Avoiding Crisis

Because I know my daughter and I know how excited she is about dressing up for Halloween I also know that as soon as she gets her costume on tomorrow she will be one huge ball of energy impossible of nailing down for a picture.  So, knowing how my daughter is, and knowing how my son is ALWAYS one big ball of energy and always impossible to photograph I had them put on their costumes this afternoon for a quick photo session.  It wasn’t too successful.  You see, today isn’t Halloween and Power Rangers was just about to come on TV, so there were more important things to do than play dress up for mom and get your picture taken.  Regardless, I was able to snap a few for memory sake.

So while the kids were upstairs watching Power Rangers and beating each other up I took a trip down memory lane via my external hard drive.

Here is Abbey at 10 months. Her first Halloween. She was such a cute ducky. Qua Qua goes the Patita.

One year later, she was a real live, walking and talking, Raggedy Ann.  What a chunk!  Just look at those wrists, or lack there of.

Another year went by, Owen was born, we moved countries, and Abbey learned all about the wonderful world of Disney Princesses.  Unfortunately, this particular year, Halloween was accompanied by a high fever and nasty cold, hence the whole droopy eyes and completely worn out look.

And while Abbey was a asleep on the couch fighting off a 102 F fever, a very big 10 month old Owen (hence the reason he wasn’t wearing Abbey’s ducky costume from two years earlier) was having a fight of his own. With an ear.

12 months later and Disney still had a hold over Abbey (who dressed as Princess Jasmine) and seemed to be taking hold of Owen (who sported a Peter Pan costume) too. Either that or Mom and Dad hit the Disney Store on a trip to the United States earlier in the month.

Which brings us to this year. Tomorrow Abbey and Owen will go trick or treating with some friends in one of the barrio cerrados (close neighborhoods) nearby. Abbey will be Sleeping Beauty and Owen, her knight in shining armor.

What happened to my ducky and tigger?  Where’d they go? 

Happy Halloween!

I totally forgot how much I LOVE Twizzlers.  The commissary (the small grocery store that we have inside the Embassy) just got in a new shipment.  Yesterday afternoon they opened with restocked shelves.  A brought home some goodies, and among them was a big 1 pound bag of Twizzlers.  I didn’t realize how much I missed Twizzlers and just how much I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them.  I’m going to go hide the bag now before my kids get wind of the stash. Thankfully A thinks they taste like plastic.  His loss. More for me.

Voting is over. Cristina Kirchner, the current first lady of Argentina, has been elected the next president of Argentina.

I would write more about this but there is so very little to say. This had to be the most boring and completely uneventful presidential campaign in not only this country’s history, but maybe even in the world’s history. It was seriously a total non-event.

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okay. so in other news. I know that the New England Patriots are good and everything, okay so maybe good is an understatement. But geez, a 52-7 win over the Washington Redskins! Who the heck ever scores 52 points in one football game! (And Super Democrat Boy, you can wipe that shit eating grin off your face right about now. Thank you very much.)

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Owen has impetigo. What looked like a mosquito bite, and could have very well been, has turned into a nasty case of blisters and open sores that cover an area of skin underneath his right arm about the size of my open palm. He caught this icky bacterial infection from a friend of Abbey’s who came over to play last week, who had a case of undiagnosed impetigo. All I can say is that it is icky, nasty and gross. I feel bad for him.

…are my thoughts.

because of THIS.  because just when I thought we had made a final decision about whether or not he would even entertain the idea of going there, it gets thrown back into our face.  And just when i had started breathing a little bit easier, knowing that there were 10 potential places we could be sent to next, none of them being a war zone, we have to start to consider one very unpopular possibility.

and so a lump has formed in the bottom of my stomach and it is slowly making it’s way up to my throat.  My heart is racing and it feels like there is someone stepping on my chest restricting my breathing. 

i can’t much think of anything else.  wondering if he might not have a choice after all, wondering how I’d manage if he left for a year, where I’d live, whether or not I’d work.   Thinking, but trying so hard not to, about the danger. 

yes, he can make a lot of money.  and yes, we’d be able to buy that house and car that we want and maybe even put away for the kids college and our retirement.  but none of that matters, none of the perks matter, if he doesn’t make it home.

according to news reports this issue will all be resolved by thanksgiving.  Let’s hope that we have something to be very thankful for this year.

So yesterday I hosted a breakfast here at my house for the spouses/partners of embassay American employees.  It’s a great way to stay connected to other Embassy spouses as well as provide a way to welcome newcomers. 

My reasoning for hosting was two fold.  1) After almost 2.5 years of being here, I thought it about time to be an “old-timer” and help out and 2) I have this wonderful friend who has started this really cool company and I wanted to give her a platform to share her work with members of the Embassy community.

So in addition to the typical meet and great, catch up with old friends, get to know knew ones, we were treated to a wonderful class on mate (pronounced /ˈma.te/).

In Argentina, mate is not only the national drink, it is an obsession.  Drinking mate is nothing short of a cultural institution. It is not just a drink, it is a social norm.  And for some, it is a way of life.

There are a lot of rules and customs that go along with drinking mate, from how to cure the mate, to how to prepare the yerba mate infusion, to how to share mate.  Drinking mate is an experience. 

Until yesterday, I had only been offered mate two time in my 2 1/2 years living here.  The first time was only a few weeks into our tour and I was completely clueless as to what it was so I kindly declined.  The second time was at a kid’s birthday party, the adults were not people I knew very well, and the whole sharing the mate didn’t really sit well with me at the time.  Again, I declined. In both instances, I was with people who knew that I was a foreigner and weren’t offended by my refusal of the mate, or at least I don’t think they were. 

Most foreigners I have talked to about mate have told me that they didn’t really like it.  Some Argentines even have told me that it is an acquired taste that even they had to get used to it.

Yesterday, I finally tried mate.  And you know what?  I actually liked it.  I really liked it.  I liked everything about it, the preparation, the sharing, and even the taste.  It wasn’t awful like I’d been told.  It didn’t taste like licking an ashtray (whatever that is supposed to taste like), as it had been described to me on several occasion.  It tasted like an herbal tea, but a with a more bitter and smokey flavor. 

Not only does mate taste good (to me at least) but it has many more health benefits than both tea and coffee combined.  It’s known to boost immunity, cleanse and detoxify the blood, combat fatigue, stimulate the mind, control the appetitie, increase stamina and reduce stress.  It gives you a caffeine like boost but without the jitteryness.

I tend to drink a lot of coffee and tea during the day.  Coffee to get me going in the morning or to keep me going in the evening and tea during the day when I need a boost or when I just need something soothing and warm. I’m thinking of switching some of my daily consumption of coffee and tea to mate. 

Just one more reason to love this country.