Settling into the couch with a glass of wine and a spread of crackers and brie cheese makes me feel refined. Elegant, even. The sensation is fleeting, however, as I realize that refined, elegant young ladies probably do not inhale the entire wedge in one sitting and, even if they did, probably would not do so while watching a blood-and-sex-laden episode of True Blood.
In case you were wondering, yes they DO play YMCA, the Grease remix and Mamma Mia at Spanish weddings... haha!
Every single day on my way to work I make a pit stop in the same shady convenience store and buy exactly two peaches. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now I've always liked peaches, along with the rest of the fruit gang, but I've never by any means been obsessed with man's favorite fuzzy fruit. If they're there, great... if not, I'll happily find something else to eat. Like a donut. BUT, these aren't just any old peaches. These peaches are seriously the biggest, juiciest, most delicious peaches ever. This is going to sound rather revolting, but I would say they are approximately the size of a human brain. I know that's gross, because honestly, who wants to think about sinking their teeth into a big juicy brain as they take a bite of their steroid-fed peach. Ew. But seriously. Size-wise, it's the most comparable thing I can think of.
Moving along, this leads me to the second part of the story. There is absolutely no way to graciously eat these monster peaches in a quiet place - let's say the workplace, where I do indeed eat them every day - without calling to mind a pubescent make out session. You go about cocking your head one way and then the other, trying to decide on the approach, and when you finally "go for it", it's just a symphony of slurping and you can't help but bashfully look around from embarrassment. I feel like I should roll my eyes and tell myself to get a room.
In other news, Joanne and I made cupcakes... because honestly, what else would we be doing on a Saturday night in Europe's nightlife capital?
After seeing commercials on tv for several weeks, I pestered Alfonso so much with my not-so- implicit pleas that he finally gave in and took me to see the Red Bull X-fighters... a big freestyle motocross competition being held at the bullring. Alternate name: Hickfest 2008.
I loved it. No, better yet, I straight-up Celine Dion LURVED it. What can I say... like my stepsister told me, "Bets, you're so freakin' random."
Additionally, I like to approach the show as a type of cross-cultural sociological study... in that I think it's the Spanish counterpart of America's NASCAR culture. Let's just say that Madrid's entire population of white trash and juvenile delinquents was packed in the city's bullring that night. Oh, and then me with my obnoxiously cute Vera Bradley bag and Alfonso in his Lacoste polo. Needless to say, we fit right in with the locals... in that Alfonso refused to take out his cellphone for fear of it being stolen.
We were in the nosebleed seats which, while offering great bird's-eye views of the flips and twists, was teeming with impressively pruned mullets, far too many camel toes, horrifying bodily odors, massive tattoos and shirtless guys spitting sunflower seeds and flicking cancer-stick ashes into the hair of whoever happened to be sitting in front of them. Classy folks.
Anywho, here's some visual entertainment I took...
1) If you reside in an apartment in the middle of a city - let's say, for all intents and purposes, Madrid - and you're in the market for a puppy, why in the name of jeebus would you get a Saint Bernard? I mean, I love the movie Beethoven and all, but a) once full-grown the poor thing doesn't FIT in an apartment, and b) you can't just bring out a little plastic baggie to pick up its bid'ness in the street... you need to rope off the area and go at it with a snow shovel and a heavy duty (get it? duty? doody?) garbage bag.
2) The mid-summer temperature at 9-930am in in Madrid is PERFECT. Seriously. Betsey weather times infinity. Plus one.
3) It has got to suck big fat balls to be pregnant in the summer... and I don't mean "we just found out and we're so excited for this most glorious gift" pregnant. I'm talkin' "ready to pop, waddling down the street with a fully developed human being in you" pregnant. Did I mentioned summer in Madrid hovers around a refreshing 95 degrees? I mean, I practically overheat as it is when I have to deal with an additional bag with my sneakers and gym clothes in it, let alone having to haul Junior around non-stop.
This past weekend, we (Joanne, Joanne's brother, Joanne's brother's friend and yours truly) boarded a train to sunny Valencia, home of the best orange juice EVER, for two action-packed days of feasting on paella, seeing fishies at the aquarium and sizzling at the beach like weenies on the grill.
We ate our breakfasts - coffee, OJ and toast - outside at sidewalk cafés, embracing those summer morning hours before the real heat sets in. We wore shorts and flip-flops, took pictures and didn't think about work. We spent 4 hours at the aquarium gushing over penguins, belugas and tropical fish... and oh yes, I had tears in my eyes at the dolphin show (don't judge, it's emotional!). At the interactive science museum, we saw baby chicks hatch and ooh-ed and ahh-ed our way through various exhibits, one of which was all about the woman. Try being with two 18-year old boys in a giant moon bounce meant to be a uterus and then through a laser tunnel of traveling sperm. We took long, leisurely strolls around the city, pausing from time to time to relax in the shade for a snack or a cool drink. We topped it all off with a day at the beach, spent sunning, swimming and nibbling on ice cream sandwiches.
It was lurvely. I love vacations... even two-day ones.
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Vacation Anecdote:
Joanne, having been inspired by her roommate's raving reviews, decided to invest four of her well-earned euros in a tube of cream that is essentially meant to tighten up the skin in your - cough, cough - "trouble" areas. So, intrigued both by the supposed results and by the advertised "Cooling Effect", I decided to give it a go. I shrugged off the fact that it smelled like Halls cough drops.
Fast forward to 5 minutes later when I'm hopping around the hotel room in my underwear, trying to wipe off the cream with a towel while simultaneously blowing on myself with a hairdryer. Why? Well let's just put it this way: if by "Cooling Effect" they meant "Liquid Nitrogen that may or may not freeze-burn two layers of your skin off" well then bravo! They were spot on.
From homemade grilled cheeses to gourmet veggie wraps, I love sandwiches like a fat kid loves cake.
I probably should have sprung for a different metaphor, because now that I look at that, I guess that makes me a fat - or, as my grandmother called me during my shman years, "husky" - kid that loves sandwiches AND cake. What can I say... I'm just another carb-lovin' American.
Okay but seriously. Along with fireworks, puppies and batting cages, there are few things that please me more than a well constructed sandwich. Just ask my coworkers at the restaurant I used to work at. In the three years that I worked there, I ordered the same exact sandwich every single day for my free lunch: a #5 (chicken salad) on wheat, side of french fries and a pickle. Seriously, how mouth-watering does this sound (taken from the website menu): Grilled Chicken Salad Muenster cheese, Romaine lettuce, beefsteak tomatoes & fresh tarragon mayonnaise ...$7.25.
Drool.
So, as I try to ward off the rumbly in my tumbly, three cheers for open-faced tuna melts, falafels and chicken wraps. Warm paninis, pb&j's and ice cream sandwiches. Subs, hoagies and grinders. Chicken clubs, grilled cheeses and blt's. Egg mcmuffins, cheeseburgers and pitas. Gyros, shawarmas and kebabs... and all the rest.
Susan read this lil blog entry from jezebel and subsequently sent it to me, after which we both agreed that domestic goddesses we are not. In fact, we should probably come with a disclaimer.
Here's the original 1939 marital ranking scale for wives: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/13/1939-marital-rating.html
And here's the blogger's score and commentary. It's pretty fantastic:
http://jezebel.
... is when he unwittingly goes out in public like this:
During college, my friend Todd would habitually send us all short stories that he wrote as a way to both procrastinate and foment his creativity. Not only was he a procrastinator himself, but he was also a world class enabler who provided all of us with just what we were desperate for: a reason to put off productivity for as long as humanly possible.
The Todd's Story Corner fan club (otherwise known as the recipients of his stories) grew and grew over the course of the four years we spent at our respective schools. As Todd himself describes, Todd's Story Corner was "like a secret society, but slightly funnier than the KKK and with more of a "can do" attitude than Heaven's Gate."
Anyways, now that he's a hot shot in LA, he's taken on the digital age by writing and directing skits. Take a look- they're pretty fantastic.
www.ToddsStoryCorner.com
So this week in Spain there's a trucker strike to protest the rising costs of fuel. Essentially, this means that the transport of goods, be they eggs, lumber or socks, has ceased until some sort of agreement is reached.
Aside from the congested highways due to hundreds of stopped trucks that are blocking the majority of the lanes and causing massive traffic jams, what's on the news most is the gas situation. Because trucks aren't transporting fuel to fill gas station reserves, gas stations are literally running out of gas. Yesterday, I think I heard that 15% of Madrid's gas stations had already run out of fuel, not to mention the gas stations throughout the rest of the country... and that was just day 1. The gas stations that still have fuel have lines of cars waiting to refill, the drivers not even knowing if there will still be gas left by the time they get their turn. Being the semi-illegal immigrant that I am and having no car to my name, I luckily don't have to worry about getting stuck in traffic or running out of gas- something at which I have proven to be exceptionally talented.
For many people, namely those who commute to work, this is most certainly a problem. I, on the other hand, can focus my worries on not getting deported- HA!
My experience with the strike involved the supermarket, where it seemed like the entire population of Madrid was stocking up for some impending nuclear event. I, like my family, have never been one to worry about running out of the essentials. Whenever there were hurricanes - which, by the way, were usually pretty wimpy - closing in on the shores of southeastern Connecticut, we'd watch flabbergasted as people we knew scrambled to the supermarket to stock their minivans with enough bottled water to fill up the pool in their backyard, enough canned foods to feed a small to medium-sized country and enough batteries to keep their flashlights lit for the next 6 to 8 electricity-less years. We'd buy a box of cereal, a carton of milk and a jug of OJ, never thinking beyond the next day's breakfast. Miraculously, we're still alive and kickin'.
Upon entering the store last night, I was naturally thrown off by the check-out lines that extended down into the aisles. Having just come out of a four - count that FOUR - hour meeting that went two hours past quittin' time and my only desire involving a couch and a tv, I was already grumbling. What really threw me off, however, was the fact that my grocery shopping venture ended being contact sport. I swear to jeebus it was like the videos of people Christmas-shopping during the Cabbage Patch and Tickle Me Elmo fads. Never in my life have I been rammed into so many times by shopping carts and elbows, seen customers climb over each other in the name of yogurt or watched as people unabashedly cut off a handicapped person's path. I think I even saw one old lady use her cane to catapult her way over a shopping cart.
Screw hurricanes and food shortages. I'm just lucky to have made it out of the supermarket alive.
Once, in a high school English class and in relation to a book we had read, we were assigned a writing exercise in which we had to conceive and describe our personal versions of Hell. Had I known then what I know now about the depths of human stupidity, I think my version would have involved constant interaction with bad grammar.
Let me explain. For certain projects at work, my boss - who has since departed thanks to what's being passed off as a "mutual decision" - would hire freelance writers. Being French, however, and no whiz at speaking/writing/listening in any language including his own, his standards for hiring freelance English writers are what I would describe as appalling at best. For example, I don't understand how people, in this case a supposedly native English-speaker from Canada, can get paid for writing like this:
Having a white Martini is common here, a glass of wine or a small beer. Accompanied by yet another little snack. Like; a few mussels, berberechos (cockle in English) or somekind of Tapa.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there IS, believe it or not, a difference between independent and dependent phrases. A semicolon does NOT have the same functions as a colon, and for the love of God, why is tapa capitalized??? Is it a country? A person? A higher power worshiped by the masses? Since when is somekind one word? Ahhh, my brain is crying.
Imagine having to revise roughly 100 pages full of this shit. This is when it crosses the line between revising and rewriting.
My job today = awesome.
One thing that never fails to baffle me is a character for whom I can't seem to come up with a catchy yet symbolic name, but whose definition would be something along the lines of the elusive, suddenly busy im-er.
A conversation with said character goes a little something like this:
Friend: hey!!!
Me (responding immediately): hey, what's up??? how's everything going?
Friend: (no response)
Me: (rolls eyes after 15 minutes, growls, exits chat box)
I can understand the occasional and unforeseen emergency that may prevent "Friend" from responding. Your IBS is acting up again and you had to sprint to the bathroom. The boss has appeared out of nowhere and is looking over your shoulder. The fire alarm has started beeping and you had to stop, drop and roll before crawling beneath the smoke to put out the fire in the kitchen. Carbon monoxide has invaded your home and you have passed out, possibly to never wake again.
I can understand it happening once in awhile; I take offense, however, at the repeat offenders. My question for you: why bother going through the hassle of clicking on my name, opening a message box and messaging me if you have no real intentions of actually maintaining a conversation involving more than just you? Are you trying to come across as popular or important? Were you hoping I wasn't there are were just saying hi as a courtesy? It's like calling someone on the phone, waiting til they pick up... and then hanging up without saying anything. Pointless!
Yo, Mama N... what the frijoles?
In times when parts of the world are being ravaged by earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, I understand that - in comparison - you're going pretty easy on me. After all, the floor has not collapsed beneath me, I don't have to paddle around town in a rowboat and the apartment roof remains firmly in place above my head. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate this greatly.
That said, and with the utmost respect, we have GOT to come to some sort of agreement here.
What's the deal with the overcast skies, constant rainfall and frigid temperatures? Are you pissed? PMS-ing? Vengeful? Depressed? Well it's time to snap out of it Eeyore. It's JUNE (well, in two days) and I'm still donning my winter attire. It's been weeks... I repeat WEEKS!... since I've seen the sun and felt its warmth upon my face. NOT ACCEPTABLE.
"June" and "hold on, let me grab my coat" are two concepts that should not, under any circumstances, go hand-in-hand. So please, pop some pills - be they Midol or Xanax - and bring that fiery yet beloved ball of gas out of hiding so I can put away my umbrella, store my sweaters and sip on cool beverages outdoors while enjoying its rays.
Mkay? Great, thanks.
So I just spent an exorbitant amount of time choosing a new font for instant messenger when I should have been - cough, cough - working. Because it's borderline embarrassing, I will not reveal how long this selection process took, so let's just settle with "too long". Why did I do this? Because I am bored out of my mind at work right now and it was the only thing within my control to change. You im-ers won't know what hit you when you meet the new and improved Bitstream Vera Sans size 10 font Betsey in a kickin' shade of... navy blue. Can you feel the energy?
So then I got to thinking (again, instead of - cough, cough - working) that, as silly as something like a font change may be, it's only natural to want to tweak the things that we can so as not to be perpetually stuck in a monotonous wake-work-eat-sleep-repeat cycle. Now don't interpret this badly... I don't at feel stuck in a mundane routine and I am FAR from bored. In fact, I'm pretty damn happy. I'm just bored at work right now and feeling a tad over-caffeinated!
Anyways, unless you're a nomadic hippie - which believe me would be appealing if not for the inevitability of b.o. and offspring with names like Rainbow and Ocean - it's natural for life to become a little less up to you and a little more up to others (government, bosses, etc.). After all, society tells us it's a sign of maturity to wake up and be a productive member of society instead of living in a perpetual college mindset of "eh, I'll skip life today because I'm hungover". Blurry flashbacks of rocking out on the air guitar to "Summer of '69" on top of a beer pong table are funny when you're 22 but, when you're a balding 45-year old with no steady job but with a steadily expanding beer gut, that same scenario loses its comical edge and lands you a spot in pathetic creepster territory.
I think this need to exert control over the little things is also why so many women end up with shorter and shorter haircuts as they get older. Sure, they'll say it's for purposes of easier maintenance given that they don't have enough time to primp their mane as much as they once did. This is, of course, valid. I, however, think it has more to do with them feeling that - between working, grocery shopping, driving the kidlets to soccer practice, paying bills, packing school lunches, walking the dog, etc. - the hair is one of those few precious things that you can do whatever the frijoles you want with and it won't complain, cry, bark or grow mold. And, since you can't grow your hair in the snap of a finger and the snip-snip of a pair of scissors, shorter is the only way to go. Once the kids have moved out and the hair can't go any shorter, it means it's time to retire, sell the house and dedicate your days to bingo and grandkids.
Where am I going with this? I have no effing clue, although now that I think about it, I think this sporadic urge to "change things up" is also at the core of why I get deliriously giddy about buying new socks.
When people ask me, in a natural response to my constant complaints about certain "aspects" at work, about why I don't aggressively look for a new place of employment, I usually don't have a legitimate response. Trust me, it's sometime in the foreseeable future, as I certainly don't plan to be here when I'm 40. Or 30, for that matter. I know I have to move out and up. After all, I WOULD at some point in my life like to get myself out of debt to the US government sometime before i hit menopause... and hey, while we're at it maybe even save a few pennies!
However, right now I'm not in a rush and I'm trying to concentrate more on the positive aspects than the negative. So, there are a few key reasons that keep me here.
1) I'm in it partially for the papers, and a dim light is slowly coming into focus at the end of the tunnel otherwise known as Spanish bureaucracy.
2) Relaxed atmosphere. We take 1/2-hour coffee breaks. We drink too much wine at lunch on "social Fridays". We can just about go to work in our pj's if it strikes our fancy, and nobody will care. In fact, if someone were to show up wearing what others in the workforce know to be "work attire", we'd either laugh or assume he/she has an interview.
3) When it comes down to it, I DO like what I do. Sure there are a lot boring parts, but I write, I translate, I plan entire websites, I pretend I'm an internet guru and learn more each day about html and SEO. Nerdy, yes... but if my career path shapes up to be the path I think I'm starting out on, all of this stuff helps beef up my resume.
4 and most important) I have fantastic coworkers. While there's a constant flow of people coming and going, we somehow always have a great group of people. We laugh non-stop. We get drinks after work every Friday. We have inside jokes. We spend more time with each other during the week than we do with our significant others, and yet we still voluntarily choose to hang out with each other after work and on weekends.
Being from abroad, it's hard to form your own group of friends. Our childhood and college friends don't live in this city, in this country and, in many cases, even on this continent. There's no circumstance that forces you into befriending your dorm roommate, the strangers down the hall or the people sitting next to you in philosophy class. Instead, the tendency for us outsiders is to try to infiltrate the group of friends of some "link", whether it's a classmate, a roommate or a significant other.
At work we're from all around the world - USA, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Italy... - and yet here we are, each with their own reasons, in Madrid. Luckily for us, we're not just coworkers but we're legitimate friends beyond the workplace... and that's pretty special thing to leave behind.
