SCARE

I got the scare of the year yesterday.

My husband usually picks me up from work, but he is also what we could call " congenitally retarded". Not as in dumb, I mean he is late for everything. Eeeeeeverything.

He goes out of work 4 hours before I do. So he goes home and falls asleep. I end up stranded. I have begged rides from almost everyone at work.

So, the other day he is not there to pick me up. He is not taking his phone. I figure, he's asleep and beg a ride.

When we are a few streets from home, I receive a call from my Father-in-Law. He and my husband work at the same place, in the same department, in different buildings but both buildings are facing each other. They cannot sneeze without the other learning all about it. " Hey, your son just sneezed. Is he ok?"
Anyways, so he calls me and asks me : " Hey Kiki, how is Carlos doing?"
"Sleeping, I think. I'm not home yet. What do you mean?"

He proceeds to tell me of how Carlos felt a sharp pain in his chest at around 10am, the paramedics were called, they took his pressure and vitals, and they rushed him to the hospital where they were checking his heart. That is the last thing he knows.

I promise to call him as soon as I get home.

My co-worker leaves me a few streets from home, and that has been the weirdest walk in my life. It was the slowest and the fastest one. It felt slow 'cause I need to get there NOW, and it is all I can do not to run like the dickens. It felt fast 'cause I saw nothing, I walked completely immersed in my head, did not experience the road.

I get home. His car is there so they let him go from the hospital and he must be allright. Right?

So why is my hand shaking?

He was sleeping.

Turns out the pain in his chest was muscular, caused by stress. They made a whole battery of tests and he was perfectly healthy. But they gave him a shot of muscle relaxant and that made him sleepy. He forgot to call me. Sorry.

But he had called his father and told him he was alright. He just omitted that part from his report. Arghhhh!

And then Carlos asks me, with a smug look on his face, enjoying this already : "Were you worried?"

"No way. I spent the walk home thinking how much money I could get by selling your stuff. I get home full of hopes and you have the bad manners to be alive! What a spoilsport!"

Kiki-chan in Mirror Land

I am putting here a post by Crystal, mirroring it, because it seems she might need a little help if a rich man decides he wants to punish her for what she wrote in her blog.
I do not know the guy. He is a country singer and the nearest I have ever been to the genre is Dolly Parton in Nine to five.
But a bully is recognizabe anywhere in the world. They speak the international language of "my stick is bigger than yours".

Crystal, I just started to blog this month. I have no readers as yet. But I guess I can contribute to the cause a little exposure to the two or three lost souls that stumble into these parts of the woods.

The Completely True Brad Paisley Story and Other Things I've Meant To Post

I had this long, drawn out explanation going and then I read it and realized that I can sum it up in one sentence: I was a shit when I was a kid. I was my mom and dad's only child and their kids from previous marriages probably ended up getting the short end of the proverbial stick for that reason. That's not to say my childhood was a Disney movie, but I wasn't torn between two parents who lived on opposite ends of the state and stuck with a snotshit sister (that would be me) who was so lonely that she did everything short of set herself on fire to get attention. And I'm sure I considered it.

My sister, Leslie, is my dad's daughter from his first marriage. She had been the baby until he and her mom got divorced. They basically despised each other and then all of a sudden, a short time later, I arrived. On the infrequent occasions when I remember her coming to visit, my Dad had a hard time with the guilt that most weekend parents feel, she had a hard time communicating with him (and in all fairness, everyone did) and I was in the middle, jumping around like a monkey on meth. When we moved overseas, I got letters from her every once in a while and she tried really hard to keep in touch. Then as she grew older and her life moved on, the letters stopped. I don't think I was very good at answering them (sent me an email last year? I'll write back! Sure, I will!) and before I knew it, it had been almost twenty years since I had seen her.

My other sister, Lucy, had stayed in the U.S. when we moved to Kuwait and, since she was eight years older than me, by the time we came home, she was married and had a child. But since my dad was still with her mom, she was kind of stuck with me.

Needless to say, I missed having a sister. Between the age gaps, the distance and the emotional turmoil of being the daughters of different women we each fiercely loved and a father who had loved them both, Leslie and I didn't really have a great chance. I wondered about her often and I was saddened that I had never met my nieces and nephews.

One day after I moved, I came across an old address book I had been carrying around since I was a teenager. I had a number for Leslie from years before when my Mom had kept up with those kinds of things. On a whim, I called it and was surprised when my sister answered. We somehow fumbled our way through that first conversation and a little while later, I drove down to her farm in Franklin and found out, much to my surprise, that there is another woman out there just like me. She introduced me to her pot-bellied pigs, Donny and Marie and fainting goats and Bacardi 151 and homemade hangover remedies and I was in awe of how much I loved her (I also found out on a later trip that when rocks get hot enough, they make a sound much like a gun being fired. I have been in Memphis for too long because the first time I heard one, I hit the ground like Tupac). She had, like, eight kids at the time and was thin and blonde and beautiful and I STILL loved her.

There is a point to all of this. Hang in there.

Leslie is married to this great guy, Chad, who wants to have about a dozen more kids, much to the horror of her uterus. Together with his parents, they have/had a non-profit organization called U-Grow that targeted troubled kids in really unfortunate and sometimes awful situations. Chad is always working. Always. They had a petting zoo, a bunch of wonderful service Labs, climbing walls and all sorts of things that made their farm a fun, warm and active learning environment for these kids that sometimes didn't have anyone else who really gave a shit about them. They opened their home and some of the children grew up with them as a family. They cared, they worked their asses off, they didn't live for themselves and they inspired me to be a better parent.

Not long after I reconnected with Leslie, her Mom was diagnosed with bladder cancer after being told for months that there was nothing wrong with her. Sheila died in pain after the cancer spread, so quickly, and Leslie nursed her and cared for her until she finally passed away a short time later. Leslie was thirty-six and had a brand new baby. I wasn't the most comforting person during that time. I didn't know what to say and, "I'm sorry", seemed small and useless in the face of what she was enduring. I have always felt guilty for being the daughter that lived with our Dad and my sister was suffering and basically feeling like she had been orphaned. She moved on through it, rarely did I hear her cry or let on that she was in pain and she continued to be a fantastic mom even though I'm sure she wanted to curl up and sleep for months.

On the heels of that, the farm they rented was purchased by Brad Paisley. Franklin is a mecca of sorts for country singers because it neighbors Nashville and the hills and sprawling countryside are breathtaking. It's home to Tim McGraw & Faith Hill, Alan Jackson, Leann Rimes, just to name a few. For many reasons, the real estate pricing is astronomical and purchasing just wasn't an option for my sister and her husband. The farm they had lived on for almost a decade was a perfect compromise and even though the house was a hundred years old, it suited them. Leslie and Chad met Brad and his wife, the actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley and were relieved to find out that the huge piece of land they were buying wasn't out of interest in the old farm house. They wanted to build a house on the back side of the massive acreage and my sister and her husband were assured that they could continue to rent without any foreseeable problems. Basically, they would be living so far back from the farm house that it was as though they were living on another property. No problem, right?

Wrong.

Before Christmas, Brad Paisley's asshole manager came down (couldn't quite do the deed yourself, eh, Brad?) and informed my sister and her family that they had some ridiculously short time to be out of the house. Ten years of accumulating equipment for the non-profit foundation, climbing walls, a petting zoo complete with horses, pigs, chickens, goats, etc., several vehicles that had been donated and a giant barn full of stuff, but, hey, get the hell out! When my brother-in-law asked, in horror, "Hey man, haven't you ever heard the saying, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'?" the asshole manager replied, "Haven't you ever heard the saying, 'He who has the the most gold makes the rules'?"

In desperation, the organization asked for a donation from the Paisley's to help cover the massive cost of moving and were met with silence. In a nutshell, Brad Paisley and his lovely wife single-handedly buried the non-profit organization. My sister and her husband were frantically searching for new homes for the animals and trying to find a way to save what they had built over the years. The animals were given away to various places because there was nowhere for them to go and the kids who depended on the happiness they found at that farm were faced with yet another disappointment in a lifetime full of them. Kim Paisley was on Oprah or some such thing a few weeks later harping about her involvement with Purina's charity and how she lovvvves dogs and WHATEVER, ALL THOSE ANIMALS AND KIDS SHIT ON.

U-Grow survived in name only and my sister never complained. She laughed about most of the ridiculousness that is the Paisley's and never got ugly or hateful. She moved on.

A couple of months ago, Chad lost the business he had been building while trying to keep U-Grow afloat. Les has been a devoted stay-at-home mom since her kids were little and now they are trying to keep food in their house as they suffer, again, for being nothing but great people in shitty circumstances. My niece is graduating and doing so without all the frills of a girl graduating high school. No senior pictures, no graduation invitations. My nephew had his sixteenth birthday yesterday and my sister called me and was heartbroken that it was going by without a present. The other three kids are young enough that they're still mostly oblivious to the danger around them. And at the pinnacle of my shitty sister career, Leslie turned 40 on Sunday AND I FORGOT. I didn't call her, I didn't send a card. Nothing. My dad forgot, WE FORGOT. I cannot believe how much of a dickweed I am.

And she started her period.

AND WE FORGOT.

Leslie, I know you don't read my blog on a regular basis, but I'm making you read through this novella. I want you to know how much I love and respect you and that as corny and Hallmark-y as it sounds, you're my best friend. I wish to God I could make all of this better for you, somehow, and I want you to also know that if I had a million dollars, I would give you at least a hundred thousand. (Because I have to help Mom retire and Dad's medical bills and college fund for the kids, that's not included in the hundred thou I'd give you, that's separate and I would want to give money to different charities and U-Grow, get that started back and if I said I'd give you the whole thing you'd laugh and say, "No you wouldn't. Liar.", and we both know I would blow that shit on about a hundred things that have everything to do with paying it forward and how much of a sap I am and we don't bullshit each other like that, am I right?)

I hope this makes you smile.

LOSER SISTER OF THE YEAR AWARD, 4 YEARS RUNNING!

(and that's Sharpie. Permanent. And I have to go to Wal-Mart. And I didn't fix my makeup or pluck my brows or anything for this picture. I'm shamed into showing everyone how crappy I look)

EDITED TO ADD: I almost forgot to mention the most incredible part...they were told they had to move because the house was being torn down so that Brad could build a bus barn for all his tour buses. As of right now, the house is still standing.

Here are the links to move this around the internet so that as many people as possible know what jackass's the Paisley's are:

Reddit

Digg

Kirtsy

Posted by Crystal at Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Political doom and gloom (is there any other kind?)

I am not smart enough to get all this economic stuff that’s on the news lately.

But it looks bad.

I see people in the net bemoaning the current rate of inflation, and how much it is about to raise.

And I think, in Puerto Rico we are screwed. You have no idea...

Our inflationary rates have always been way, way above the USA.

Same with the unemployment rates. Ours was 12% in January 2009.
The same date in the USofA, it was 7.6%. Topped off in April 2009 at 8.9%


And it is going to get worse.

The governor of Puerto Rico, Luis “Milhouse” Fortuño is planning on massive layoffs to prevent the collapse of our economy. Turns out the government is grossly overstuffed with employees that paid for their jobs with votes. Decades, possibly centuries of paying for political favors with confy government jobs. We call them "batatas politicas", political yams because you bury them in the ground and let them just grow there. No more effort necesary.

Anyways. We can’t pay for all of them, says Luis. So out they go.

This is the idiot.
Except I doubt the political yams are the ones that should be worried.
Noooo.

Living as I have lived in Puerto Rico all my life, I would wager the political nobodies would go first. You know, the ones that refuse to say or craftily avoid a direct answer when asked for their affiliation. They can't cry Discrimination, can they? But they are not that many, so out will go the guy with the PIP decal on the car, the lady with the pava earrings.

You know how it is in unions, right? When there has to be layoffs, seniority is all that matters. They could spend the day drinking beer and playing dominoes, but they have spent so many years with us that they have to stay.

Something similar. Our political critters will find a way to save their constituents, whether or not they are qualified, interested, or actually bothers to show up at the office.

The unemployment rate is going to spike quite sharply this year.

Which means there will be less revenue from sales and such…

Which means next year around he might feel forced to repeat the performance.

Way to go, Luis!

Agüeybaná

Agüeybaná was our old warrior king.

He fought to keep the Spaniards from taking this land, his land. Legend has it that he died early in battle from a bullet aimed at the gold guanín he wore on his chest as a status symbol. He died a failure, brought down by the very symbol of his heathen ways, his deification and impersonation of the Sun.

Legend has been enshrined in history books. It makes a powerful image.

Truth rarely does.

Agüeybaná was a family name. It belonged to the ruling family only. Personal names were something else altogether. They were mutable, temporary only.

The Tainos had a custom of exchanging names to cement good relations and family ties. If your name is X and mine is Y, let’s exchange them, and your family will be like mine, and mine shall be like yours. When the Spaniards first came, Agüeybaná the First, uncle and predecessor of the one we are talking about, called for a name exchanging ceremony with the newcomers. The ceremony was called a Guaitiao. He exchanged his own with Ponce de Leon. His nephew and heir, future Agüeybaná II, exchanged his own with Luis de Whatever. (This was read in history books, out of my reach at the moment. And I could not find the proper links to the net. So my research is not impecable today. )

Thereafter his name would have been Luis Agüeybaná.

According to the records, there was a Taino king called Luquillo or Luisillo who kept with the war after Agüeybaná’s death. He was also associated with the “Carib” revolt. At a certain point he brought the European population to less than 50, all huddled together in the city of Caparra. Then the Hurricane hit, and the stone-house dwellers fared much better than the wattle-bohio dwellers. That was the moment that broke the native resistance.

Weather. A mere roll of the dice.

Why do I care for this?

We are taught that Agüeybaná died a failure. He, often used as a symbol of our national spirit, was put out of action on the first round. Disregarding the evidence, we are told of his defeat, and the end of his line.

Just like in the Arthurian myth, the King is wounded and dying, and the kingdom dies around him.

There is a link between them. They are one and the same.

By killing our king, in story, if not if fact, they kill Borinken.

In the inner kingdom of a Boricua’s mind, the king has failed. He is wounded and dying; collapsing. And just like in the Arthurian myth, his land dies around him.

The answer?

The passing of the Grail.

A new king must come out of the mists to awaken the land to its glorious past and still more glorious future. The only hope is a hero who will take up the throne, cut the ties to the failed king and build a new kingdom out of old materials.

No one has proved pure of heart, yet.

And still, I wait for Persifal…

House

As I've told you before, I am married. Been married for 2 years.

The thing is I am sick and tired of renting. We both work, we should be able to afford it. Carlos works in a government agency and is a Permanent employee, so if for some reason they fire him he can take them to the wringers. He has JOB SECURITY!

I think. The rules are being rewritten as we speak, with all this ressession this, depression that. We might be all going to hell in a laundry basket.

As for myself, after two years working as a temp in the medical equipment industry, I was hired as a regular employee. Mind you, during these two years they had to lay off 5% of their workforce, High Management orders. I saw some good people go. At least one of them is still working for the company as an outside resource or something.

After all of this, they opened up a position for me. I still can't decide if I am in more or less danger of getting the axe. The pay is good, though, and I think I will invest it on some preps for the End of the World.

I am trying not to be too optimistic just in case, but things are NOT looking gloomy. We have a reasonable expectation of monetary health.

We have no children.

We should be able to afford a friggin house.

I can imagine it completely. Blame it on my rural upbringing, but the most important part is the garden. I would have it fenced front and back.

I would take a heavy metal testing kit when we go to check out houses.Want to make sure I can eat what I produce.

On the front lawn would be the citrus trees. I have one small lemon tree that will take center stage. I found a sprouting seed inside a store bought lemon on the day Carlos and I married. Talk about a good omen. So I planted it in a little bucket. Two years. It is smallish, container grown, but looks healthy. Very symbolical.

Anyways, this front garden would hold the citrus. Lemons, oranges, mandarins, and Dekopon, a weird Japanese orange that should fit in very well, if I ever find a seller. So if the S ever does HTF, we will not die of scurvy, at least. Heh.

I once saw something I want to imitate. It was a grape vine, growing from one of those little strips of bare earth they leave in front of some urban plots, as if to convince someone that they have a lawn. Seriously, it was like two feet wide and five feet long. The owners planted the vine, then trained it to reach the roof of the house where they had built a trellis, so that the leaves would go up and the fruit hang down. Loved it.

I would have to check what varieties of grape do well in the Caribbean heat. Grapes and Passionfruit.

Passionfruit is easy. They take care of themselves.

On the backyard I imagine stacks of yucca, yams, manioc and other root vegetables. I saw this somewhere done with potatoes. They used old tires, filled one with earth, placed the seed potatoes, placed spacers and stacked the next tire on top of it. Rinse and repeat.

Potatoes would not work in PR. Our yearly weather pattern goes like this: Rain season, Storm season, Second rain season, and "dry" season. Not all that dry, really; only in comparison.

Anyway, this method is similar enough to the way our Taino indians grew their root crops. It should work.

Plantains and bananas, for sure. Cabbage. Maybe a bit of sugarcane. Should be great to give bits to children.

Maybe a few chickens, if the local codes allow them. If they don't, I'll get quiet chickens.

I talked about a goat day or so ago, and my husband looked at me like I was crazy. So maybe I'm taking my daydreaming too far.

Sigh. It would be good, though.

I harbour conflicting feelings for my land

I am an Independentist.
I believe Puerto Rico should be free.

But when confronted I cannot easily explain it. Europe and America are moving towards a union. I want my land separate.

And in part I think it has to do with identity. Who do you think you are? How do you define yourself? In 3 words, who are you? I mean, can you answer this? The part of your identity that belongs in the root.

And we cannot. Too much meddling. We have never been Puerto Rico by our own rights. The Taino times are lost in pre-history. We longed to be Spaniards for 400 years. For the last 100 we have longed to be gringos.

Do you know that in the last census, most Puertorricans claimed to be white?

Our put-down phrase, when someone is getting too uppity is " Se cree blanquito" or "He thinks he is white".

It irks me when a guy, born and raised in the mists of the mountains of Orocovis, proclaims himself happily to be an Estadounidense. Does he speaks English? Hell no. Does he speak Spanish? Not really, but close enough. What the hell does this guy think he is claiming for himself when he claims being a gringo?
He claims what he views as a superior existence, a better person.

The Americans are good. They brought us the welfare. They brought us the projects, and the manufacturing plants, and a lot of money for us to be happy.
And our island, blessed with fertile ground and abundant rain, became ghetto. The farmland grew wasted. We lost our pride. The son of our neighbor got tattoos and a golden grille for his teeth, imitating his foreign idols.

And I know there is a certain element of hypocrisy in my thinking. Too fine of me, to talk about this corruption, when my children are not dying of diarrhea and malnutrition.

But couldn’t we keep the pride? Surely, those things are not in conflict. Not the pride in the land, for the land is nothing but a rock protruding from the ocean, a dead volcano in a seam of tectonic plaques. I mean the pride in ourselves, each of us, in the fruit of our labor. The kind of feeling that sees beauty and wishes to add to it.

We see ourselves as a failed country. Every decision is made looking at Los Niuyores (The New Yorks, this is how people used to see USA. My cousin went to live at Los Niuyores. She could be in Ohio, for all they cared. She was in Los Niuyores.)

Don’t worry if you can’t understand this. It confuses me too.
Sometimes I love this island so much that I would not live anywhere else. Sometimes I truly feel blessed to live in such a beautiful place. People are generous and like to laugh. Waiting in line is just a chance to meet interesting people.

And sometimes I feel like I choke in here. I look around me and I see nothing but ugliness. Stupid people, lazy people, irresponsible people, all drowning in their drug of choice.

Puerto Rican people should be free.
At least that much I have clear.

I wonder if the FBI will come to get me now.

Taino Blood

As a rather weird outshoot of my interest in Urban Fantasy, I came to explore the folklore and myths of our own Taino Indians. First to greet Columbus and the hardest hit in a wave of slavery, misery and disease. Gone from the face of the Earth in no time at all, before Europeans took an interest in that which they were destroying and started to study it.

Except they didn’t.

Die, I mean.

You see, English colonization and Spanish colonization took very different forms. The English came to the Colonies with the whole family, expecting to establish them into a new home. They kept mostly within their own race, and viewed other races as somehow “dirtying” their own clean blood. The child of an Englishman and a squaw is Indian.

The Spanish men came alone, planning on getting rich and getting out. But needs of the flesh and all that, soon there was a big mestizo population. Also, Spanish blood seemed to cleanse all impurities. I read somewhere (how do you like that for accuracy?) that when a Spaniard married a Taino woman, she became automatically in all records a white woman. Their children were listed as white, and if a son married another Indian, the grandchildren were listed as white too.

Mitochondrial DNA studies show that the population of Puerto Rico is mainly Indian. Not bad at all, for a dead race.

“But if they are alive, how come we cannot see them?” I thought.
And I realized we are absolutely surrounded with signals from our indigenous past, only we underestimate them as signs of backwardness, of ignorance. I remember when my grandmother Juana sent me and my siblings to go and play in the batey. Why couldn’t she say patio like normal people?I thought back then. When she gave me a wooden bowl to help her, and she called it dita, while younger people called it simply a bowl.

My paternal grandmother knew how to make Casabe, the yucca bread of the Taino. She is gone now, so I cannot learn it from her. But they make it still in the Dominican Republic, so I’ll learn it someday.

Nah, Taino people are not dead. Just sleepy. Found a way to get in the cracks, wait in the seed. And when the conditions are right, we will grow a root so vigorous that we’ll crack the pavement and everyone who sees us for the magnificent Ceiba tree we are, will have to stop and admire us.

The Taino people live in us.

Goat Hyperinflation Bubble

Read this yesterday and had to share in case one or two readers ever stumble in a drunken stupor into this blog.
This has to be the cleverest explanation of a bubble economy ever.
Substitute goats for real estate, dot-coms, tulips... whatever!

Chickenshit

Let me say it out loud, in a public forum... I CANNOT DRIVE!!!!

Shameful on my part. Very embarrasing, like a Social Disease. Ugh.

At first it was lazyness. All my brothers and sisters are one to one-year-and-a-half apart in age. So there was always someone going through that stage of JUST GOT MY LICENSE when all mom had to do was mumble something about there being no milk and the newly licenced would volunteer to heroically make it all right again. So touching...

So I never HAD to learn to drive. There was, from my point of view, no incentive.

Then I got into college. My dorm was across the street from campus, and Paseo de Diego, a pedestrian-only street full of stores was a few minutes away. Again, there was no need to drive.

I met my Beloved Tormentor in college. He was the night security guard on my dorm. So whenever I could not sleep, I could just go down to the first floor and talk a while. No driving necessary. When things got serious and we were formally a couple, part of the mating dance was driving me places and showing me stuff. No need to drive, again.

A few years ago, my neighbor, a single mom I knew from college calls me. She is having and asthma attack. I tell her I cannot take her to the hospital since I do not drive. She tells me she does not need a driver, she needs a friend and someone to care for Baby. I agree, we get on the SUV and get rolling to the nearest ER. Auxilio Mutuo. She goes into the round driveway, stops the car, tosses the keys at me and wheezes "park the car" before leaving.

I am blocking the ER entrance, there are people watching and THERE IS A BABY IN THE BACK SEAT! Of course I drove the car. It jumped the curve, would not go straight and I got it to stop right when I was about to hit the water fountain. There I mustered whatever dignity I still had and asked for help from an ambulance driver. A real gentleman, he saw the entire thing and did not laugh at me.

The baby did not even wake up.

Anyways, I started to consider this driving thing might be useful someday... Then I promptly forgot about it.

Married now. We have different work schedules. He has to be there at 4:45 am. I start at 8am.

At first I took the bus. But my bus stop is located right in front of one of the refuges where they help drugaddicts. While I waited for my bus to arrive, I was surrounded by a group of men waiting for their bus to take them to ASEM to get their methadone treatment. No big deal, right? They were trying to do the right thing... Yep, I idiotically put myself in a dangerous situation.

The monday after Thanksgiving, as I was waiting for my bus, one of the guys was having a fit. It seems he had missed a few appointments on his therapy and they might cut him out of the program. He was telling his friend how the hospital staff HAD to give him the STUFF, and out he takes a knife.

HOLY-S***!

It was not a Rambo machete-knife. It was one of those plastic thingies they use to open boxes, with etching on the blade so you can break pieces of it off... Can screw you up just as bad.

The guy is doing a desperate little dance, waiving that knife around and telling his buddies how bad he was going to srew someone up at the hospital if anyone gave him grief. And I am watching the knife, watching the knife, 'cause if that dude gives one step in my direction I am gonna go WHOOSH!

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Anyways, my bus came, I got in, the driver tells me never to wait there again (cause in Puerto Rico we like to give unsolicited advise) but I don't mind the meddling 'cause , Man, he was right.

When my husband came to pick me up after work I told him of the incident, trying to make light of it, no big deal...

Now he takes me and picks me up from work. At 5 am he leaves me at a deli near my job and goes to work. As a result, he is getting in late everyday. Has been reprimanded a few times. And all because I had no incentive to drive.

Do I feel guilty?

You have no idea.

Will you think I am crazy if I told you that...

I am already planning my costume for Halloween.

I never got the chance to dress up for Halloween when I was a kid. I was raised Catholic, and our priest got into a hissy fit every year around the end on October.

Then I went to college, and I didn't dress up because I was t

oo broke/tired.

Later I married my Beloved Tormentor, who is squarely on the " Halloween=Satanism" side of the board. He won't take me anywhere to party on that particular date.

All of my former workplaces were anti-dress up. It made no sense to get a costume if I could not parade around in it for a while...

Then I got my current job, and they allow costumes for all positions that do not face the customers. Yay for being the Call Dispatch!

I was a geisha.

I am pretty happy with the costume, even though I never got even NEAR duplicating the geisha look. It cost me more than any of the dresses I actually wear once in a while, but this was my first Halloween and it was worth it.

Heh, I even got the wood geta and the tabi socks!

Man, I had fun.

For this year I am thinking, Chun Li. The cheonsang should not be outside my small capabilities as seamstress. I will have to modify it so that the slits don't show as much leg, but it is very doable.

All I want is a little house in the suburbs.

And let me say, right off the bat, that I am very impressionable.

If I read something about alien abductions, I will spend the next few weeks scanning the skies for weird lights.

If I read about the marvelous powers of the mind, I will spend weeks practicing how to use the Force.

And it is fun, for the most part. Though sometimes my husband gets a little impatient with my topic du jour and will tactfully inform me that any amount of interest he might have harbored in his soul when I began my quest to understand whatever it is I am raving about this time, it has been sated many times over. Very tactfully.

He has begun grumbling lately about the amount of interest I am investing in the survivalist movement.

You know, survivalists, the local gun nuts who are convinced the end of the world is around the corner and prepare for it by turning their homes into food wharehouses and bunkers.

Except lately the label has grown mainstream, attracting both loonies expecting the triumphant return of Quetzacoatl in 2012 and normal families trying to survive on a tight budget. Some of their preps seem beyond, WAY beyond ridiculous. And some seem so commonsense that I fail to understand how I never thought of it.

I am storing water. And I am buying more groceries than I used to, seeking to stockpile a bit. Not a year. Not even three months. Two weeks is OK, and I keep from scaring Carlos too much.

I don't have the bug-out-bags, but I am planning on preparing three. ( We don't have children; Koji, the cat, is going with us.)

We live in a first floor apartment that is not defensible at all and has no soil for gardening. I tried to make a container garden, but the space is simply too small. I am trying to push Carlos into buying us a house with space for a garden. Since we live in the tropics we don't even have to work too hard at it. Most of the time you just have to place the seed where you want it to grow and Mother Nature will take care of itself. Your main concern might be preventing the house from dissapearing in a tangle of fruit trees.

Carlos is worried. The government of Puerto Rico will try to fight the reccession by kicking out a whole lot of employees. No one has been named yet, but the air is tense.

So, no house for now. Just a little first floor apartment and a small cache of false safety in uncertain times.

Starting my blog

Whee!

First of all, be advised that my first language is Spanish. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, never traveled at all. Never had the chance of speaking English day in and day out.

Still, almost everything I read and watch is in English. I feel that my vocabulary is MUCH wider in it than in Spanish.

Plus, i am prejudiced against it.

I have come to believe, like Borges, that Spanish literature is somewhat retarded. (I would love to provide a link to this, but was unable to find it on the Net. I read it in some article a professor gave us, years ago.)

So cool, we get the crazy hidalgo. We get Macondo. We got El Cid.
Spanish literature is too tame!

Don Quijote fought windmills. Beowolf killed a dragon.

Macondo had decades of rain. Shakespeare had sex, drugs, violence and a choir of cross-dressers, all necesary ingredients for quality drama.

The most impressive thing El Cid Campeador does is take a loose lion and take it back to its cage. And when you think about it, the lion was probably captured early as a trophy, kept in a small, dark cage and badly fed. It might have been sick. Maybe the lion was so scared it actually wanted to go back.

Anyways, El Cid does not count 'cause it really happened.

What I would like to know is, where is our Hitchhiker's Guide to The Universe? Where is our Diskworld? Where our Arthurian mythology?

Where is our creative force?

I wish to become a writer someday. And of course I dream of writing something truly memorable. But this lack of collective creativity is so strange, that I sometimes wonder if Spanish lacks the vocabulary or flexibility that the literature I envision demands. (How do you translate into Spanish the word "parsec"?)

So, this is my half-hearted apology for going to the dark side and writing in English.