Catching Up: August

August proved to be an extremely busy month. Pretty much all I did was work and look for apartments, with a little bit of Ultimate and blogging thrown in for good measure. I am honestly trying to remember if I did anything else.

However, the month did kick off in exciting fashion. Because we were in Chicago for Belu's birthday, and because we couldn't settle on a date for celebrating here, she decided to skip the celebration. Well, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and throw a surprise party. This was harder, but the execution went perfectly thanks to a lot of help from Belu's friends. I told Belu we were having dinner with Mike and Kyla in Chinatown. Everyone came over to my house to prepare. When I arrived at Belu's to pick her up, I feigned illness. We would have to go back to my place to take precaution because of my cat allergy. Belu, concerned for my well-being, insisted we return to my apartment. Then this happened:



In sum, it worked perfectly. More importantly, Belu had a great time, which was of course the whole point.

Belu and the girls. And Mati.

At the end of the month (or maybe the beginning of September, I can't recall), a work trip to England granted me the opportunity to stop over for a couple days in Amsterdam to visit Brad and Natalia. That took me (briefly) out of a particularly stressful period at work, and no we didn't go to a coffee shop. But riding a bicycle around town is a treat rarely offered in Buenos Aires. Follow that up with a boat cruise around the canals and you have a really chill couple of days. Thanks to my hosts for taking care of it all, and sorry the visit was so brief.

We move on to the bigger news in September. Hopefully I will get some more catch-up time soon!

Other writing from August:
Top Ten Worst Cartoon Remakes
Brad and I review Public Enemies
Kicking off the top 50 Albums of the 2000s
Album #50: Rival Schools - United by Fate
#49: At the Drive-In: Relationship of Command
#48: Shout Out Louds - Howl Howl Gaff Gaff
#47: Mastodon - Crack the Skye

Catching Up: July

So like I said, we need to catch up around here. So we're going to go month by month through the past and get back to current as soon as time allows.

At the outset of July, Belu and I took a weeklong trip to Chicago to celebrate various birthdays. Hers, my mom's and my brother's. We hit up Taste of Chicago (on a Tuesday at 2:30 PM - ideal timing!). Though far too short, it was a great trip, and we got a week of summer. Here are some photos:

The flags were a clear indication they knew we were coming

I once took a road trip that started just like this!

The best bread pudding in the world (from Rosangeli's). Apparently not so for the Argentine palate.

The obligatory Sarkis' "Disaster"

Just one small example of the best skyline in the world. From the architecture tour boat.

Obligatory Cloudgate photo. I'm in there, too (look for the womanly shopping bag)

Mmmmmm... Buffalo wing aftermath fingers...

Perhaps not a surprise, but the cheesecake stole the show. Argentine cheesecake is always weak stuff.

The famous Water Tower

Obligatory Home Alone church screamy picture.

McRae becomes part of the exhibit

What can I say? We got jealous.

La familia!

Late in the month, I accomplished something somewhat significant. I played board games in Argentina. OK, let me rephrase. I played board games in Spanish. At Adri's birthday party, Boggle and Taboo were two featured events, and I not only participated, I actually played well. Now, there are some caveats to such success. Namely, I played a hell of a log of Boggle as a kid and oms eof the Argentines were trying the game for the first time. And one could argue that a limited vocabulary actually helps with Taboo because you don't know any of the rest of the words on the card anyway. But my ability to communicated had clearly improved. Besides, after that we had a rousing game of Sexionary which traffics in international languages.

Deemed most hilarious dibujo of the evening.

Cute kids playing Jenga:


OK, so that was fun, right? Hopefully we can catch up quickly with the remaining (gulp) eight months.

Other writing from July:
First Blush: Farm by Dinosaur Jr.
Which Chick Flicks are the Chickiest?

If the House is a Rockin...

Sorry for the lack of postings here. I know I've said that before. Work has been impossibly busy of the last six months and has cut into a lot of the "me time" (the "we time" too, but that's another story). Anyway, I have a plan to catch up and I hope to do so soon. We'll see...

I am certain that most of you have heard about the earthquake in Chile last night. 8.8 on the Richter Scale is freaking ginormous. To put things in perspective, the Haitian one was a 7.0. They really don't come much higher than that. Nobody warns you about these things, and I've never noticed an earthquake before (though they happen in Chicago on occasion, I always just sleep right through).

Last night, I did not sleep through. The epicenter was all the way over in Chile, 700 miles from here. But we live on the 36th floor and I awoke because a bunch of stuff in my apartment was making a ton of noise (the chain on the curtain slapping violently against the wall, the sliding doors to the closet rattling, who knows what else). Coming out of a deep sleep, I had no idea what was going on. We get noise during storms, but it was quickly clear that something was different. The building was shaking like crazy, it felt like being on an airplane with bad turbulence. Or, since I was in bed, more like that scene from The Exorcist.

Now, our building will move a bit from time to time. The chain on the curtain is sometimes not still. But this was seriously crazy. For a few brief moments, I thought there was a chance I was going to die. There are enough things that break and fall apart here all the time that I was unsure of the confidence I should have. I wondered for a second if the sensation was all just in my head, but all the noise was clearly real. After what seemed like three or four minutes, it settled down a bit and I decided to get up and look out the window. I nearly fell down from the movement that remained (after the bad part had stopped). To my shock, everything outside was still and silent. I had expected a wild storm and it was suddenly clear what had happened.

I can't imagine what felt like in Chile. and I have no idea how they didn't end up with thousands of casualties. I always thought it would be kind of cool to be in an earthquake, but I no longer have that opinion, at least not while living in a high rise. Of course I'm not complaining; there are people who died and many lost their homes. Belu slept right through it. I wasn't sure if I should wake her and run out of the building together or let her sleep. Had it gone on for two more minutes, I would have done just that. Luckily, it stopped and I could uneasily contemplate what had just happened.

Here's hoping that those suffering can find some peace and recover from this disaster.

A great, fledgling Spanish blog

Estimados,

I want to let all of my local friends who are working on their Spanish game know about a great new blog that's written by my former Spanish teacher in Chicago. Juan's approach is all about keeping it simple. When we have time to think about what we're saying, most of us extranjeros do a pretty solid job. But in the moment, we can get confused and mix things up. The key is of course getting practice. But if you can follow Juan's advice, keep things simple and learn the rules in way that makes them stick, you're nearly there.

It's gone through a few name changes, and it's currently called El Diario de un Profesor de Español. I highly recommend bookmarking the page as every time he posts something it either solidifies what I thought I already knew, or corrects me where I've been wrong.

Still no internet en casa. Hopefully we'll get this situation figured out soon. At least it now appears that the lavaropas disaster has been "ironed out." Jajaja.....ja. Ja.

Saludos!
A

Where You Been?

Hi Gang,

Sorry for the utter lack of posting in this and the other two blogs for, well, about a month now. I have moved. I do not have internet at home. My company has gone fascist and decided that large portions of the internet shall be off-limits. This includes the place where I create postings. So, I write this note to anyone who may be coming back here, expecting updates on my life and other ramblings. There is SO MUCH to discuss, but no way to blog about it yet. Anyway, sit tight and we should have this crap figured out soon. I hope so, anyway.

Just for the sake of giving you a taste, here's a view from my window (many, many more to come):