confused every time. Then they offered me to give them my own numbers and I was about to throw up. Then the guy told me to just take the car home for a week trial! I didn't know they would do such a thing which would explain the enormous amount of car without a license plate in this town. Then I panic! I look up to my husband begging with my eyes for some help to get out of that nightmare but he was having way too much fun. I then said the most horrible thing a car salesperson would ever want to hear:
-I'm sorry, but I'm not taking the car on trial. My dad would always say to me "Bad fortune lies on borrowed things" and I don't need bad fortune. I will go home and think about it while I check my finances. I know that lots of Americans live their lives in debt but I can't live that way.
The guy left and I was able to escape.
I checked my watch, I had spent 3 HOURS IN THERE!!!
My husband asked me if I was up to visit Subaru but there was no way I would engage in another hard sale. I felt like run over by a train and I was physically exhausted. My husband understood and took me home right away where I felt asleep like a baby.
I think I'm holding on to our Honda Civic for another good while.

...both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate

Well, it has been quite a long time since something grabbed my attention enough to awake the obssesive unbalance that lies beneath my thoughts. After a boring Saturday I decided to rent "V for Vendetta". I wasn't really interested and my expectations were really low since I saw the name of the Wachowski Bros. among the credits. Nothing against the Matrix, the first one at least. I remember when I saw that movie for first time at the theater. It was such an experience! At that point I was also practicing under a strong discipline a form of Kung Fu and the moves and choreographies went right to the center of my heart. I was alucinating when I left the theater and I would come back to the same place to see it again and again. But then, the Matrix Reloaded happened and I completely hated it. There was something wrong about the way it was done and about the scenes, and my sisters fell asleep while watching it. Not even Keanu Reeves handsomeness was capable of keeping them awake. I was terribly dissapointed and I didn't even bother to go to see the 3rd one. Then I heard about this woman suing WB and the Wachowski Bros. for plagiarism and I tend to believe her due to the big difference between the first movie and the sequels. I read somewhere that it had to do with the fact that when the other 2 movies were being made the mind of one of the brothers simplely wasn't there.
Anyhow, I went for this movie mostly because I heard somebody telling me it was good and because the famous Brothers were not really directing nor were the creators of the story.
Boy I regret not seeing it in the big screen. I absolutely felt in love with the character, and the story and I love the questions raised mostly on the grounds of ethics. But above all the music of the language interpreted with such maestry by the incomparable voice of Hugo Weaving.
It was music, and I've been obssesed with it since.
Also this has brought a lot of debate between my husband and I regarding old english, Macbeth, Shakespeare, Don Quijote, and the use of language in general. So far I've seen the movie more than 3 times and I still love it.
Darn it! It's very late but I have so much more to talk about regarding V for Vendetta so I'll continue another day. In the meatime as a homework get the movie and enjoy as I did.

Antique Show

This is one of my guilty pleasures. I love Antiques!
This weekend there was an antique fair 2 blocks from my house and I found this amazing stand from this Chinese fellow with the most beautiful little things. I bought this tea kettle and my husband got the lock that appears on the back. Love them both!

Some Spirit Lifting

Today I woke up with the absolute and firm decision to not let the horrible events from yesterday to linger in my soul. So I went ahead and started with one of my frequent visits to Alice Peacock website and listen to this wonderful song that always makes me feel so grateful of being alive. It reminds me of the wonderful things I have and the blessings I've received. It has become some sort of battle song. Everytime I'm sad, upset or dimotivated I click on her website and listen to that song. She wrote it for a friend of hers that was suffering from cancer and inspiring her and many others with her wonderful attitude.
There are so many people that I've learnt to appreciate and when I'm feeling weak or down I raise my thoughts to them because they are an example of strength for me and I feel ashamed of my weakness when I think about them. Some of them are: my parents who fought against so much adversity and still taught me to try to always be a good person leading by their own example; my friends Laura and Karina that work 3-4 jobs to get to the places where they want to be with the people that they love; my sisters that through so much hardeness still get the strenght to become the most amazing women I know; my husband who is uncapable of one selfish thought and is the most good hearted person I've ever known in my life; my godmother that become a renegade from her family and the style of life she always knew to follow the true love of her life and built her own world from zero; and so many others.
There is still hope, and Life is still wonderful.

The Most Unwanted Visit

Today I had to do the most horrible thing I've ever done. I had to be the bearer of the most horrible news. I had to go with my boss and knock at this woman's door and tell her that her baby was dead. I thought I was going to break in tears and I felt so powerless. My boss was the one doing the talking and all I could do was to reach at this woman and hug her, but there was nothing I could have say that might have brought any comfort. Is there anything more horrible that to know that your baby has died and not to know how or where or why?
I had that baby in my arms a few months ago. She was so beautiful. She didn't deserve to die. And this woman wasn't her real mom but she loved her so much. She had her since the day she was born and after 8 months she had to return the baby to the biological mom. But it doesn't matter, because this was HER baby. And now she is dead, and there are no explanations, no information, just the certainty that she is gone. I was standing there thinking about the day I handed the baby back to the bio mom, and I wanted to yell and scream and tell this woman the truth of how the baby died, but I couldn't. I'm not allow to do so for confidentiality reasons. Again, I was powerless. And I still am. And I will be.
I feel like I have this huge heavy weight in me. It is so difficult to shake it off.
I was reading my friend's blog and she is counting her blessings. I should do the same. Maybe tomorrow I will try doing some stuff to keep myself busy and get over this horrible experience.

Sharing is Evil. Or how the Music Industry is trying to kill our freedom to share.

I'm ANGRYYYY!!!!!
When I was 12 years old my father took every pennie he had and payed for a custom guitar for me. It was the most wonderful present I ever had. It's not a professional guitar nor fancy either. Just a studio humble guitar. I learnt to play those wonderful folkloric songs my parents love and during the following years me and my guitar never separated, not even when after getting married I flew across the world to be reunited with my husband in the United States and started a new life. Because of this I know how wonderful OLGA is. What a beautiful resource and what an amazing way for musicians an amateurs like me to share our skills and learn how to play the songs we loved.
That my friends is globalization. To connect with people from the most unbelievable places in the world and share something that is understood in all languages: music.
But Now the Music Industry Wants Guitarists to Stop Sharing. Because they are not happy with the fact that they are giving for free something that could bring the industry a few more bucks.
What they seem to forget is that many of those artist that they ae trying to "protect" started in music by learning other people's songs and sharing tabs and lyrics. What is next then? To stop every teenage garage band from covering their music idols songs?
This is pure f-ing greed and I'm tired and outraged by it. Somebody need to hit the brakes here.
After all if they are intending to go on they might as well start stoping the free access to internet... oh wait... that's already happening isn't it?

The Foreigner

Yesterday I did something I've been wanting to do for quite a while.
I went ahead and created a blog in my native language oriented to people from my country where I intend to discuss politics and culture.
However, the strangest and weird thing happened. I found myself almost incapable to post. I realize I know almost nothing about my country on these days. So I went ahead and looked for bloggers from my land and then another strange thing happened.
I was unable to relate to any of their thoughts. Their were talking my language mentioning places, people, things I knew from heart better than anyone, but they felt so unrelated to me. Like if they were thing I knew but did not belong to me anymore. Even the language that always was my pride and my love, was not part of me like it used to be. The words were stuck in my brain uncapable to come out.
This is one of the saddest things ever.
When you become a visitor in your own land.

We can work it out

Ok.... I realize I have a problem. I got addicted to Youtube.
It's so easy though!
All of the sudden I can't stop watching videos of the most amazing diversity, from a guy showing how to play bass to a pre-teen that wants to be a movie director. I just enjoy to watch and wonder how did they come up with the ideas, and the time because you need some production to feel secure enough to put your stuff out there for anyone to watch and either criticize or praise.
I wish I had the creative thing on me.
I feel like I'm the most boring person I know.

Tired...

I probably didn't rest very well last night.
The day started really good and ended up really bad.
It turned out to be that the mall where we are currently working is going to be demolished. I knew that from some time now and as soon as we found out we went and looked for another place and we got a fabulous deal in a great location nearby. But still, it's so sad to see that they will demolish this place when is such a landmark and is a social point of encounter for people in this neighborhood. I love it! It's such a special place and so different from other malls.
It's a shame.
Also we found out that a family that was adopting a large group of children lost them because the father was abusive to the children in a really really scary bad way. I can't say more for reasons of confidentiality. But I just hope that the bastard doesn't get away with this. You never know when the criminal is the only son of a very rich man.
It's just depressing. I'm going home now.

The harvest...

tomatos and bell pepper

I'm ready to prepare a delicious miniature salad.

Lethal Laughter

OMG!!
I almost die a minute ago!!
I was laughing so hard that I started choking, and I could barely breath. My cats were freaking out and looked at me with faces of disapproval of course. They seem to find very discourteous of me to die on front of them.
The reason of my laughter was this entry from Acid for Blood. It turns out that Amazon is selling groceries now and some customers (oh my oh my ... I can barely control myself and keep on typing) have decided to make some reviews for some products. Please go and check out the Amazon link, it's just sooooo great. Just one thing: try to read the comments when there is somebody around that can call 911 for you. Just saying.

I Remember Paris

While the temperature keeps reaching the 3 digits I keep on staying as far from the computer as I can. The truth is that the light of the screen makes me feel already hot and sweaty.
Just moving from one side to the other of my living room makes me feel all sticky. I live in a very old house so there is not A/C but a giant and not very nice looking swamp cooler. It's a great device though, it really keeps the room nice and cool but I just hate the small sound it makes.
Not much happening lately though.
Or maybe is the fact that I can't really think of anything but my sister's arrival. I bought sheets, comforters, pillow, bath ropes and other bunch of things for her room. I don't think I've ever suffered so much to decide on colors and styles for any of the places I've lived before. I'm looking for things that are femenine but not too "girly" or childlike. I did buy a comforter pink and brown from Target with the matching set of sheets. I don't think it looks girly but who knows what my sister is going to think about it. Anyhow, I'm looking for a European and more sophisticated look. Something that says "here is sleeping a young woman that is very professional and sophisticated yet romantic and sensitive". Not easy.
I've been also thinking in our favorite TV show. We used to get together with my mom and my sisters every Friday and watch "La Femme Nikita". I even turned down invitations from boyfriends because Friday was our girls night in. We <3 that show and the whole concept was amazing. The music, clothes and the decoration were all so wonderful that I was thinking on maybe getting some detail from that show to add in my sister's room. Something that can bring to her the thought of a very modern, and romatic sort of Paris.
Ideas anyone??

I'll be seeing you

I'm so excited! My sister finally bought the tickets to come to visit me. It's a very long trip and I can not wait to see her arriving here. She is not going to be here until October but it doesn't matter. It gives me more time to prepare her room and all the stuff she might need. I'm saving money so I can take her to San Francisco, Las Vegas and Disneyland while she is here. I have so many plans!!! She is a little scared but she will get over it. I'm just worried about the entrance to the country she will be doing in DAllas, TX. The agents at customs can be a real pain in the neck and given she has only 3 hours to get from one flight to the other, she can't spend too much time just sitting there trying to explain why she is coming to the country in her bad english. Hopefully they won't be so annoying as they were with me the first time I came to visit the States. I entered the country through Atlanta. I didn't really know what to do and what paperwork to fill out and I asked a woman from Delta Airlines about it and she simplely barked at me and left me as lost as I was before talking to her. I guess it was a bad day for her. Then once I passed customs three officers stopped me and asked me all kinds of questions and while one was checking my paperwork the other were pointing to my shoes and clothes like they were very suspicious. It was the first time I was travelling anmywhere and I was all by myself. They hold me for several minutes and made me feel really uncomfortable. I'll pray my sister has better luck with that.

4th of July

Another year just siiting by myself while the rest of the people celebrates.
My husband had to go to work so I'm sitting in my living room with my kitty taking a nap right next to me.
I just grabbed a beer from the fridge and made myself a hot dog . Also I got a little bit of sherbet and I think I'll make a cup of coffe and wafers.
Very hot outside, and very georgeus too.

You have got to read and hear this!!!

Free Press : When Uninformed Senators Make Laws...

Ok, The political class in this country doesn't cease to amaze me. How can somebody put himself in a position so embarrassing like Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) did? This guy absolutely made an ass of himself. I heard his speech this morning and I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. He was so passionate about making everybody understand that Net Neutrality is BAAAAAD! He even said that because of people sending videos through internet his service was delayed because somebody sent him an "internet" on Friday and he didn't receive it until Monday. Geeee!!! No wonder it took so long for him to receive it, after all it was "an internet" what was being sent!!!!
Yikes! My body is responding really bad to all this. The stresss is taking over my body... it feels like going back to my years of tech support all over again! It feels like yesterday:"Fix my internet!!". Or even more classic:" My cupholder is not working!!".
Somebody PLEASE make sure that Ted Stevens' "internet" is turned on before he grabs the phone to call his tech support!

with a little bit of sugar...

There are days in which I don't know what to do first. My brain goes in thousand different directions. I can't figure out anything and i end up just sitting down paralyzed. In moments like those I wish I could find a little bit of calm and get my thoughts in order.
Today however, I was getting really depressed and I ended up doing what I do best: looking for something to eat. And I decided to eat the wonderful cookies that my husband's grandma sent. She make these every once in a while. This woman is the sweetest lady i've met. She makes these german cookies with so much love and dedication. I hope when I get older I can be like her, and make wonderful cookies that cheer up the soul of some lonely gal somewhere far away.

Nostalgia

I've been thinking a lot about my country lately. I miss the food, the wine, the good conversation, the noise, but mostely my family.
In days like these I find myself just standing in my kitchen with a glass of table wine trying to emulate some typical recipe. I have some spices I carry with me when coming back to the States after visiting my family, and I even handled to bring some hand made clay pots.
My mom says that she can hardly believe I'm the same person I was when living under her roof. She had all these rules that I hated and some I found quite useless but now I have my own kitchen they make perfect sense. Mostly it was all about cleaning.
- Never cook before washing all the dishes.
- Always use hot water to wash the dishes and just enough soap, otherwise is a waste of both things.
- Make sure to wash all the utensils and tools as you use them. That way things don't pile up and make a big mess around the cooking area.
- Pull you hair back in a pony tail or something that assures you and everybody else it won't be appearing in the soup.
- Never cry on top of the pots and pans.
And the GOLDEN RULE: NEVER EVER cook while sitting down. Otherwise you are a lazy woman and God knows that there is no worse curse than being called that.
My mom and the rest of my family have a very strong opinion of lazy women. She would die if she sees what I've seen here sometimes: women at the store wearing pijamas. I honestly don't know if it is a trend or what, but I've surprised myself disgusted at the sight of such a sacrilege. It's like if my mom was taking over my body and soul to say "Lazy woman, that is disgusting! You must be smelling terribly, not even taking a shower today, what a shame. There is nothing I hate more than seeing women doing the houseshores in Pijamas, I have the impression they must be stinky!!". I hear my mom's voice loud and clear in my head in absolute disapproval with her always dignified look.

As I review all the rules my mom enforces in the kitchen I make sure the stove plates are as impecable as it can be and that the pots and pans get washed, dryed and stored as they are meant to be. In a few more minutes I will take them out again to cook with them, but it doesn't matter, because at the end all the rules make perfect sense to me, above all when I'm missing my mother so badly.

Delayed Post

I wrote this blog 2 days ago but I'm too cheap to pay for connection to post it right away.
Anyways, here it goes

June 14th 2006.

I’m at B&N again. This is my second night in a row.
I came here because of the wireless but I don’t feel like paying almost 4 bucks for an hour and a half of connectivity. Borders is yet worse. I like that bookstore but they are charging 6 dollars for just one hour. It’s absolutely outrageous to pay that amount just for a bit of bandwidth when they have so much available. Greedy bastards!

Anyhow. I went to an ESL orientation at a community college to see if that is useful for my sister. She is visiting me at the end of the year (Woohoo!!!) and I want her to use the time I’m going to be working in taking classes to improve her English. This one turned out to be something different from what I expected. It was more for people that is actually living in the USA, and it was for free but as a way to invest in the people that is actually taking those classes to be part of this society which is not what my sister wants to do anyways.
The orientation was still kind of funny. It was a Spanish orientation (which took me by surprise since the person that gave me the information on the phone neglected to mention this detail) directed by an Iranian woman that openly admitted never studying Spanish and speaking very little. Mostly it was spanglish and a very confused one. She spent most of the time trying to make the attendees (everyone there was Latin) that USA was a great country and the land of opportunity and how they could be millionaires if they learnt English.

I think I’ll end up again at the university level, and although is a lot more expensive is more oriented towards the goals my sister has in mind.

And changing the subject. Today my garden looked wonderful but I had to cover the seedlings because it was getting cold outside, which is very weird given that we are reaching summer. My tomatoes are growing big and pretty and my herbs look just beautiful. The only thing I’m obsessed about is getting a Lemon Verbena for my herbal garden. I want to put a leave or two in my mate, like my mom does. I can’t remember the name we give to this herb in my country. Also, I have these seeds of Nasturtium I haven’t sown but I can’t find a good spot for them. It has to be sunny and it has to be somewhere that they can climb because is a vine after all. Another project is making a planter to put outside my kitchen window. It’s not very sunny but I think it has enough light to have some herbs and some flowers growing.

I know it’s little too in advance but I can stop thinking about the winter and how is going to affect my garden. It kills me to think that some of my herbs will not survive it.
I try to think in how to make a greenhouse that will protect my herbs and plants for the winter but I can’t really come up with any idea that makes good sense.

My Minnesota Home

We just got out of the movies.
We went to see A Prairie Home Companion after several attempts during the whole busy past weekend. I cried so much and laughed so much that I was unbelievably upset for not being able to control this hurricane of emotions that was shaking me. I don’t know if all the other people felt like I felt watching the movie or if it had some sort of special meaning for me. The music has a lot to do with it. It was real music, the one that comes out of the heart of people that works the land and the country. Those that really know about hard work and hard life period. It reminded me of papaw and his stories. It made me feel like I should write a song myself about simple things that fulfill the souls of those hardworking people, like my parents and grandparents, including my adoptive grandparents. Oh boy how close to home all that felt! And I’m not even a native from the Midwest! It was like all of the sudden I had my own memories of a place in which I never lived and in a time where I wasn’t even born.
All these small details that should be meaningless for me turned out to be embedded in my heart after all. It is very hard to describe what was going on inside me while sitting in the theater. I was able to relate to almost every character in that movie, like I knew them all for a long time, and not because I listen to the radio show every weekend, but because in some moment of my life I’ve met every one of those characters for real.
All that theater environment, the music, the singers, the whole show seemed like it was a very familiar place, a place where I should be right now.

Current Affairs

I'm at the office. The other girl that works with me and the one that gives me directions has gone on vacations to Disneyland. So I'm all by myself trying to keep busy and entertained. It's hard when most of the stuff I get to work on comes from only one person and she is gone.
But I want to clarify that I'm not complaining. I love my job and I love to do the stuff I do here.
In fact I have presented my resignation to my second job (the one at the store) so I can spend more time at the non profit volunteering a few hours when they need it.
We have so much stuff going on and I'm so excited to participate in everything!
This has definitely given my life a new turn and a totally different new feeling about the world.
Another plus: it's at a walking distance from home, and as soon as I finish with my job at the store I'll start biking to come to work. That will save me a few bucks by not spending too much in gas. Above all now that the prices are soaring so badly.

These past nights I've been sleeping very bad. I had horrible nightmares all week and last night I had one about a girl that got fired at the store where I work. She started just a few weeks ago and last Saturday, I think, she was trying to leave with 2 bags stuffed with clothes, worth more than $400. Fortunately for the store and unfortunately for her the security people saw her and stopped her. She got very nervous and said she had left the receipt on the second floor. Since it was her time to leave the security guys held on to the bags and told her to bring the receipt the next day. She showed up to work next day just as if nothing happened and later on got escorted by the manager out of the building. I know that what she did was very dishonest and under no circunstance I justify it but I feel really bad for her. She is very young and evidently very stupid. She told everyone there that she was saving money to get breast implants althought she was struggling to pay her rent. She is just 19 years old, just graduated from High School last year and is living a life of poverty out of home, telling lies just for the heck of it and stealing junk to get bigger breasts. I hate when people tells me "Awell, many of us had a hard life and we are not thieves". I particularly feel I had a hard life too and yet I don't feel I have the moral authority to judge this girl from this throne of virtues everybody seems so eager to sit on. Where is compassion nowadays?