Little boobie

Mi amore, flor de primavera, Sandy,

I realize this post will be so heavily laden with inside jokes that it may make no sense to anyone but you, and it may questionably make sense to you since I woke up on an airplane at 6 this morning and haven't slept since.  

I decided to go to the gym and a Gotham Magazine party for Mary Lousie Parker's new play and magazine cover today rather than unpacking and putting photos up.  I then realized that you have all of the best photos from the trip and will have to look through mine for some gems to barter a trade with.

It is weird to be back in New York and having every moment of my life planned through Saturday evening (I refuse to even speak of a time past then at this point).  It is also weird to not be able to say random words in Spanish, though I've kind of still been doing that today.

For the record, my dad does not think  you broke the internet in Valparaiso.

More later, and photos later, not sure of when since I need to pack and sleep and oyyyy no me quiero trabajar manana!!

Besos y besotos y muchas gracias para los dos semanos

Ciao,

Candy

Here's to here!

Bon Bon,

Last Sunday in Cordoba. Kelsey, Josepha, Anna, and I took a bus to a little town called Jesus Maria, an hour outside the capital. When we got off the bus, it was kind of cold, and we walked around in the rain looking for the Jesuit estancia, Estancia X_____ (this is me forgetting the name of the estancia, not me nodding to gothic and old Russian literature). On the “outskirts” of town (“outskirts” because how big, I wonder, does a town have to be to have outskirts?), there was a (very small) river with farmish animals grazing along its banks, which were inclined and green. Across a rickety bridge, rising from the hill, was a giant crucifix the size of a really big crucifix. And mounted on this giant crucifix was… Can you guess it? It was Jesus. A giant Jesus. Rain streamed down Giant Jesus’s face like tears. There was no one else around, and it was a little eerie, like the beginning of a movie about exorcisms or the stigmata. Upon glimpsing the Jesus, we called upon our knowledge of The Official Rules of Wandering Around in a South American Country for guidance. Rule #219 states: “When wandering around in a South American country, you glimpse a ungodly-sized Jesus, go to it.” We go-ed. And as we trudged across the bridge—in the rain—toward Jesus, Estancia X_____ came into view, as did the gate in front of it, which was shut and locked. We immediately realized we’d been in violation of Rule #10: “Don’t forget siesta time.” Wiping rainwater off the wet sign, we read that Estancia X_____ would reopen at 15:00. It was 13:00.

Did I mention it was raining? As we swam back across the bridge toward town in search of somewhere sheltered to bide the time, Jo complained (justly) about the wetness of her flip-flopped feet. Anna coughed like a dying emphysema patient but didn’t complain (possibly because she’d lost her voice—she’d had a cold all weekend). Kelsey and I sang a Spanish version of Old McDonald Had A Farm. It started like this…

Senor Sanchez tenia un estancia
Ay ay ay ay ay
Y en esta estancia habia una vaca
Ay ay ay ay ay

… And stopped when cow was the only animal we could think of in Spanish.

Across the bridge, we came across a “bar” on a corner, which was a room barely big enough for a smattering of lawn furniture, a pool table, a TV with music videos playing, and a handful of old local men sitting around watching said music videos. We pulled two plastic tables together and ordered some pizza, milanesa, and beer (Rule #1: Drink the cerveza). Then, some children transpired and they and the old men went over to a table in the back to join the owners (a husband and wife) for a family-style asado. To numb the guilt we suddenly felt for intruding on this Sunday family time, we played a drinking game, which consisted of us taking turns around the table proposing toasts to our various traveling experiences and everyone drinking. For example:
“Here’s to Oktoberfest!” (the inspiration for our weekend trip to Cordoba, it’s the third largest Oktoberfest in the world, located in a town called Villa General Belgrano, which is about two hours outside the capital and home to a large German community because a lot of… Germans settled there after World War II).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to liter-sized beer steins!” (which we had to purchase prior to purchasing the beer at Oktoberfest in order to have something to put the beer in—BYO Beer Stein).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to Hugh!” (as in Hefner, the name we gave to the proprietor of our favorite beer booth. Not only did he facially resemble his namesake, but he was also smooth and charming with the ladies, providing us with discounted and, later, free beer. I imagine it was funny watching us explain “playboy” to him in Spanish. We knew he grasped the concept when he promptly tipped his muffin-shaped chef’s hat and refilled our steins with a wink).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to mani!” (pronounced mah-NEE, it’s peanuts, which we’ve found you can pretty much get anywhere for free if you ask—and we do).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to the Russian dancers!” (who performed on the Oktoberfest stage, inspiring a drinking game of their own—whenever one of them kicks, everybody drinks).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to the Swing Kids!” (the Swiss jazz band that played the Glenn Miller song from the old Chips Ahoy! commercials twice).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to La Cumbrecita!” (which is the name of the “fairy tale” walking town that one of my students suggested we go see due to its fairytaleness and proximity to VGB, and not, as it turns out, a cutesy nickname for La Cumbre, which is the extreme sports town nowhere near VGB where we reserved a hostel—by the time we realized our mistake, everything in La Cumbrecita was booked—que lastima!).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to canceling three out of the four hostel reservations we made this weekend!” (in addition to the one in La Cumbre, our constantly changing plans made us cancel one in Cordoba when we thought we were going to be in a different town overnight, only to then decide we were going to stay in Cordoba after all and book a different hostel, which we all but stormed out of shortly after checking in when we realized that, rather than being in a bedroom, we were actually on the other side of, not a wall, but a screen, from the common room, where there was apparently a dance party happening when we were trying to sleep at 2am. It was so loud that when we called Nacho, a friend of a friend who lives in Cordoba, para pedir to sleep on his floor, we had to shout into the phone while plugging our non-phone-side ear with our finger).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to arguing with the guy at the fourth hostel!” (who tried to charge us 35 pesos per person though the rate we’d booked online was 25 pesos—we won).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to being those Americans!”
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to Nacho!” (for going to sleep at a friend’s house to make room for us to sleep in his apartment).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to Nacho Dos!” (Nacho’s friend named Nacho).
Everybody drinks. At this point, we ran out of beer. One of the owners (wife) noticed and said, “Las Chicas necesitan mas cerveza.” When she brought it to us, we asked her for some mani, which she also brought to us.
“Here’s to this place!” (come in, she said, I’ll give you, shelter from the storm…)
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to this weekend and changing every single plan we made!”
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to Uruguay!” (where we went for two days in September to renew our visas, which must be done every 90 days by leaving the country—a trip that was also poorly planned, as in, our plan was “let’s go get a boat to Colonia del Sacramento and when we get there find a place to stay and something to do,” which worked fine in Colonia, where there are exactly four things to do—and we successfully did them all, which in retrospect perhaps gave us a cocky, blasé attitude toward the necessity of actually planning future trips).
Everybody drinks.
“While we’re on the topic of Uruguay, here’s to the bikes!” (which were lent to us by our hostel free of charge, except for a deposit, which was worth more than the bikes, which didn’t have brakes but did have broken seats and flat tires).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to the bullfighting stadium!” (where we rode our bikes 5km along the Rio de la Plata, the widest river in the world and the 1-hour-Buquebus-boatride barrier between Uruguay and Buenos Aires. When we got to the stadium, which was of an estimated similar age and condition to our bikes, there was a barbed wire fence blocking us from the crumbling edifice. Not far from a gate, which we presumed locked, we spied a large hole in the fence, which we climbed through WITH our bikes so as to prevent them from being stolen. Some passersby saw us and warned us to be careful. “Why? Are we going to get arrested?” we asked. “No,” they said, “but the building might fall on your head.” What silly Americans we are for fearing breaking the rules—this is South America, after all, there are no rules—when there are large chunks of breaking concrete to fear. Well, the stadium didn’t collapse and bury us alive, and as we were heading back to the hole in the fence, a tour bus was stopped and unloading and someone came over and opened the gate).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to the horses!” (which we rode on the beach next to the river).
Everybody drinks.
“Here’s to the lighthouse!” (built inside the ruins of a 17th century convent in the historic quarter of the city).
Everybody drinks.

Those are just a few examples. You get the point.

Well, after lunch, the rain let up and we made it to the estancia, which had some Jesusy things and a room with a spoon collection. Before heading back to the capital, we picked up some local wine and alfajores (which Cordoba is famous for) as a thank you for Nacho, who we met up with briefly to bid farewell before heading to the omnibus terminal. Then we were just one overnight bus ride with a very loudly snoring man away from home.

I got dumped and robbed on Saturday. Then I went to see La Chihuahua de Beverly Hills, which was dubbed in Spanish and really, quite terribly, very awful.

I drew a picture:



Here’s to here!

Saaaaaaaaandy

P.S. Everybody drinks.

tengo pocos ganas de hacer cosas

Dear Candy,

I’m sorry to keep you waiting (with breath abated, no?), but I was off helping Sarah Palin defend Alaska from Russian invaders. Thankfully, the situation now seems to be under control.

Back in Buenos Aires, I've been thinking a good deal about these deliverymen who deliver bread, who balance giant baskets of bread on their head. They’re beauty and they’re grace. I think that deep down, what they really care about is world peace, but they’re ill about this situation they’ve been put in, this situation that involves them having to balance genuinely enormous baskets of bread on their head and sometimes ride a bicycle at the same time. I think perhaps some of them don’t have any bread to eat themselves.

If elected, I will feed all the starving children without maps. I never meant to become one of these women who only ever picked up a book to balance it on her head, but. Well.

I’ve got this story I’ve been meaning to tell you. It’s a mystery about the only living descendant of Jesus. She’s a monkey. The question of her existence is causing problems for some people.

You know, I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I’ve decided the root of our problems lies in opposable thumbs. I am opposed to opposable thumbs. Life would be a whole lot funnier if we all went around trying to pick things up with our paws. And less violent—imagine trying to hold a gun with your paw. Or a machete. Yes, if you want to know where I stand, I am for world peace and opposed to opposable thumbs. Let’s party.

(I’m afraid I’m showing early symptoms of turning into a Deep Thought by Jack Handy.)

A while back, I hosted a TEFL happy hour in my new apartment, which is very much big enough to host a happy hour and has parquet and wainscoting and a balcony off my bedroom. We made a little cow and fetched as many empty beer bottles as we could carry from under the sink in the kitchen and took them downstairs to the Chinese grocer, where we exchanged them for full beer bottles, and for less than 100 pesos we were able to get more than ten people quite happy. Once we were good and happy, we went to hear a funk band play at a bar in Palermo, where Juantastic and I danced all night. No one else wanted to dance, except for Shakira, who kept trying to cut in. Maybe I should have been embarrassed to be the only ones dancing, but that’s the good thing about being in a foreign country where no one will recognize you as that girl who was dancing with the old guy and his dog.

I brought this pair of black flats down here with me and was wearing them everywhere until there was a hole in the sole of the right one. My first reaction was to wonder if I walk lopsidedly, or if my right leg is longer than my left leg. My second reaction was to buy a new pair of black flats. Up until this point, I had been walking nearly everywhere, fearful of the labyrinthine collectivo (bus) system and indignant towards the less-than-convenient Subte (though a fan of the light blue A line, with its old cars and doors that must be opened manually; it’s fun to watch an over-eager businessman type passenger—preferably in a suit or a V-neck sweater over an oxford shirt because to me it is preferable that all men wear those—open the door before the train has come to a complete stop and fall on his face. It is even more fun to step over him).

Well, I got these new shoes that caused these truly titanic blisters to form on the back of my heels, and I was forced to either spend all my money buying all of the bandaids in South America or learn how to take the bus (90 centavos per ride). I bought a “Guia T.”



First, you look up your departure address in the index in the front. This will direct you to a map and coordinates. The coordinates on the map correspond with bus lines that stop at those coordinates. These are listed on the page opposite the map. Note the bus numbers for your departure coordinates. Next, look up your arrival address in the index in the front and find the coordinates and corresponding bus lines for your arrival address. If any of the bus lines are the same, you can take them from your departure address to your arrival address (if not, then you become frustrated). Next, turn to the back of the Guia T, where you will find a list of bus lines with the streets that they stop on. Find the appropriate street within your coordinates and go there. Walk up and down it until you find the bus stop. I know it sounds complicated, and it is. But often you will find lines that pick you up within five blocks of your departure address and drop you off within five blocks of your arrival address. Lots of page turning and very little walking.

I suppose now would be an appropriate time to mention that the food here comes in three varieties: dulce de leche (which I won’t deny sometimes eating straight from the tub with a big spoon), fried meat, and ham and cheese croissant. Now, while this diet may have been the direct cause of the heart attack I had yesterday, its visible* (*important) effects had been kept to a minimum with all the walking, which, in case you forgot, had been vastly reduced due to titanic blisters, which I got because I did too much walking in the old shoes and had to buy new shoes. In other words, if I hadn’t been doing so much goddamn walking, I would still be able to be doing a lot of walking. But, well. The logical solution: eat better. My solution: ignore the nagging, self-diagnosed stress fracture in my left foot (which is somehow more tolerable than the blisters and perhaps also related to the same lopsided walking that caused a hole to form in my right shoe? The interconnectedness of things astounds me)—I took up running laps around the Plaza del Congreso, which is a block from my apartment.

Now, it’s not unfair to say that the Plaza del Congreso is not the nicest plaza in BA. Nearly all the buses pass through it, billowing plumes of black smoke in their wake. It is also heavily trafficked by what Anna calls the Buenos Aires “crotch rockets,” which are definitively NOT motorcycles, but rather screeching-demon-from-Hell excuses for vehicles. They are completely tiny and absolutely deafening. They are the Napoleon Complex of the transportation psyche.

But it’s a block from my apartment and people go there with their dogs, which I like, so I go. I am especially fond of one woman who walks her large husky while carrying her small husky puppy. One day as I ran past, the large husky tried to jump on me, which I thought was cute and made me smile. But this woman, who was yanked off balance and almost dropped her small husky puppy, did not seem to find it as adorable. I’m pretty sure she snarled at me.

Like any rightful plaza, my plaza is filled with pigeons (palomas). These porteno pigeons are entirely unafraid of people, who tend to let them swarm all over them like zombies while their children feed them the corn that they get from the vendors with signs that say "maiz para las palomas." Now, if people want to be covered in flying rats, that’s their prerogative, right? Well, it gets personal when these groups of pigeons refuse to scatter and fly out of the way as I approach them. Instead, they attempt to outrun me. This is not only annoying, but also just doesn’t work. Though I hate them, I can’t bring myself to step on them or kick them. So I’ve developed this wild arm-flailing “shoo!” motion that seems to do the trick, mas o menos. Anyway, I really hate these pigeons and I blame inflation for people resorting to this relatively inexpensive pastime. Bueno. To recap: pigeons are gross. They’re like rats with wings. Truly terrifying.

I have a new guitar teacher. His name is Juan. I met him through couchsurfing.com, and one night I dragged Anna out to meet him and his friends Bruno and Emilio. We sat around until 4 a.m. drinking Fernet and Coke and playing guitars (I can still only play “Me and Bobby McGee” and the lead-in to “Redemption Song”). When Juan asked us what we’d done in BA so far, we told him about some of the bars we’d gone to (Teatro, La Cigale—where on a Tuesday night you can go and be sure to get groped by up to several French men).
“I don’t remember the names of most of the places,” I said. “For example, the other night we went to hear this cool funk band play somewhere in Palermo.”
“Where in Palermo?” he said.
“I’m not sure… close to Teatro?”
“Was there a tuba player?”
“Hmm… I think so.”
“Did he have kind of big hair?”
“Yes, yes, I think that’s him. Do you know the band?”
“You were dancing with a sort of old man with a dog, no?”
“Oh my god.”
“I remember you. You were famous that night.”
And that’s the story of how I learned it’s never safe to be the only ones dancing.

Juan’s middle name is Ignacio. Juani’s middle name is Ignacio. One of my students showed me pictures of her two sons: “This one is Juan Martin,” she said. “And this one is Juan Ignacio.” She has two sons named Juan. “I have two sons named Juan,” she said. I’m beginning to feel like whatsherface in Goodfellas, when she notes that all the men are named Paul or Pauly. If only Ray Liotta were here...

Un beso,
Sandy

9/2 Skype call notes

1. Airplanes

• ~18 hours each way. budget 1 day for travel in each direction
• fly airmexicana; look on travelocity or orbitz for tickets

2. Sandy will need to make a shopping list for Candy, to include sexy grandma shoes, unless the return policy is less than duration of trip.

3. Next steps Argentina

1. Set a date for Candy to get plane tickets: October 21st.
2. Candy talks to her boss about taking off February 16th-27th, (traveling February 14th-29th), sometime this week but not tomorrow.
3. By September 19th, we each have an annotated list of 3 places we want to go. Guidelines:

- Length: between .5-1 pages.
- Activities should take place between the 15th and the 28th.
- A rainforest must be included. Rafting is preferable.
- Tentative itinerary: 1-2 days in Buenes Aires, a few days each going to a different place in Argentina/Chile/Peru, and almost a whole week in Brazil at the beach, in Rio, at Carnival, and 1-2 days in Buenes Aires at the end.
- There will be NO collaboration with each other on this project and all research must be kept confidential until the 19th.

4. Candy should not watch City of God.

5. Juantastic is Sandy's real friend, Juanathon is Sandy's imaginary friend.

6. Juan Ignacio is a popular name for people Sandy knows.

7. Candy should not blog when drunk and should think about editing her posts after writing them.

8. Sandy can sing like Tom Waits.

9. Weekly skype calls are encouraged. (Candy is home by 10 EST/11 Argentina time on Wednesdays, 9 EST/10 Argentina time on Tuesdays, a miserable wench on Mondays, and sometimes allowed to have fun on Thursdays. Wednesday and Tuesday are the best nights for me).

10. Candy loves Sandy!

Damelo! (Give it to me!)

Dear Candy,

It’s been a while since I wrote. Disculpame. All these things keep happening and I keep thinking, “I need to tell Candy about this!” and then I keep not telling you about them and now they’ve piled up into this huge pile and I don’t know where to begin. So, themes:

{Theme: The name Juan.}

I haven’t seen much of Juan or Juani lately, but I have been spending quite a bit of time with my new dear friend Juantastic. One of the volunteer students from the TEFL course (a component of the class was practice teaching sessions), Juantastic (referred to as such because when I saved his phone number in my phone, I had too many Juans—other people liked it, and it’s stuck) is a 58-year-old filmmaker of sorts (for unknown reasons he sometimes introduces himself as Tati, after the French comedic filmmaker Jacques Tati, which contributed to the formation of “Juantastic”), has lived all over the world (but currently with his mother in BA), and speaks bits and pieces of many languages, all at the same time. This makes him almost as hard to understand in English as in Spanish. Presumably, he is Argentine, though vaguely black and, depending on the day, he will tell you he is “from” Zaire, Brazil, Paraguay, France, or Switzerland. His stories include, but are certainly not limited to: the time he proposed marriage to Princess Diana at a nightclub in Italy, his close friendship with Charlie Chaplin or one of his wives, and where he got his black-and-white-checkered flannel shirt (“chemise,” he says) that is identical to my black-and-white-checkered flannel shirt and why he failed to wear it on the day we designated as our twin day. When questioned on the trueness of Juantastic’s tales, K assured us that bits and pieces of all of them (but all of none of them) are true.

Juantastic has a car, which he refers to interchangeably as “The Porsche” or “The Ferrari.” The rear passenger side door doesn’t open, and the front passenger side door must be opened from the inside because the outside has no handle. The backseat slides around, and there is a constant and overwhelming reek of fume. I didn’t check, but I believe there is also a hole in the floor in front of the driver’s seat through which Juan sticks his feet and runs to make the car move. One evening after class, a few of us TEFLers decided to journey to K’s house in the “suburbs” (think the Bronx, not Westchester) for some wine, Tango, and pizza. “It is good thing I bring the Ferrari today,” Juantastic said, as K, Raymi, and Anna positioned themselves on the oscillating backseat and I climbed into the front with Juantastic’s Bernese Mountain Dog, Shakira. Riding in a car with Juantastic is never not an adventure. As a general rule, he doesn’t recognize red lights or one-way signs, and on the return trip from K’s, he all but came to a complete stop in the middle of a busy street, so that we could observe the policemen beating some (apparent) drug dealers on the sidewalk.


{Theme: Places that used to be theaters and are now other things.}

A while back, Juan (the younger) took me to the bookstore El Ateneo, which used to be the theater The Grand Splendid. It is grand and splendid and everything that literature and theater ought to be (Juan used the word “classic”). It has billowing crimson curtains and a soaring ceiling painted with angels and things that fly, and you can curl up with a potential purchase in a box seat. Juan and I sipped espressos while a tuxedoed man played the piano in the café that was once the stage where such Tango legends as Carlos Gardel performed. Reciting Spanish sentences amidst all this splendor and grandness, I felt a bit like I was acting a part myself.

There is a club/bar here on the outskirts of Palermo that also used to be a theater, aptly named Teatro, where I attended an “underground,” or “indie” (read: hipster) fiesta called Bubumara, at which I was introduced to a local band that made me think of both the Moldy Peaches and Gwar, though less for their sound than for their use of costumes: a keyboard-playing marionette (he wore a giant hand hat with strings that connected to his wrists), a guitar-or-bass-playing piece of popcorn, a flute and horn section (as I recall, they were shiny and striped and possibly resembled bumblebees), a man-sized iron (as in, with which to de-wrinkle clothes), and a singing/electric-banjo-playing pirate. I think there was also an accordion (if not, I wanted there to have been one—Boobie Circus, too, needs an accordion, in my opinion). I turned to Nacho, the cute history and economics student from La Plata (a city about an hour away from BA), who was standing next to me and whose name makes me think of chips and who taught me that popcorn is “pochoclo,” and with whom I later discussed French New Wave in Spanish (barely, but how proud are you of me!).

“Uh, disculpame… Conoces… Como se llama esta banda?” I said. “La Manzana Cromatica Protoplasmatica,” he said, and I said “Queeeee?” and he laughed and wrote it down for me on the back of an old Subte card. Supposedly, their lyrics are funny. Due to my current knowledge of the Spanish language (or lack thereof), I am unable to confirm or deny this claim at this time. I can, however, verify the existence of a song called “El Payaso Existencial” (“The Existential Clown”). Likewise, I can safely say that I am a fanatico of the song “Elastico.” En mi opinion, es fantastico. La Manzana Cromatica Protoplasmatica can and should be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGNXk9FiN_E&feature=related.

Next up: the grocery store that used to be a theater. I bought some frozen broccoli.

{Theme: Bands that wear funny costumes.}

My new fashion designer friend, Raffaello, took me to see his friends’ band play the other night. The band is called Anetol Delmonte, and the show was “arbol aqui arbol alla” (tree here tree there). The band members had large tree hats, which are exactly what they sound like. They also had a dancing tree, which was really a dancing person dressed like a tree. What was stranger was the somewhat formal setting of this “recital,” which was café-esque, with tables spaced evenly apart in rows facing a stage. We sat, sharing a nice bottle of red wine (I would expect this type of music to be enjoyed while standing and drinking cheap beer, possibly out of a Styrofoam or red Solo cup). What I believe is Anetol Delmonte’s cover of a Sumo song can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTRS0w_Vq9E&feature=related.

{Theme: Nachos (short for Ignacios and unrelated to ground beef, guacamole, or sour cream).}

An accidental peep show the other night turned into my befriending my across-the-street vecino (neighbor), Nacho the kinesiologist. It went like this: Anna and me settling down to watch Lara Croft, Tomb Raider (I’d like to say it was dubbed in Spanish, but that would be a lie). Me saying, “Che, that guy across the street is taking off his shirt.” Us watching. Him noticing. Him waving. Us waving. Later, Anna going home and him writing his gmail on a piece of paper and holding it up in the window and me not being able to read it due to lighting. Me going out on my balcony to tell him I couldn’t read it due to lighting and him opening his window to tell me to meet him downstairs. Me meeting him downstairs. Him handing me the piece of paper with his gmail written on it. Us returning to our respective apartments and gchatting. He doesn’t speak any English, which makes him, conveniently, my target audience for Spanish practice. With his kinesiological expertise and assistance, I’ve increased my Spanish body part vocabulary: espalda (back—also, his professional specialty), piernas (legs), cuello (neck), hombros (shoulders), tobillos (ankles), rodillas (knees), caderas (hips), pantorillas (calfs), rostro (face), pechos (breasts), pezon (nipple), cola (butt), cuerpo (body), exhibicionista (exhibitionist).

{Theme: I miss you!}

Lots and lots and lots of love,
Sandy

How funny that I was coming home to write about languages and saw that you beat me to it!

I had a very humorous exchange this evening at dinner with my dad, my stepmom, and her mother in SoHo. We're eating a variety of fish and discussing Solzhenitsyn when the women at the table next to us interrupt me:

"Excuse me, would you like a martini? [flattery followed. I can't repeat it here without embarrassing myself] You look like you drink martinis."

"Hi, ok, thanks!"

"Can we take a picture with you and your family?"

"...OK."

"Wow, you're American?"

"Yes, I live in New York."

"That's so great that your dad and your mother are here to visit you!" [note: they were referring to my stepmom's mother, and couldn't quite figure out where my stepmom came into this picture]

"They live in Brooklyn, too."

I took a photo with them, they took a photo of me and my family, and they continued to flatter me while I wanted to continue discussing Solzhenitsyn's critique of Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, but such is life. It shocked me that they were so surprised to hear that I spoke fluent English. I suppose it makes sense since to that point, they had heard me speak another language (and therefore assumed I only spoke that one?), which was quite shocking to me as I usually speak 2-6 languages a week (last week involved English, Russian with the family, Spanish in the blog, Sanskrit at yoga, Japanese at Kaoru's taiko class, and I usually toss around some French even when not in the midst of a full-fledged French film series).

Having spoken 2 languages since I was 5, I find the idea of speaking only one language so foreign that I had to think for a minute about why they thought I wasn't American (Is it my wrap dress? My sexy grandma shoes? My bangs? My wine? Oh, wait, maybe it's because I'm speaking another language).

Interestingly enough, they started talking about family values and about how "dads rock" and I didn't have the heart to tell them that I come from a "broken home," and that the woman they referred to as my mother was my step-grandmother.

*****

Well, that was all I was going to write, but I also read what you wrote and feel compelled to add my thoughts on this chicken coming before the egg. Most people find it quite amusing that I have a band before I can play an instrument, but I need to be able to see the big picture before I can focus on the smaller details (in this case, learning to play an instrument). So it's pretty safe to say that I would not be learning to play an instrument if it were not for Boobie Circus. By the by, I've drafted someone to play ukelele for our cover of "Judy is a Punk." Soon enough I can start scoping out a place for us to have our first rehearsal.

*****

What did I tell you about Flight of the Conchords and beer????

*****

Hey, about our meeting in February: let's plan it! Dates and airports should come first, followed by Carnival plans. Si?

P.S.

I love the lyrics! Especially, "Brunch, you're my favorite, you kick dinner's ass!" I miss brunch. They do not believe in brunch in Argentina.

The blue and red footed boobies are pretty perfect. Somehow we should incorporate the phrase "Boobies on Parade" into an album or song title, I think. "Boobies on Parade" could be a good follow-up album to our debut self-titled album.