Clammering Toward the End of the Tunnel

or How to Spend Two Straight Days Trying To Fix Your Computer and Another Day Wiping and Reinstalling Your Life.

I'm getting back to normal, but Hubster was out of town when all this crap went down, so I had to reformat all by my lonesome. It was intimidating, but I'm proud to announce that I'm currently typing this on my own computer which is (so far) virus-free and (again, so far) fully functioning.

So I finally updated the banner image, a clue that there will probably be more changes to come, but we'll see. I have a backlog of images to attend to from pretty much the last YEAR of my life, so I'll see about changing the look of this site.

Have a great weekend. I'll be picking out tile for my kitchen renovation next weekend. Woo!

Linking Wednesday, or OH, MY POOR COMPUTER!

All ready to blog again, but nowhere to type. Somehow, my computer got STEAMROLLED by a horrific virus. I spent my entire workday either scanning for viruses, rebooting into safe mode, or on the phone with the company tech guy (shout-out to J!). My system is still ganked and there's no end in sight. Except reinstalling EV-ER-Y-THING. It's moments like these when I wish we didn't always get the upgrade versions of the Adobe Creative Suite. I might (conceivably) have to install Adobe CS, CS2, plus CS3 before dumping the former two to save precious space for all the projects I mean to tackle with CS3. To quote Liz Lemon, "blurg!"

Whilst I pull out my hair, enjoy the following linkage.

1. It wouldn't be me without the requisite McSweeney's entry, and this one delivers. Enjoy "Increasingly Dangerous Cheeses." Delicious.

2. You may or may not have seen this before, but if you missed it somehow, enjoy the following coverage of the "Hipster Olympics" on YouTube. It's 100% Brody and Chaz approved. By which I mean, of course, that they are utterly apathetic to it.

3. One of my recent blog finds is GlossedOver.Com whose tagline reads: I have magazine issues. The voice is clever and perfectly reflects the delight-to-ambivalence-to-anger spectrum of emotions I feel when reading fashion mags. Plus it's hilarious. Enjoy this (rather long) live-blog of reading the legendary tome that IS the September issue of Vogue Magazine. Sweet mercy.

4. On a related note, this article from Slate (really tapping the old wells on this one, huh?) reviews the attitudes of some of the major womens mags to the current economy. Results: ridiculous, as expected.

Well, I'm up to my eyeballs in stress and sick of Hubster's strange keyboard, so I'm out.

BASTA. (or Enough Already!)

I've been avoiding the Fyf like an ex-boyfriend. It stops now. I'm not sure what starts up now, but at least I won't be waffling mentally (as painful as it sounds, and no, there's no delicious syrup involved) about whether to write promising more writing, to write promising to end this thing once and for all, or to write in order to waffle on the blog about the blog.

Ahem, does anyone else have a headache? Now do you understand the avoidance?

Anyhoodle, the time has come to stop with the waffles and start with the facing o' the problems: I haven't written in WAY too long. And I think I might want to change that. Stay tuned. Or tune out. But at least I acknowledged the elephant in the room: the waffles.

Incoherent Drama Queen w/ Broadband Connection OUT.

Blogger Still Alive, In Holiday Stupor

It's been flat-out nuts around here for weeks. Between my return from Argentina and New Year's, our schedule shows a trip to Indy (for that Colts game - I owe you pictures), a trip to Michigan, a trip to Upstate New York (for Christmas with Hubster's fam) with an extended stay in Lancaster (which we're still on now), plus two weddings (one in DC and the other tomorrow in Pennsylvania), and a visit from sister-in-law G and the in-laws dog (who has multiple problems stemming from Lyme's Disease, poor pooch), and I think that's all the heavies. I'm just glad to be seated and relaxing at the moment.

I'll back in the saddle after New Year's. But until then, two awesome videos my choir director sent around from YouTube. Good choral-themed times, people.

The Hallelujah Nuns:


The 12 Days of Christmas Medley:

Yet another time waster.

I only post when I have something trivial or pictoral to present. In that vein . . .

The Blog Readability Test yielded the following results when applied to my blog:



I am lame.

Five-Year-Old Erica Speaks

While I sit and contemplate the glacial pace at which Sprint is dealing with my complicated phone upgrade situation whilst listening to admonitions that indicate someone will be with me shortly, I thought I'd post something. It's probably better for my longterm prospects than the other option I was considering: gouging my eyes out with office supplies. I was thinking of using the thumb drive. It doesn't seem to be working on my computer anyway, so it's no grave loss to our media storage, right?

Gruesome notions aside, some of you noticed in my image dump of yesterday that my grandfather has the library of many a book-lover's dreams. It is, indeed, a sight to behold. Let's see it again.


My, that is PRETTY.

When I was five years old, my family had moved to Patagonia, so I was living at a distance from my beloved grandparents. Fortunately, some friends of the family in the South were headed back to my hometown for a wedding and they didn't mind bringing along little ole me. My suitcase was packed and I headed out with them on the 30-hr drive. I think a rock hit the windshield while we were going along so the windshield shattered and we lost some time. That was memorable. What I failed to remember was what I said to my grandparents upon landing on their doorstep. (Direct quotes supplied by Grandpa.)

"When you die, I would like to have your house. Now, I don't want you to die, but I know that you will. When that happens, I would like your house."

Five-year-old Erica has more stones than the current model, apparently. Unfortunately, there are a lot of book-lovers in the family so I will not have undisputed claim over that beaut.

Well, they've gotten to my call and it's time to try yet another hare-brained scheme to make this work. Wish me luck, or at least the courage of my younger days.

Argentine Dispatch #3 - Photos I

At last I'm done with my photographic processing. Earlier today, I was trying to white balance the ceiling in my own bedroom. As I was starring at it. In, like, MY REAL LIFE. I have spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME in Camera Raw of late, but at least my photo backlog just got cut in half. My pain and mental issues - your gain.

Note: If you're looking at this in Internet Explorer: 1) Why are you using that old thing when Mozilla Firefox is better and free? 2) You might not be able to get the captions and pretty picture-viewing interface that you're supposed to be seeing. I suggest you go straight to my flickr set or, even better, make the switch to Firefox and look at my site there.

"Arco iris" is a much cooler way of saying "rainbow."

I'm almost halfway done processing pictures from the trip. The image header right now is from one of them. It's not the most spectacular shot because it was taken through a bus window and rainbows tend to occur in moist (and therefore grey) conditions, but it's nice. We took a bus ride for part of our journey to the part of Patagonia where I lived, and we saw a rainbow. We actually passed right underneath it as it spanned a valley through which we rode. And no matter how cliche I want that to be, it still makes me smile.

Overheard, While I Was Out Edition

While I was gone, Hubster's cousin got married and his father's family got together. This rare event was highlighted by the following conversation between K, his grandmother (with rather advanced dementia), and his reserved-but-bitingly-witty uncle.

Hubster: blah blah blah Erica's still in Argentina blah blah blah wine and steak.

Grams: Who's taking piano lessons?

Uncle: Darn right it's cold in here!

The End.


I swear this was like the first thing my husband told me about when I got home. "Welcome to the United States, baby! And now a funny and slightly cruel story about making fun of my elders. Glad to have you back!"

Chasing a High

A week ago I was trying to pack for home. My grandparents' bathroom scale was waiting to weigh my bag, and I was trying to guess whether they'd charge me the overweight bag fee or just let it go like the last time. The details helped me stay numb about leaving. It's not that I'm unhappy to return to life here. The end of any vacation is bittersweet, and this was a lot more than a usual vacation. For one thing, most vacations aren't permeated by your favorite smell on the planet.

Argentina has a smell. When I told my friends there they were surprised - you can smell a country? The quality changes, as it does with any place, but it's fixed in my mind. My grandparents house has always had the most concentrated scent - wood, wine, leather, cheese, meat, soaps, books, coffee, pastries. The entire country smells of mate and beef and perfume and I don't know what. Writing about it makes me feel dumb, but then again so does sticking my head in my luggage just to catch a whiff of it. The folds of the clothes trap it. The insides of the packages I brought back contain a bit. It's been disappearing all week, but that doesn't make it any less real.

That smell always meant good things. When family would visit, wheeling their bags in their room (which was usually my room I'd given up for them) I would catch my first hint of it. Then the blessed hour would arrive and they'd unzip them and bring out our treasures. It was always Christmas when someone came from Argentina. Dulce de leche was handed out and before rationing would begin, my mom would often let me have a teaspoonful straight from the jar. Mate was unpacked by the kilo for Dad - Rosamonte, a brand I rarely stray from to this day. We kids usually got presents of some kind. Mom and I got that certain Spanish soap she loves. All those memories of delight were made over that smell of their bags, of the place in which they were packed.

Now that smell I love, the smell I lived in for twenty-six days is evaporating from things. It's dissolving into the air of my home, and I can't seem to find it anymore. It might not sound all that good. Maybe no one even knows about it by me, but that smell is one of my favorite things in the world, and it's disappearing again. I would almost trade it for one of the many beautiful and special things I brought back with me.

My bag weighed 33kilos (almost 73lbs). It was full of presents, clothes, almost 4kilos of cheese, and the best smell I know. Now it's empty. The cheese is in the fridge waiting to be cut and probably frozen before being transported to my family's house where my father will gleefully throw it on the grill and we'll all gleefully try to cheat each other out of the final bites. The clothes are in the laundry waiting to be stripped of their perfume in the washer and dowsed in a new scent from our detergents. The presents will be packaged and given away. But the smell will fade. The soap I brought back will give me a whiff of one facet. The mate and coffee and beef we consume in this house will do the same. I guess I'll just have to head down there again for my next true fix.

Cue the withdrawal symptoms.

Things I Missed

I'm home. I've had a hard time reintegrating at times, but these things have made it better:

1. Two-ply toilet paper. It's not necessary, but it sure is nice.

2. My beautiful pillow and mattress. There's no substitute.

3. My entire closet. Oh, how I missed thee. Everything old is new again. And also clean. I could go days and days without having to beg someone to wash my two pairs of jeans.

4. Tex-mex salsa, hummus, and Coke Zero Vanilla. Yuuuum.

5. My cell phone. I can actually call people now. And make plans and everything.

6. Paying with my credit card. When you run a (mostly) cash economy, you have to plan ahead. Me no likey.

7. Internet. All the time. Whenever I want it. And fast. 'Nuff said.

8. TV. I didn't watch any while I was there, and I didn't miss it at the time, but I now I rather like having my shows back.

9. My cats! They're soft, they let me put my ear to their bellies when they purr, and they ignore me until I play with them.

10. Hubster. He left me two weeks ago, and it was nice to not have to translate all day for him, but it's even nicer to be home with him.

Argentine Dispatch #2

I can't believe it's been almost a month. I've already started making plans for Monday's exit, and it's tinged the rest of the week for me. I was afraid an entire month without work would turn into sheer boredom, but I barely notice that I'm not occupied. I guess the structure of the days here in the Interior with their observance of siestas and the meals at strange hours has helped make the time fly. My family and friends work in jobs with more varied hours as well, so I've spent much less time than I anticipated in "entertaining myself" as we like to put it. I'm happy to have spent so much more time in conversation but my journal is woefully out of date. I believe the entry I have to finish is from October 2nd - at the beginning of Buenos Aires, before Patagonia, before my return and all the important conversations I've been having. Am. screwed.

I've had irregular internet access through travel and then problems with modems here. I wanted to post more, but I'll try to journal events and I'll keep writing Argentine Dispatches when I get home. Hubster took the laptop home with him so I'd have one less valuable item to secure everywhere I went. It was a good idea, but I sure would like to type my thoughts more than write them. It's faster and the pencil-and-paper method makes my inner editor cringe and mutter curses after a while. All this to try to remember, to hold on to the memories and the stories and the mental images.

I'm sitting in my friends' study, the family with whom we'd stay when we weren't with our relatives here in the Interior. Their daughter is about to arrive. We were best friends when we were little, and our families renewed our acquaintance with trips even when we moved to Patagonia. I went to school with her on our 6-week visit in '97. She wrote notes to me in a notebook and conjugated verbs on its pages for me to memorize. One page is titled in bold pink marker: "The Four Most Important Verbs in Life." Below it appear the present tenses for amar, comer, dormir, and comprar. I guess if I can say I've loved, eaten, slept, and bought that about covers the basics even today. She visited my family in the States for three months. The youngest with three older brothers, she lived like my sister during that time, and we loved it after lifetimes spent with just our brothers. She danced swing with my friends, slept on my bunk beds, borrowed my uniform sweaters for school, and backed me up in arguments with my brothers. It was awesome.

She left and went back home. She started med school at university in Córdoba, met her boyfriend more recently and became an aunt as her older brothers started families. I went to college, met my husband, graduated, got married, moved and worked. I'm hoping somehow that our friendship has once again survived the deep freeze of distance and time.

We'll be sleeping in twin beds in the same room. Maybe that'll jog our memories.

Argentine Dispatch #1

09/26/07 - On the flight from Dallas, Texas to Santiago, Chile.

She looks like so many of the grandmothers I met in Argentina - she´s got the same pallor, the hair dyed dirty-blond but imperfectly hiding its grey roots. She´s a bit round in the torso - too busy for too many years making and eating food with her family. She wears a blouse with a broach at the center of the neckline. It´s less schoolmarmy than it sounds but it is by no mean "hip." Her thick stockings and sensible shoes complete the picture. She comes around the corner of the ATM I´m hiding behind and asks if I speak Spanish (calling it "castellano" as they do in South America).

The flower of shame and fear blooms beneath my skin, as it always does at the question. I don´t blush; I just feal my chest tightening up a little, my brain clumsily revving up to prepare itself for the onslaught of strange words and continuous verb conjugation.

There aren´t many people around, so I say that yes, I do speak castellano, and I offer to help when she asks me if I know how to use the pay phones on the other side of the ATM machine. I don´t, of course, because like the rest of the USA it seems, I use my cell phone instead. I can read the instructions, such as they are, It might be enough.

She´s obviously flustered so she starts putting her bags down anywhere, and one of them falls over. I pick it up and (correctly) announce that I´m placing it near the phone. She says, "you speak castellano well." I´m embarrassed again - this time that I undersold myself and she might think that I didn´t want to help at all. Sometimes my inner life is so distruptive that I can´t believe I keep it up so obsessively.

She has no change so she gives me a dollar and we talk while I dig out quarters from my luggage. She´s calling her daughter who lives in LA. She´s on her way home to Chile from a visit with her. Where am I going? Córdoba, I announce and by now she´s caught my accented (if broken) Spanish, and she asks if I´m Argentine. I tell her about behing born there (the verb conjugation tripping me up again so that I must have said she was born there before I corrected myself and made it my birth under discussion). The quarters go into the phone. I dial as she rattles off the number, a bad idea I discover since I tend to confuse my 15's and 500's. We dial a couple more times and only once make a connection, but though it turns out to be wrong, we lose our dollar anyway.

I lose patience and pull out my cell phone. We make the call and she leaves her daughter a message, unsure that it'll work but happy to have made an attempt. I wonder how long ago I used a public phone. I´m glad I have my cell so I can help this woman who keeps sweetly asking my about my life. After we lament her daughter being out, she says she was so glad to meet me twice at least. She thanks me profusely. It takes the edge of my communication anxiety. Even if we had to resort to body language at this pount, we would have understood each other. Bebe (a nickname, her given name is Elisa, she tells me) gives me her address and says I´m welcome at her home, should I ever find myself in Chile. Maybe butchering the language every time I open my mouth isn´t such a crime. Kindness has fewer language barriers than I previously thought.

She bids my goodbye and I misunderstand something about the flight so I think that´s it for us. I end up sitting one row behind her and one seat to the right. I don´t notice until I come back from a bathroom visit in the middle of the night. She smiles and takes my hand as we greet each other, old friends now.

We interrupt your itinerary to bring you a delay caused by terrifying backwardness.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

We leave tomorrow on the same schedule which we were supposed to follow today. We were boarding when the word came down on this, despite the problem having occurred about 2 hours before that AND despite our four-hour layover in Dallas. Our backup flight was coming from Dallas so we didn't have a prayer of landing in time for our first international leg.

It's scary to think there are no redundant systems in place for this sort of problem. Apparently all this squawking about updating Air Traffic Control and bringing it out of the 70s is actually kind of accurate.

Good night, friends. And I hope this time I'm really leaving.

Go time!

That blessed, terrifying, exciting, sweet-awesome, anxiety-inducing, long-awaited day is finally upon us. WE'RE GOING TO ARGENTINA.

I'm still unsure of the internet reliability factor. Apparently, a lot of the peeps we're staying with will have broadband, but only when their phones work. My grandparents (who live outside town a ways) have had half days of service for a while now. Uncool. I may post. I may not. I'm as capricious as a zephyr!

And with that little gem, you'll have to excuse me. I have some last-minute panicking to do. Ta-ta!

Random Picture Day

I've got to leave to my friend's wedding tomorrow, so you get some random stuff today. Weeeee! Also, my kitties left to be with their "grandparents" (Hubster's family) while we do our weddings and international galavantings, so I'm a little low.

OH, kittens! I miss you already!

Blah Blah Trip Blah Blah

I shouldn't have posted all those pictures at once. Not smooth. I mean, 79 images in one day? I could have gotten three solid days out of that. At least. Oh blessed content, I misappropriated you! Argh!

It's nearly go time for some important trips, so that's weighing on the old noodle. We leave for Cincinnati and K's wedding in three days and in a week, we'll be zipping up our bags, forgetting our toothbrushes, and praying our luggage arrives with us in South America, baby! WOOOO! Also, AAAAAH!

Today, for instance, I remembered to put in our request for the post office to hold our mail. I also bought German baking chocolate and marshmallows for my grandmother. Apparently, both are rather scarce in their area. I've also bought gifts for the people we know we're staying with, and general gifts for anyone else we're staying with but don't know that well. We also armed ourselves with those mini toilet paper rolls that fit in your purse - apparently their restrooms aren't replenished as often as they should be. To be honest, no matter how much planning I do, there's always a sense that I can't quite put my arms around this trip. I can't see it in my mind's eye, so how am I supposed to be prepared for every little thing?

I realized the other day that my working knowledge of Argentine fashion was seven years out of date. It was time to take action. I called my aunt, an Argentine citizen who married my American uncle and lives with him and their two children in Kansas. They each work for universities, helping with their language and exchange programs and teaching classes. They spent the first part of the year on a six-month sabbatical there. If anyone could get the skinny on what those crazy kids are wearing, it'd be her. I was glad to see that, while fads came and went like they do here, "chic and tight" were still the cornerstones of the moda nacional. In related news, I tried on and purchased some skinny jeans month ago when it was too hot to wear them. Boy, will they come in handy, no?

Aside from that, and trying to ascertain the weather for each of the regions we intend to visit (answer: 40-80ºF - packing's gonna be fuuuuun!), I've been enjoy having my husband back a bit more. Our respective busy times are past, and we can do things like egg each other on to exercise and later eat a bowl of ice cream so one of us doesn't feel bad. Ah, love.

Oregon Vacation Pic-tacular!

So I finally uploaded my vacation pictures to flickr. You may now enjoy them below.

500th Post - La Dee Frickin' Da

Since I last posted I have:

Turned 25, Hit the Quarter Century Mark, Officially Lived One-Third to One-Quarter of My Allotted Time on this Planet, whatever you want to call it. When asked my age, I'm now supposed to say "25."

Bought $800+ worth of domestic flights in Argentina. It was supposed to be cheaper, but no one in my family (least of all myself) can find my national ID papers which would have saved me about $200 on their national airline. That's $200 less shoes, belts, and assorted leather goods I can now reasonably purchase. Curses, foiled again. Also, major documents are missing. I should probably have mentioned that first because it's supposed to be important, but SHOES, people - LESS SHOES. OH, THE HUMANITY!

Endeavored, with a near-perfect rate of failure to acquire undergarments for the bridesmaid dress I'm wearing next weekend. I probably hit 20 stores, and as many online retailers trying to find a low-back, strapless bustier that wouldn't show up under the satin gown and would hold me in place so as not to flash the congregation. I have tried on dozens, googled as many, bought and later returned two items, and I already possessed two from other bridesmaid events. I'm not sure how I even had to buy another, but there it is - I've agonized and endured entirely too much in the search. If I had not randomly seen the store's marquee on a TV commercial for the new shopping center in which it can be found, I would never have had Bra-la-la to thank for finally, FINALLY solving my problem. It would have cost me $70, but the owner misquoted the price as lower, felt bad about it, and then gave me 15% off just because. Victory is sweet, let me tell you. I can finally stop making allusions to Hercules Labors and receiving blank stares from store clerks because apparently, not everyone took Latin in high school and memorized Greek mythology for several years' worth of exams. Nor did everyone take up dating a mythology junkie just as soon as I got rid of the classes in college. Hubster and I have named our cats after Greek and Norse mythological gods; IT'S NOT LIKE I CAN ESCAPE WHENEVER I WANT TO.

Seen Hubster's family's new home and painted one of their closets. Also, I went here and bought and ate lots of chocolate. Not all at once, mind you, but almost.

NOT posted. Not at all, not even a little. It's an achievement.

Noted that this post is the 500th post I've written. I think there are a few I haven't posted that contribute to the number, but not many. I'm big into milestones so I notice these things. And then blab about them.

Left you to fend for yourselves. I've got work to do. Ta-ta!

Just plain mean.

Yesterday, we had lizard number three in our home. Apparently, we attract them or something. I rescued him from both cats who had staked out his hiding place underneath my camera case, so pictures were out of the question, plus it feels kinda old - how many times can you snap pictures of your cat with a lizard, right?

Some of you are asking how I can take more pictures of my cats PERIOD, but I'm going to pretend you're not. And then share more pictures. Am. cruel.