Expat Whens and other Questions Your People Ask You

Tomorrow I see my family. My family who patiently, if timidly ask every single time they see me if I'm planning on moving back to the United States. A difficult question to answer, inasmuch as I'm not really that much of a planner, and you know that life I have? Well, it's pretty great, and it takes place in Chile.

A while ago, Kyle, a prolific and chipper bloggarrific American and acquiend of mind (technically an acquaintance, but she easily felt like a friend, or do you prefer the word friendquaintance?) profiled the different types of gringas living in Chile in this post. To say she got darn close is to short her credit she deserves. I think she probably hit the nail on the head. And her powers of observation must be greater than mine, because I'd never have been able to pick out so many subcategories. I think she feels a more powerful ownership over Chile than I do, and guesses that some kinds of gringas are not exactly living in Chile, just visiting, but aside from that, let's just say she's spot on.

There's the exchange student gringa, the ESL teacher gringa, just-married in transition gringa, etc.

Here's what she says about me:

3. Fullblown Expat Gringa Who Geniunely Likes the Country of Chile: I know very little about this creature, because I know very few of this kind. These women are here for a love of the culture and are planning on staying indefinitely — not because of ties to a man or family — simply because they like living in Chile.

Although my friends and family have perhaps not yet read Kyle's blog about expat life in Chile and photography, I suspect that in the back of their heads, they have me typed as a three as well.

I know some of the things that motivate me to stay in Chile (great friends, spectacular geography, lower cost of living (the way I live...), access to Latin America, great produce, excellent bicycling, very photogenic, the fact that I'm already there, Spanish, never a dull moment), and the things that pull me to the United States (family, it's my motherland, great friends). Sometimes I wish I could meet some other threes to get a better perspective on why they're still in Chile and what it means to them when they hear that oft-repeated (by friends and family) question, "do you think you'll live in Chile forever?"

The answer is, I don't know. But I'm going back in thirteen days. Come visit. Got a big couch, a bigger heart and a whole lotta tea I just ordered from here. Which is actually another great thing about the US. Availability of certain consumer goods. Which I shall now proceed to luxuriate in over the next almost two weeks, hopefully without removing my credit card from my wallet again.

A girl's got to dream.

Blogher swag report, now with Suave mousse!

Part of the reason I was in Chicago, besides to eat too much hummus (the hummus of my youth! before the disappointing de-tahinification of hummus) with R, a good friend from Chile who has since relocated to Chicago and who also flew to DC to help me empty the house I had with my ex of this and that and that and this (and wow, is that a long tangent or what, I think I'll stop) was to go to Blogher and TBEX.

What? Blogher and TBEX are not on your radar? snff. Well, then you and I are just not the same. As though that were in doubt.

Blogher was a giant, sprawling affair at the Sheraton on the other side of the river with walking and escalators and not a small number of less-than-three-month-old babies and lots of good talks and an exhibition hall where swag was being thrust at the participants.

I wish I'd already uploaded pictures so I could show you some of what I saw, but I am operating from the distant moon of a satellite office right now, so I am in no condition to do so. But there was a man dressed like a fairy that had something to do with All detergent, the Michelin Man, Ronald McDonald and a few other furries that I'm not even sure what they were.

And then there was the swag. Things that light up and wheels that spin, Mr. Potato Head and boxes of mints, detergent, chances to win things, golden kiwis with spifes/spives (spoon plus knife) sticking out of them.

And it occurs to me that we have been given this stuff, this swag, this shwag (or is it schwag?) so that we will become consumers of said product, and so that we will tout their qualities far and wide and I missed the Mr. Potato head and I'm not sure how I ended up with so many luggage tags and I'm sure the Eucerin cream is great, and actually, the Mary Kay lipgloss is sparkleriffic and the little case it came in very handy.

But.

The thing I want to talk about is a mousse that I picked up from the Suave setup. They were giving away this and that (but sadly, no deodorant, as that had been a big "seller" and I was a day late and a stick short, so I picked up some Suave Healthy Curls Scrunching Mousse. For free! Because I am a person who takes free stuff unabashedly, providing it is not too large, too heavy or very smelly because, well, who likes that?

I am not a user of mousse. I would describe my style as wash and go, give or take the wash. But I am also a lioness. Not in the hear-me-roar kind of way, but in the curly-hair-fought-the-humidity and the humidity won kind of way. In preparation for my trip to DC, I was armed with a hat, some hair ties, and a lot of dirty looks towards my hair. It's not particularly unruly most of the time, it's just that DC is a hair battleground. You know how you're not supposed to talk to black women about their hair? Anyone's hair in the summertime in DC is off limits. Don't try. You'll just make enemies.

So here's where I tell you that this mousse kind of rocks. After a sweaty day out and about in somewhere between 91 and 97 degrees and approximately 1,000 percent humidity, I still had curls. Individual ones. Without a messy mane of a doorway-challenging flyway frizzy halo upon my head.

So. Mousse. Approved.

Also, a shout out to my illustrious sister, who traveled far and with empty space in her suitcase, and who also reminded me that during the year when she was working the land on behalf of her kibbutznikim and the promotion of communal living, and drinking (I suspect) not just a little beer in the bomb-shelter-turned-bar there on the kibbutz, the great mousse revolution was taking place. That is to say, she left the United States in 198X, and returned in 198X+1 and mousse was everywhere it had not previously been. I also remember she tried to get us on the avocado tip when she came back, but we were not convinced for many, many years. Turns out she was right.

Yay mousse.

Supermarkets in DC, Santiago, and in a place near you!

The grocery store de rigeur in DC is the Safeway. Sure, there's that new Harris Teeter on Kalorama and this and that food warehouse here and there if you have a car and can make it to the burbs, but if not, Safeway's mainly your game.

I had forgotten about the silly names the Safeways have here in DC until my sister and I were walking down 17th street in search of nibbles (why have you not yet tried Mr. Yogato's tangy yogurt, ask yourself this) and she pointed to the Safeway there on 17th and asked me if that was the illustrious Soviet Safeway, so named for long lines, little food and cramped environment. It is no lie when I tell you that I once found toothbrushes hanging above the scrapple. Scrapple? NSFV (not safe for vegetarians).

Then I was remembering the Social Safeway up on Wisconsin Avenue which has kind of a suburban feel to it, and which was rumored to be a good place to pick up a date while you shopped.

There was also the Secret Safeway near Florida and S, which I actually couldn't find tonight, which only confirms that a) I can get lost anywhere, even a city I lived in for eight years and b) it really is a secret.

The final Safeway that I had a name for wheｎ I was living here (though there is the Senior Safeway in the Watergate, yes, that Watergate) was the one up on Columbia Road near Adams Morgan. This one has derisively been called the Spanish Safeway, the Esafeway and the not-so-safe Safeway, all of which is probably rude and unPC and did anyone else ever see those guys walking near there holding their hands by their sides in a C shape? They're offering fake IDs.

SoＩwas thinking, Santiaguinos, what names would you give to your Santa Isabels, your Liders and your Jumbos? We always talk about them in terms of location, but maybe there's a better way. I propose that my Santa Isabel, the one on Huerfanos should be called Cerveza Isabel, for the high number of people that go there just to buy beer. The one underground near the Moneda metro, I might call it the Si Lo Ves Supermercado (if you see it), because since it's underground it's easy to miss.

If you like, you can also name other supermarkets near where you live. You get bonus points for naming a Piggly Wiggly, because that's hilarious, or an Ingles, because that means groins in Spanish.

Also, my sister cracks me up. She immediately knew what I meant when I said the awning at Lauriol plaza looks like that thing that upsets Fred Flintstone's car at the drivein. Do you?

Here's a nifty scrollover map of the Safeways and their names.

On being a fisher of friends

achoo. achoo. achoo. achoo.

This is my chorus of four sneezes which you'll hear whenever pollen is floating around, when I've eaten sunflower seeds or when there's been lettuce at dinner. Lettuces. This is something I was told I was allergic to during the great uticaria episode of 1999, during which time even scratching my own itchy skin with my fingernails brought up scratch-shaped welts. Dermografitis, they told me. Get me some zyrtec, I said.

But this blood test that resulted in finding out that I was allergic to "lettuces" (a group noun, if ever I heard one) means that every time I sneezed my four-part sneeze chorus, my friend at the farm would say to me "lettuces," including during the middle of the night, when my sneezes were bouncing off the straw and mud walls. It made me laugh, as so very many things on this trip have.

I have laughed so hard with so many good friends, and lamented the fact that these people, my scattered tribe, are so very spread out. It makes me want to cast a large net and pull the ends together, cinching them towards me so that they're not so dispersed.

But A belongs in Seattle, and M in Portland, L on the farm, R in Chicago, S in DC and the smithfamilynotrobinson in NY. And I find myself a fisher of friends.

So far the bait's working. And I am very fortunate.

Lost and Found in my native land

I am address challenged.

There, I said it. I am directionally impaired, lacking an internal compass, dropped on my head as a baby, get lost in a paper bag, lacking a sense of direction, get lost easily, never know where I am, always have to stop and ask for directions, not good at maps.

Etc.

So you can only imagine what a challenge it's been these last several days, between Seattle, Portland, the farm, San Francisco, and now Chicago. Luckily I speak the language and don't really mind walking long distances, so even the irreperably lost often gets found. In addition to my inability to orient myself, I am also blessed with the ability to confuse words with similar words. There is a famous family story involving Timothy's Coffee World, which I referred to a Joe's World of Coffee, and which my sister (who yay! I will see in about three days!) knew exactly what I was talking about. And how the end result turns into the final product. Add the word reinvention to the always lost, and I nearly always have a story to tell. (or hadn't you noticed?)

My most recent snafu was hearing "Meet me at the Birite creamery on 19th and Dolores in the Mission" (in SF) as "Meet me at 19th and Mission." Dutiful and careful walker that I am, I first walked through the Tenderloin, and later most of the length of the Mission, chatting with many and sundry, including a man who was hanging out of his car shouting "excuse me, excuse me" and when I turned around to see why he was shouting at me, he explained that he "just wanted to take me out." This, on the basis of my sparkling personality, sharp wit, and superior social skills, and had nothing to do with being female, white and alone. A gent beside me muttered under his breath "no stopping, no stopping," and we had a lovely conversation in Spanish about the date-asker. Sadly I still had blocks to go before I would determine that I was absolutely on the wrong street, but not before a Turkish (I think) woman with a space between her teeth who smelled alot like peaches directed me to Mission Pie, a pie cafe on 25th and Mission where I had a glass of iced rooibos tea and did not find wifi because San Francisco is a bit of a deadzone, wifi-wise.

The people in the pie cafe (where the pies looked great, but sadly, I was not hungry) pointed me towards Dolores street, and I circled the block once and got confused, this time because my map did not list several streets. I found a grandmother type and asked her where Dolores street was, and she took one look at me and said "Tres cuadras mas alla" (three blocks further that way), and thank goodness I speak Spanish because with all the hey babying and getting lost, I might have just sat down and wept if I hadn't gotten where I was going.

And I did, and saw the illustrious Annie, with her adorable son J, who is both sweet as the pies at mission pie, and horribly photogenic, though it doesn't hurt that mama is a professional photographer. and I had organic brown sugar and maple icecream in a biodegradable cup and we blew bubbles and watched baby J squee at them until some crazy freakshow stoners came up with their bleary eyes and their cat on a leash to play with the baby.

And that was just day 1.

Now I'm in Chicago, in the disgustingly cute neighborhood of Lincoln Square where they are plying me with heaps of caffeine and wifi, blessed wifi.

Look for me at blogher on Saturday (but not Friday), and TBEX on Sunday. I'll be the one wandering in circles. Very fast, from all the caffeine.

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, then all of this is magic

So far on this trip I have petted three dogs over the age of ten, and four cats whose age I do not know. I have met three children of friends, and seen three friends whose total elapsed time since the last time I saw them was more than 36 years, though understandably, we lose count.

For the last three days I have been off the grid, solar-powered, organic eggs, seasalt collecting (failed, sadly), berry picking, living in a house made of straw and mud and connecting with an old friend and many, many goats, one of whom I heard yipe today as he unwittingly touched the electric fence, poor thing. There was internet, but I mostly opted out of it. I read two books the beach, (which apparently was also a movie, but how would I know, since I live in a cave,) and Throwim Way Leg in which I learned a whole lot about tree marsupials and a little about Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya. Both of these books I gave away, one to a cafe owner named Jody in Martinez, California who made fun of me for taking a picture of my bagel, but in a good-natured way, and one to the community at which I stayed, which received me well and took me to a creek where I could swim and watch damselflies and dragonflies and a bunch of other bugs and tadpoles and frogs and the whatsises that they are when they're neither, but rather something in between.

And now I'm in San Francisco, which was a very slow bus labeled "local" (and was it ever!) that took 3.5 hours to go less than 120 miles, followed by a slightly uphill schlep to this urban hostel with more Dutch speakers than you'd expect and questionably clean chairs set up like we're waiting for a beauty treatment in a room full of pipes with a black ceiling and really good wifi reception. They call it the library. I call it my office, as I have a bunch of work to do. Somewhat embarrasingly, I also call it almost bedtime, since I'm still on farm schedule, apparently. Also, how is it a place that I used to live can look so unfamiliar? I'll search out something known tomorrow. If you see me wandering, be sure to stop and say hello.

Ta.

Go Greyhound, and leave the driving to, wait, that's not right!

One of the truly terrible things I set myself up for on this trip, other than the ten-hour layover in Mexico city followed by the jog-n-plead in the airport (and I still haven't found that tiny piece of paper they say they gave me, which indicates to me that they, in fact, did not) is this crazy trip I'm about to embark on from Portland, Oregon to Ukiah, California, by train. In fact, the train is from about 2:30 this afternoon until 7:30 tomorrow morning to Martinez, California (huh? whassat?), followed by a three-hour layover in Martinez (ooooh, exploration!), and a bus to Ukiah, whereupon an old friend of mine from college will meet me in the Burger King parking lot (I think) and whisk me an hour further up the road to an idyllic land of book binderies, baby goats, cob architecture and swimming holes. Sadly, I have an approximate ton of work to do while there, but certainly the days should be long and peaceful, and hopefully filled with joy and inspiration. And I packed my own coffee. mwahahaha.

One of the other many things that is happening as a result of this trip (in addition to a morning-time trip to Fred Meyer to buy some nibbles for the road, or rails, as the case may be) is that I have what I think is the old Amtrak jingle going through my head. 1-800-USA RAIL. And then, because all the jingles live together in my noggin, I also cannot seem to stop silently humming the jingle from the store where I bought my bed in Santiago and which kept me on hold (on speakerphone) for many an hour, intoning "Almacenes Paris" in their special singy way, which then gets me thinking of how it sounds when the lady on the LAN (airline) website tells me "bienvenidos a LAN," and I'm hoping that if nothing else, these next 17 hours will let me turn the tuned-to-jingles radio station in my head into the off position. Oh, and I hope whoever sits next to me speaks a language that I don't. Because I love the socializing of the last couple of days, but right about now, I could use a hefty dose of chugga chugga, and not much else.

It's not Portland's fault, though she's not exactly helping, either.

I'm guessing it's not Portland's fault. I mean, she trotted out her finest allergens, her strongest sun. She put on her cutest dress and finest perfume, and well, I'm just not feeling it. Too squee, too perfect, too many smiling happy people drinking coffee and loving life and showing off their tattoos on bony shoulders and legs bared to the sunshiny day we've all been provided.

Maybe it's because it feels like Mr. Roger's neighborhood, or because everyone wants to talk to me, about my burrito, my coffee, because they step out of the frame when I'm taking pictures, or because Seattle felt so strangely homey to me and Portland is just decidedly not Seattle.

It certainly wasn't waking up on the wrong side of the couch or catching up with old friends or the fabulous southern-style meal I had last night at The Screen Door or either of the two editors I have either seen or will see by the time today it's over, nor is it the awesome berries or the great cups of coffee, or that they offered me non-dairy “sour cream” on my burrito that I got in Pioneer Courthouse Square at lunchtime today, partway through my megawalk from Hawthorne into upper NW, where I currently am.

Something about Portland that you may or may not know is the fact that I lived here before. A very long time ago. Which is funny, because it's faded to this weird stain on my memory where I don't really get the feeling of the city, but at the same time, half the restaurants I pass are places I've eaten. An Indian place here, a burrito place there, Jarra's Ethiopian, endless coffee shops, the Brasserie Montmarte, where I went with my high school prom date's parents when they came to visit, Jake's Famous Crawfish, where we went when my family was here visiting me, and they made me a vegan feast when I was going through that phase.

And an unnoteworthy Thai restaurant that popped up out of nowhere this morning on my walk, and bit me in the subconscious reminding me of why I woke up strangely on my last morning in Seattle. I planned this trip to Portland without thinking about my ex, with whom I used to live here. And 99% of the time, that is a blip on my memory screen, but I've been retelling the story to old friends lately, and feeling sensitive, five-plus years out. And Portland is gorgeous, stunning, adorable, perfect, bicycle-embracing, quirky and perfect. And I'm happy to be here for two days, and I will be just as happy to get on that 17-hour train trip and get the hell out of here.

Three years was enough. Pictures to follow, I hope.

Departing Seattle

It is with great sadness that I report that I'm leaving Seattle tomorrow morning. I'm excited about what lays beyond, but this city, which I first visited in 1990 (ouch, I'm old!) has been nothing but lovely to me since I arrived. We had hot, but when it was hot there were drinks (like bubble watermelon juice)



I got hungry, but when I was hungry there was food (from Tacos del Mar):



and when I needed a snack, there was that, too (top pot donuts):




Friends, real and imaginary who plied me with food and drink and watched me drink my volume in coffee, took me thrift shopping, invited me to ukelele sing-alongs and out to dinner to meet their wives, and came from far away, hosted me beautifully and invited me to play in their foam pits:



and with their dogs:



And Seattle trotted out one of its prettiest days of the summer for me to absorb, with sculpture:



and Chinatown gates:



And even strangers were horribly photogenic:







and here's what they saw of me, as I made my way around town.



And I may have missed the 4th of July, but here's an actual, unretouched photo of a sunset Seattle threw in my honor.



I guess if a city did that for you, you'd come back too.

Onward and southward. They call it Portland. I call it a place that used to be home.

Logistics and Creativity. Boxless thinking, if you will.

I have a couple of friends whose job it is to keep track of logistics. The logistics of packing, of planning, of strategy, and all that. I applaud them, am astounded by them, and otherwise think they walk on water. I am not really a logistics person. I get bogged down in this and that, always make a decision and then backtrack clumsily over the plans I have made, having failed to see the logical conclusion of a trajectory I have set myself upon. I also fail to include things like sleep and alone time in my plans, which is pure tomfoolery, given how much I really enjoy both.

Sometimes I will have a plan (in this case, leaving Seattle on Monday, Monday I tell you) which seemed like a good idea. Stay a long time, but not too long with my people up here in the house of sunshine and creativity (homemade foam pit for heaven's sake!) and OMG, have I mentioned the coffee, and then skip out of town to Portland, where I have some people that may want to see me. Darnit! said an old Seattle friend whose wife I have yet to meet (and they're pregnant, even), I am coming back from Italy late Sunday night! (owie, that's close). Wah, said my editor, it's better for us to see you here on Wed night! (If I'd gotten to Portland on Monday, I'd have been gone by Wed night), boo! said my friend that I'm staying with in Portland, that she wouldn't be there on Monday (but still offered for her husband and kids to put me up because they're like that).

And a confluence of factors, a quickie "mind if I stay longer?" here in Seattle, a "mind if I arrive later" in Ukiah, "mind if I change my ticket" to Amtrak, "want to go out to dinner on Monday night" and a "how 'bout if we take the train together from Seattle to Portland" later, and the logistics are as smooth as a cake that you used a hairdryer on to smooth out the frosting (seriously, I saw that in a cookbook the other day).

So while the planning aspect may not be my forte, I am flexible enough to make plans to see several people at the last minute who I otherwise might have missed and kicked myself soundly for. And I'm lucky enough to have these people that are pretty flexible and will jump over hill and dale and drive two hours to Seattle (with a two-year old!) to go tho the zoo or invite me to see them playing the ukelele or walk with me like a touristy dork to see the fish ladder and ballard locks.

And if anyone is curious, it's pirate week at my friends' kids daycare, so I shall now bid you arghwell. Will miss this family!

Good morning Seattle. And then goodnight.

After a heart-stopping jog through the Mexico City airport, a full eleven hours after having arrived, which only goes to show you that what my friend Claudio says is not true, I got on the plane headed for Seattle and was not given another sauteed mushroom sandwich for dinner, as I had been for breakfast. What my friend Claudio says, which as you all now know is not true, as do the fourteen people I had to explain my story to in the Mexico City airport, is that I never lose small pieces of paper.

Ahem, and moving right along. I was the person you saw standing outside last night at the Seattle airport, about 27 hours after setting out on her journey, holding her computer up to her face having a conversation (on skype) with her friend in Seattle's cellphone voicemail, which went something like this: Hi, I'm um, at the airport, so, I'm here kind of waiting for you. I'm outside, below a sign that says "Aeromexico" and I hope you get this message, because, well, I'm sure you'll be here soon." And she was, thank goodness, because did I ever not have a plan B.

This morning I was greeted by my friends' chipper five year old son who proclaimed, at 7:30 AM, "boy, did you ever sleep in!" Which was true, since in my body it was three hours later, but I did have that brisk jog at the airport yesterday. Have I mentioned that yet?

Today I was treated to one of those extraordinary Seattle days with blue blue skies and sharp shadows and bright sun and whoah, was that ever a lot of coffee and walking exaggerated distances and taking far too many pictures (coming soon, maybe), and a salad with fried tofu on top, and yes, ROOT BEER. Dinner with friends and conversation and Seattle is so cute someone should shrink it down and make it into a postcard. It also smells heavenly. Kind of like Patagonia but greener somehow. And fewer murtilla berries, but there are strawberries growing in the planter by the front door, and would you hold it against me if I told you I ate one on the way in not once but twice today?

I also tried to put on T. Rex claws today, but found that they were too small. Dratted 5 year olds and their tiny wrists. Remind me to tell you about the foam pit that M, A's awesome husband has built. If I ever get to be a kid again, I want to be born into this family. I wonder at what age Seattleites get to start drinking brewed-at-home pump-driven espresso. Any thoughts?

And now I must say goodnight. Buenas noches. Que duerman bien.

You can't say that in Spanish. Oh wait, maybe you can in Mexico

I'm "reporting" live from the airport in Mexico City. The Mexico City airport, if you will. Jeff assured me that it was horrible and confusing and poorly signed. I would have to agree, as I walked around with my second boarding pass in hand for a solid 15 minutes trying to figure out where to go while everyone I talked to instructed me to stand on lines that had nothing to do with me. And you know, it's not like I don't speak the language.

Except that on the juice they served on the plane, it said, "sin conservadores" which I'm sure means without preservatives, careful on this one, perserverativos is not your word here, in Chile we say conservantes. Conservadores sounds like there are no conservative people in your juice, which is, I suppose, just as well. They say too many fascists spoil the juice.

They don't?

Well, they should. Is anyone writing this down?

In other language news, I have been gifting my signature left and right. Anyone who wants it has to ask for it like it's an autograph, as though I were famous, which, despite a long-ago neighbor having narrowed down what continent I live on by having seen an article I wrote which she said just “sounded like me,” I am not. Maybe someday. In the meantime, anyone wishing to pretend that people really want their signature are advised to visit Mexico. I seem to recall they did the same thing to me in the Dominican Republic. Made me feel famous, that is. (regalame tu firma, they say, gift me your signature). As though that scribble were worth something. Way to grow my ego like a chia pet. The ram, not the head.

Also, what in the world is jicama and why is it so delicious with chili powder on it, and who translated the jerky sign from carne deshebrada (shredded meat) to read: crushing, 500 grams? 500 grams is not very crushing, unless you are an arthropod. And even if you're one of those, like the frighteningly huge spider I woke up to staring at me a few summers ago sleeping in a shelter in the Amazon, a package of meat a whisper heavier than a pound probably wouldn't do you too much harm.

Can you read how sleepy I am? Lucky for me I have another 5 hour flight. I'm just glad I don't have to do that for the viaje redondo (this is really what they say for "round trip" in Mexico. Don't try literal translation at home kids, that should be ida y vuelta. And call me conservative, but this word-for-word replacement is really crushing.

Steel vs. Iron, a study in words. Bearshapedsphere opines on language, again!

Although the packing fairies and cleaning patrol failed to show up, the ants in our pants brigade did a fine job of acceleratedly standing up and sitting down to back up the external hard drive onto another external hard drive, while doing the packing and cleaning for the missing fairies and aforementioned patrol. This mega backup task is one that I've had on my whiteboard next to "call dentist" for longer than I should probably admit. At least I can erase one of them now.

And what's packed is packed, and what's clean is clean, and what isn't just isn't. There's no more to say about that. Except that I hope I get invited to a summer dress fashion show, because after all this jeans and sweaters for months on end, the idea of purple and pink and brown flowered and patterned and strappy dresses was too much for one indecisive girl to deal with. And yeah, I may have overpacked a little.

But now I'm in the airport, feeding off the wifi like a remera fish, but not a ramera, which means tshirt in Argentina, but prostitute somewhere else, and also not really like a remera because the wifi is nothing like a shark and our relationship is more parasitic than symbiotic. Maybe I'm an epiphyte. Less poky though.

There's something that's always bothered me about the airport, besides the reggaeton on the TV that is washing over me, and which made a friend that I just talked to on the phone ask "where are you, anyway?" The thing that bothers me is that one of the buildings you pass on the way here is for Carlos Herrera, Master en Acero. I am incapable of not thinking behind words, and the word most similar to Herrera is herrero, as in "casa de herrero, cuchillo de palo" which means, in the house of the blacksmith, there are wooden knives (see: shoemaker's kids go barefoot). Herrera reminds me of the word blacksmith. And then it says master en acero, or steelwork. Steel? Iron? Different! How can a blacksmith work in steel? It's just so linguistically upsetting. But now that I have aired my grievance, I can turn my attention to just how many times the gent sharing this bench with me can whack the back of the seat while he talks to his girlfriend on the phone. They don't seem to be in a fight, he's just a seat whacker. It's not very relaxing. I wonder if his last name is Paz (peace).

Happy trails y'all. Next time from Mexico.

Me, myself and I, or the long, slow road to Blogher and beyond

If ever you desired to feel morally and otherwise superior to me, I want you to know that I have a boatload of things to do before blowing this popsicle stand (and ceasing to be a popsicle, myself), and that they sit unattended. I have not, for example, defrosted the fridge, cleaned the kitchen or packed. I also have the index card of doom sitting right beside my left knee, where it taunts me in its blue-on-white silence. But as a friend of mine (who shockingly, does not blog!) recently pointed out, the only thing you really have to do before you leave is turn everything (gas, electricity) off. Everything else will take care of itself. And I know she's right, but I have this policy about keeping everything tidy so that when I return to Chile I am happy to be here. Which is an investment in future happiness, which Still Life (who sadly, I said goodbye to today) calls "being kind to your future self."

I like this future self idea, and also of being kind to her. I would also like to call out my past self for all the sheer idiocy she has imposed on my current self (suddenly that De La Soul song, Me, Myself and I is making a whole lot of sense).

To wit: Tomorrow night I take the bus to the airport, wait the alloted hours to get on the plane, during which time I will surely eat a tuna wrap with avocado from Dunkin' Donuts (after you go through Interpol/Security), and then I will attempt (possibly unsucessfully) to use the airport wifi to do some last minute work. I then get on the plane, do not get DVT (deep vein thrombosis), and arrive seven hours later in beautiful Mexico City.

But wait? You're going to Mexico (you ask yourself)? No! I am not going to Mexico. I am spending ten hours in the Mexico City airport to wait for my flight to Seattle, where the lovely A and M and their little one J will wait for me with open arms and cans of chickpeas at the airport and spirit me into the land of (dare I dream? rootbeer (blame planet nomad for this new obsession) and summer temperatures).

This is what I mean about my former self apparently not liking my future (now present) self very much. Why would she book me this ridiculous ticket, which will only lead to unpleasantness, being hot (do not like, though is better than a DVT), and probably the added expense of buying Mexican nibblies in the airport? There is a possibility that future/present me will amble about the sprawling summertime metropolis during her layover, but there is also the possibility that she will make sad doggie eyes at someone who has the right to go into the fancypants lounge and get them to get her in as a guest. Or she will sit by an electrical outlet and play satellite office at the airport in the cheap seats. For ten hours. Did we mention that?

The truth is, former me was only protecting present/future me's credit card from unfettered spending, and when she made the decision to make this trip, it was certainly some middle of the night type time, when none of us were really awake, and when saving a piddling sum of money seemed like a way to honor us all.

Oh yeah, did I mention? I'm leaving town.

If you're in Seattle, look for me until the 13th, Portland until the 15th and then on a long, lonely train ride to a bus to a pickup in a Burger King parking lot to be spirited away to the land of book binderies, sustainable living and baby goats. I should resurface in SF on around the 19thish. Want to see any of the mes? Make contact. Especially if you're in SF and want us to sleep on your couch. And drink all your root beer. After that, Blogher, Travelblogexchange, DC and NY/PA/NY. Oh! and then we fly home via San Salvador and Lima! We are so pleased with ourselves right now!

besos.

Inédito! (Unheard of!) Pecan pie in Chile! And language musing.

Today on my way to the land of pink and trivia games and measuring of pregnant bellies with soft woolen yarn (darnit, didn't even come close!) I took the metro. I did this because, despite major obstacles, such as the great pecan seizing of 2008 and also the very overpricedly available pecans and Jumbo and Santa Isabel (2990 CLP for 100gr, or about US $25 a pound), and then the finding of pecans, but in their blasted shells, which lands! are they hard to get out (especially with no nutcracker), I had made a pecan pie.

See how pretty?



So because of the pecan pie, which upon leaving the house, I could see at least looked prettyish, and this I did not wish to destroy with the jostling that is biking from my house to mountain-backdropped Las Condes, I decided to hoof and metro it up to the baby shower. On the way, I clutched the pie, and became mesmerized by the LCD display which repeatedly scrolled through information such as the metro schedule, the busses you could take when the metro closes (11ish most days), and asking you to please not talk on the phone on the stairs and escalators, not to run on the stairs (escalators ok, apparently) or on the platforms (shout out to Abby who learned this word in English the other day), and to not sit on the floor in the metro cars. The metro also seems to doggedly be pursuing the word punta instead of peak (said with Chilean accent) to describe rush hour, an effort which goes completely unnoticed by everyone, as we all still refer to rush hour and the price the metro costs during that time as "horas peak."

Among the messages being blipped across the screen was one instructing me to (I believe, I got distracted by the word choice, as you'll see) charge my BIP (say: beep) card at off times, to avoid... something.

The word they chose here was aglomeraciones. I don't argue with the use of this word, exactly, even if the informal Chilean word and the word I would normally hear or use for crowd is choclón (from choclo, or corn, see how crowded the kernels are?) You can hear a very dapper sounding Spanish speaker say the word here, if you were so desirous.

I'm not arguing with aglomeración, I'm sure it's a perfectly legitimate word for crowd. I think of congestión, maybe a taco (Chilean for traffic) peatonal, mucha gente, even muchedumbre, but hey, the person who programmed the LCD screen is more of a Spanish speaker than I am.

But as an English speaker, I was thinking of myself as one of a number of particles, and thinking how if we were to clump together, or agglomerate if you will, it would be harder for us to get out the exit gates of the metro. The thicker the solution, the slower it moves. Which is exactly what I was waiting for last night at about 7 PM when I called my personal 24-hour cooking hotline, also known as Mamaj (get your own) to find out how to know when my pecan pie was done. She wasn't there, so I had to rely on the second string, someone's uncle Google.

Did you see how pretty it looks? I also made fudge (for another party, zero pregnant people there, also no pictures) proving that I'm good at changing phases of matter. If I ever participate in guerilla public service announcement vandalizing effort, you can bet I'm going to do a play on words. Avoid thickening! viscosity! solidification!

... end of post

post-post! I violated Smith family tradition and made this pecan pie recipe, rather than the one on the corn syrup bottle, using 1.5 cups of pecans because darnit, I'd already (painfully) shelled them. I also did not use Texas pecans, and do not hold the authors responsible for the deliciousness that resulted.

post-post-post! I imported the corn syrup from the United States for the pre-pecan seizing plans I had in November. I don't know of any local equivalent, choclo be darned.

Extra passport pages and meeting Chris from Art of Noncomformity

When we're not playing elaborate six degrees of separation games in Santiago, where the number six is replaced with the number two, expats are giving each other travel ideas and tips for the weary and passport-pageless. The sewing in of extra passport pages is a thrill, to be sure, though they won't sew anything else, those discriminatrices.

Here's the story. In Chile, go to the consulate, which is at the embassy. You wait, you go in to the little hut, you surrender your electronics (including any bikelights and electric toothbrushes you may have with you, not because you're crazy but because you're going to the dentist in a few minutes). Get one chip with your cubby-hole number on it (to get back your electronics) and one chip for the order in which you will be seen at the consulate desk. Head over to the consulate, being sure to say hello to the guards, because one of them is an old co-worker of mine, and they like that. Also, roses along the walk. Smell them!

You bring in your completed DS-4085 which you cleverly filled out online and printed (one sided, black ink on white paper) here, or you fill out a form that they'll have there for you at the consulate, talk to the nice lady (or man) behind the counter when they call your number, and surrender your passport. You can come back in two days (usually) or have them messenge it to you for a small fee using Chile Express.

You then have story upon story to tell, at least until someone like Chris shows up in your town, and takes out his thunker of a passport with extra pages sewn in until the cover retracts like a book that fell under your bed and stayed there for a month (what? just me?!). And then all your lookitme stories pale, but actually they don't, because he's an all-around nice guy and is so well positioned to play the "one-upmanship" game that he doesn't need to, not in the least.

And hey, in case you were wondering about other travel forget-me-nots, check out this new article I wrote for Bootsnall. Because what's a little plugging among friends. Thumbs up it if you like (now without registering!)

Colorless Santiago?

One day I was at BandH photo in New York, my second or third trip to the store, this time to discuss the possibility of buying a "penguin lens" which is what I still call my 70-300 (zoomcito) which I bought for the specific purpose of taking pictures of penguins on the Falkland Islands. (and I did!)

Throughout the discussion that I had with the salesman there, we did not discuss how thoroughly overrated the shopping experience at this particular photo-techy mecca store is. That I will leave to a writer who I happen to know is working on a story that will touch on this, and many other finger-pointing topics. What we talked about (among other things) was how anglos don't get "us," with "us" really meaning him, since I am an Eastern European quiltro (mutt), and only have gone vaguely latin americana in recent years. But he took me into his confidence, and told me about how his anglo girlfriend fit (or didn't) into his Dominican family, and we became fast friends. At least until the sale was made.

Except then he started ragging on Santiago. No color, he said! It's black and white and grey and brown and beige. It just lacks color! I didn't know if he meant it was missing mariachi bands, or colored serapes, or brown-skinned girls in bright colored tanktops playing jumprope on the street. Color! he insisted. And he insisted it was lacking.

I could easily point to yesterday's post, and the colorful sunset pictures I posted, or the rainbow of green you can see in a single asparagus stand in the spring, but I mainly (as I do when I feel offended, as I am part turtle, or perhaps ostrich) just got quiet. But not totally, first I cut him off and tried to correct him, because if I am part turtle, clearly I am part snapping turtle. Chomp. And I paid for my heavy lens, my cashier's tag proclaiming that she spoke Turkish, Arabic and English, and went happily on my way, forgetting all about my adopted city's alleged colorlessness.

But winter is upon us, and despite the occassional crisp-as-a-snowflake day with blue skies and a sharp ridge of brightwhite mountains, we're in a period of grey. It's a bit blah. And Santiaguinos, especially in the winter, tend to prefer dark blues, black, grey, brown, and beige to dress. Maybe it's because the rainy days are mucky and awful and everything gets stained with street mugre (grime) if it's not a dark color. Or maybe it's just what the clothing purchasers buy, so it's what we wear.

This came up the other day because I was wearing a scarf that I'd bought in Bolivia. It's red/orange/darkorange/green/lightgreen/blue/darkblue/lightplue/pink/yellow/olivegreen/skyblue, repeated a few times. It's bright. And it stands out. I was commenting to a friend last week that I didn't know why people here don't like bright colors (with the exception of a friend who I saw the other day who was a purple and violet vision of loveliness, head to tiny size-six toe). And we came upon something. In Chile we don't have a particular word for "bright" as in bright colors. We have alegre, or happy. Colores alegres (literally: happy colors, means: bright colors) are seldom seen on the street. I wonder what it says about the collective psyche, if we fail to include happy colors in our closets.

I'm going to be in New York in a few weeks, and I was thinking of trotting out my best rainbow brite to see what kind of effect it would have. And then I realized that New Yorkers aren't fased particularly easily, and that I'd pretty much have to dress in a suit of armor to get any attention, and that only because I'd set off metal detectors, and because of all the clanging. Plus the certainty that I would fall and get trapped on my back, limbs waving, like the turtle I claim to be.

Which wouldn't be very bright at all.