A Walk in the Rain

I went out looking for beauty this afternoon.
I found some.
I got damp.
I have a new niece!

Football, Fall Picnic & Indoor Fun

Ezra and I haven't been letting the dropping temperatures keep us in! We were lucky enough to catch Uncle Nate's last football game of the season, as is captured in the first photo. It was chilly but Ezra kept snuggly and well briefed in Grandpa's arms. Nate's team the Park Rapids Panthers got creamed by Detroit Lakes Lakers (pretty clear who has the lamer name, however), but they got less creamed than they thought they would, so that's good!

The next pictures in the series capture Ezra hanging out around Grandpa's house. He and Uncle were having a lot of fun on the rug, and I took a video to be seen here to show exactly how much fun. (The music may be nostalgic for you too.)

The next few pictures were just taken this morning when Ezra and I took a trip to Deep Portage Nature Reserve. We took a nice long hike to the bog where we had a picnic of turkey sandwich, chips, carrots, and an orange. To wash it down we brought mango lemonade, although by Ezra's expression you'd think it was Wild Turkey. It was a lovely walk, even though it was cloudy, windy and gray. Ezra had a lot of fun running down the hills, as is showcased in this video. When we were done with our hike we went into the main building and found that there was a quilters' getaway going on! We watched some quilting (there were approximately 40 quilters sewing, cutting and pinning like crazy!) and then were invited to share in the candy buffet they had put together. We were sad we had forgotten desert for our picnic, but the Hershey kisses, double chocolate cookies, and candy corn made up for that. Quilters don't move around much, so I think it was best that our active bodies absorbed some of those sugary calories.

The last two photos showcase Ezra's new blocks! Holy cow, there are so many blocks. I bought them at the local thrift store on Friday, 10 bucks for a vacuum cleaner box full. I think Uncle will really enjoy this collection as well.

Ezra finally decided what he's going to be for Halloween. I will give you a hint, in Spanish he will be a caballo. Photos soon!

Ezra's cousin will be born any moment now too, so congrats to Mama and Papa Finc!

Minnesota Fall

Fall is quite a lovely time of year, isn't it?

Guatemalan B-Sides

Something is still certainly amiss as while I am posting this the photos that are seen above are only weird computer coded words, but let's see if I can remember what they are.

I know there's a picture of Ezra sitting on some lavish sofas: that one was taken at the hotel in Fort Lauderdale on our way to Guatemala. I wanted to stay in that hotel for much longer than the 9 hours that we occupied it. The photo of Ezra in the huge bed with oodles of pillows was also taken at the hotel. I slept on the right side of him in the tiny space between his little body and the edge of the bed. Parenthood=wasted bed space.

Yes, that hotel was pretty swell, complete with continental breakfast and transport to the airport. The transport was a little spotty however, as every half hour was really more like every hour and a half, and then when we finally got to the airport the chauffeur couldn't open the back where our luggage was! He grappled with it for at least half an hour until it finally just popped open quite magically. We didn't miss our flight, good thing we're Minnesotans who show up for everything extra, extra early just in case these exact crazy things happen.

There's another picture of a big, colorful hammock. That was a plus down in Guatemala. I miss it, I really do. There's another picture of some cloth napkins hanging from a clothes line. I think in this picture our home actually looked kind of homey for whatever reason. While we were there I had a very limited wardrobe and as I got sick of my clothes I started cutting them into different styles and then using the scraps for napkins, dish towels, rags, etc. These lovely plaid cloth napkins had previously been the upper section of a dress that turned into a skirt a month into our visit. My biggest regret is turning the majority of my pants into shorts, as now in Northern Minnesota with the looming winter ahead pants are at a premium. It's not too much of a problem at the moment since I don't have a job and could technically spend the day in my pajamas as many other people do here in Northern MN.

It's interesting to me how here in MN people seem to take a lot more pride in the appearance of their homes than in the appearance of themselves. Grimy, in pjs and unshowered for a week they'll head out from their immaculately manicured lawns and wash their cars. In Guate on the other hand if you leave the house you better be bathed, primped, wearing coordinating colors, and smelling good. However, the house is probably half painted and with random crap strewn about. I can't decide who's right, no one right, but it is an interesting contrast.

As for me, I got tired of showering everyday, but around here I wish folks would get a little dressier just for fun. I like how the 60 year old Guatemalan ladies wear their little yellow heels with matching yellow blouses and accessories. It's adorable! Like screw you I look good.

Maybe it's the weather. It's hard to get to the hilt while bundling for warmth.

I hope I sound a bit more positive, in general I feel more positive most times of the day. Today I was a little bit down thinking about what I may have to do if I can't find a job that I consider respectable, such as manage a gas station in the sticks and live in a crappy, airless apartment. Today I thought I would rather roam the land like a yogi than do that, but then there's the question of Ezra. Surely child services wouldn't handle it well. And it surely would be less zen with a little boy demanding food, sleep, and all of the things yogis don't have time for.

I guess I just wish the world were different, my life were different, Ezra's life were different. I'll get over it, see the positive, be thankful for what I've got. Uh oh I sense some negativity coming back. Maybe I should wait until I have a job and/or a house to update here again.

Ezra specific news:
Ezra had a fever today but he seems to be better. All he wanted to do was read books and drink tea, good medicine for anyone.
Yesterday Ezra helped me with my sewing project. As I removed the pins from my project I gave them to him and he placed them in the pin cushion, which is a tomato. As he placed the pins in he said he was "planting a garden." Cutie.
Ezra loves, loves, loves to play in the leaves. I rake 'em, he scatters 'em, and by the end we both have leaves in our hair.

Videos & Pictures Over Yonder

I have decided to give up on putting pictures and videos here for now- I just don't have the patience!! (Thanks for the link though Howard, I will figure it out one of these days.)

In the mean time, click here to see a video from Ezra's Guatemalan Grandma's 44th birthday.

Click over here to watch Ezra drive a helicopter with no hands!

Ezra running around the back patio is over here.

I have also gone ahead and created a Picasa album with photos from Guatemala which you can find over here.

So much clicking to do! I certainly prefer to just put the gosh darned pictures here on the blogeroo. Someday. I figured out that the problem is that my new spiffy camera is just too spiffy for blogspot.

But in other news: we are back in the U.S.! What the? I know, here I am finally showing you life in Guatemala and we are no longer there. What happened? Many things. I will just list them because I don't want to go into it right now:

1.) no plumbing- this wasn't as much of a big deal when I lived there before, maybe due to the washing machine we'd had, maybe due to not having a little boy who didn't like to bath in cold water. To give my sweet boy a bath I had to lug pots and pans from the kitchen to the pila to the kitchen to the bath basin (see photos). Basically no plumbing meant approximately 2-3 hours more work daily.

2.) extreme rainy season- I had mentioned before that Ezra's grandpa's house was flooded this past summer, and the rains never stopped. When your mode of transportation is a motorcycle unending rain storms put a real damper on things (ha ha). We couldn't leave the house, meaning on top of all the extra work there weren't fun outings to distract myself. Also, there was no dryer so the clothes were perpetually damp, leaving them smelling less than desirable. Oh and there were several leaks in the roof, meaning constant puddles of rain/mud (coupled with the duck sh*t=major bummer).

3.)fixer-upper house- no one had lived in the house for years so it was pretty filthy. Every room needed to be painted, the floor was always in need of cleaning, the yard was full of random garbage, it took sometime to acquire a proper kitchen (see photos), and on top of all this to complete the projects I relied upon Cristian purchasing the supplies which meant bugging him daily which annoyed him and annoyed me and leads to number 4.

4.) cultural differences- if I say I'm going to do something, I do it in pretty speedy timing. Cristian? Not so much. There's always some reason (excuse) why he couldn't do something that I asked him to do. It got really really really old. For example when I needed my wisdom tooth removed I had asked him to call the dentist because he's much better at speaking Spanish than I am and the dentist had to tell me where his office was and I don't know Chiquimula like Cristian does. Anyhow way to long passed with me in way too much discomfort so finally I called and made an appointment and took down some directions that I thought might lead us there. We drove around in circles for 20 minutes looking for the dentist because my directions didn't make sense and then finally Cristian called the dentist as I had been asking him to do for weeks. The gutters were leaky and he waited until it was POURING rain to fix them, etc. The leave-it-to-the-absolute-last-minute technique severely stressed me out. I like to do it and move on, not think about it for weeks/months. On top of this he was constantly late, indeed very late and I just couldn't get used to it. I've had perpetually late friends, but not the man who I am living with trying to make it work for the sake of our son. Can't do it.

5.) business plan met several dead ends- I wanted to start a little English school, remember? The vacant room attached to the house would have been perfect, and I even had some potential students! But then the owners of the room decided I couldn't use the room for no good reason, and I was left with the prospect of putting it in our house. However, due to the aforementioned reasons (especially the leaky roof, how much can I charge someone to learn English sitting in a mud puddle?) this wouldn't have been possible until much more work was done on the house, which meant bugging Cristian, which might have made him do things even slower... I will never know.

Other contributions included: no friends in town, hardly any interaction with extended family, extreme littering and pollution (Ezra and I gazed down at the river from the bridge one day and were almost hit by a bag of garbage a woman threw into the river next to us- when Ezra asked me what was that, how do I answer?), poor eating habits (kids eat sweets, chips, and coca cola all the time- Ezra fell right in), very little stimulation (no parks, no museums, no events, just housework and cold showers), no libraries (only Christian book stores) and no internet at our house to allow me some communication with friends and family.

It was actually the internet that spurred the final showdown that lead to our departure. Since arriving in Chiquimula I made it very very clear to Cristian that I wanted to have the internet at our house so that I could keep in touch with people. Two months went by and I still didn't have it. I needed to buy a modem and Cristian had said that a friend of his sold used ones for cheaper. Since money was tight I was waiting around for him to call her. Days, weeks passed and everyday I asked him if he'd talked to her and everyday he hadn't. Many days he complained that there had been no work and he had spent the day sitting, reading the newspaper, even napping. Why can't you call you friend about the modem in all of this time? I asked. My battery was dead/I didn't have any minutes/etc. he would answer. And when I asked him he would get really irritated and often times huff off into the yard and refuse to talk to me. So one day I told him he should move out because it didn't seem like we were happy living together. He didn't have anywhere else to go (so he claimed) so the next day while we were out he removed everything from the kitchen and made it into his private bedroom. If you've already looked at the photos you see how far my kitchen came along, but let me tell you it was an uphill battle to get it to that state. But then all of a sudden I didn't have a kitchen again and I was expected to prepare food on a tiny table with no room to do anything. It was too much. I spend a lot of freaking time in the kitchen and with the new arrangement I knew I couldn't be there another moment. So I threw the damp laundry into my backpack and the toys and books into the suitcase and we left for the airport while Cristian was at work. I do feel very bad about leaving without saying goodbye but I was nervous that he would try to a.) take Ezra or b.) talk me out of it. It had been a rough road and I wanted it over.

So, here we are in Minnesota, back in Hackensack under the protective wing of my mother. I don't feel that much better just yet because I don't know what the heck we're going to do. I feel pretty lost, and it's a very nerve racking thing to not have a plan of action. I am hoping that something will come along soon, it's just hard because here in the tiny town of Hack there's not much for employment opportunities but I don't have any money to go anywhere else.

My plan for now is to try to do a bunch of little things to make some money like sell stuff on ebay and make funky baby pants to sell at a little boutique. Any body have any other ideas for making money?

I've felt pretty down, about leaving Cristian so abruptly and I'm still worried about him but he's not answering his phone. I don't know if what I did was right, but it's the situation so I'm just trying to move on to the next thing, whatever that may be.

My horoscope tells me to... "keep a running list of all the ways life delights you and helps you and energizes you. Describe everyday miracles you take for granted . . . the uncanny powers you possess . . . the small joys that occur so routinely you forget how much they mean to you."

Maybe I can have that ready for the next post.

Happy Fall folks.

why do pictures take so long to load anyways?

i don't know.

i'm trying to upload them, but if it doesn't happen here's some pictures painted with words:

Yeah! My computer is alive! Silly me thought the battery was dead when it was actually the charger that was caput. New charger, new battery, and we're in business, apostrophes and all.

It is a cool and rainy spring here in Chiquimula, keeping the laundry from drying and us from leaving the house, as well as the perpetual need to mop the floors- my favorite! It's good exercise I chant to myself as I heave and ho scrubbing duck sh*t three times a day. Yes remember I mentioned our adorable little duckling? It is now considerably larger, drastically uglier and creating immensely greater volumes of black oozing excrement. I can hear the sound it makes coming out and I shudder while grabbing the broom. Cristian says he's going to buy some mesh fencing to corral the duck away from the house, so now my job is to bug him about it until he actually buys it and installs it.

So, what else is new? I have one less tooth! One less wisdom tooth that is, with three still hanging out in the rafters waiting for an inconvenient time to budge on down. The wisdom tooth that was removed was on the lower, right hand side and had emerged partially roughly 6 months ago. It wasn't bothering me at all so I just let it be, disregarding the dentist's warning of infection, cheek inflammation, and looming pain. Roughly 2 weeks ago I started to feel some discomfort, but figured the tooth was maybe just growing in a little more, so I took some pain pills and forgot about it. After two or three days it got worse and had spread from my temple to my throat, the whole right side of my face full of a pulsing, tender ache. I went to a dentist, waited roughly 2 hours to be seen, spent less than one minute in the chair because the woman informed me that I needed surgery, something beyond the capabilities of that particular office. I gave her my number and she said she would call when the surgeon was in town. In the meantime I didn't eat very much and brushed my teeth at least 5 times a day. Finally she called, the next week, to tell me that in fact the surgeon wasn't coming, but she recommended another dentist in town. I gave him a call, and he said “Sure, come in tomorrow at 9 o'clock.” I figured I was in for another wait-for-an-hour-only-to-make-another-appointment-after-he-looks-at-my-tooth, so I brought Ezra and we planned to go shopping at the market afterwards. Well, I did have to wait roughly a half hour, but once in the hot seat just as soon as I opened my mouth I was getting shot up with anesthetic. While we waited for my mouth to go numb, we talked about general things (kids, how to get them to brush their teeth, language, etc.). The whole time Ezra is sitting in the dentist office on the floor in a corner looking slightly mortified until the dentist hands him some toothpaste and he is completely content. So after the alloted amount of time and my tongue has gone partially numb he gets out the big wrench like tool and extracts the tooth with amazing quickness (for Guatemala especially where everything takes forever- I'll tell another story about that in a minute). After he has removed the tooth he places a wad of gauze in my mouth and tells me that I should not eat, drink or talk for the next hour. Doh, what? I can't talk? Now is the time I have many questions, and I cannot talk? So there we were, Ezra and me, in downtown Chiquimula on the busiest street in town, me spitting blood every few feet and Ezra watching me quizzically, no doubt wondering why I am grunting at him rather than talking. I tried to call Cristian to have him come and pick us up, but he didn't understand my grunting. A lesson to all, if you drop someone off at the dentist and they call you a little while later unable to talk, please just assume you need to go pick them up. They are not calling to grunt at you. Anyhow, we had to go find my medication (to prevent infection and ease the pain) which meant visiting several pharmacies all the while wiping blood onto the single napkin the dentist provided me. By the way, the tooth was in this napkin.

We did get the medicine and I managed to communicate well enough with my monosyllabic humphs to get us home in one piece. It was an awkward morning to be sure, and I sure do hope to not have to go through it again. If the situation does repeat itself however, I will know to ask all my questions before extraction, as well as inform my son I will not be able to talk. To be honest I think he enjoyed the vacation from hearing me urge him to hurry up, put that down, get away from there, and no you cannot have a soda pop. It was rather cheap, approximately $40, although the medication cost roughly the same so at the end of the day it cost about a week's salary of a Guatemalan motorcycle mechanic.

Ezra is really making great strides in speaking Spanish! Today he said “donde esta?” which is his first complete sentence. He also said “lluvia” for the first time today, and yesterday he said “pelota” . He knows perhaps 15 words in Spanish, which is pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I think now he will start catching on faster. It is pretty special to hear him speaking more or less with his father, as well as neighborhood characters. For example today we went to the store by our house and Ezra said “Por favor chocola-tay” to the man behind the counter. Guess who got a chocolate bar? How's that for motivation.

Other than the language he's more and more curious everyday. He wants to know how everything works (doors, locks, computers, extension cords, gates, etc.) and he is also very into textures. He spends hours playing with dirt, picking up hand fulls and dumping them in another location (he says he's “dumping garbage”). One funny story about his dirt is one day when it was raining he came out of the house to look at the patch of dirt where he always plays. His shoulders slumped and his lower lip puffed out he said, “Awwww, it's raining on my dirt, now my dirt is covered with mud.” He was really distraught. Another thing that causes him to be extremely distraught is when he is under a blanket but his feet are sticking out. He wails, “Mama, my feet are not snuzzleing!” and totally looses it until his feet are properly snuzzled.

He is still very much into books, something I am very happy about. I was worried because of the lack of library here, but we have been able to subsidize the selection with help from grandma's care packages and trips to Copan. In fact we went to Copan just last weekend and had a terrific time. There is just something that makes me feel good about being there, and I'm not sure if it is the gringo presence, the comparable modernity of the houses there (screens on the windows, attached bathrooms, running water!!), or the small town feel with mountain vista. We saw some old friends and made some new ones, especially Ezra. He makes so many friends everywhere we go! We took ourselves out to lunch and by the time our order arrived he was having a tea party with three new friends. I had to tear him away to eat his French fries and burger! Later at the park a little girl came up and insisted Ezra play with her pink, squishy ball while she gave me the third degree (“Where's his father? How did you get here? What time? When will you leave? Etc.”) Her father called her a 'placticadora' which means she likes to talk a lot. I told him it was okay by me, I know several placticadoras, including myself and Ezra. Well, he would be a placticadoro of course.

I just heard the Bunsy boy wake up from his nap, and it just started raining again. Better move the laundry and make sure Ezra hasn't dismantled the television. Oh and I just heard the . Oy vay.

*The next day: the duck has left us to go live at the abuelo's house. I miss it the tiniest bit.

Still no photos...

Argh! We are having endless computer problems resulting in limited photographic evidence of our activities here. We are still bumbling right along here, getting pretty sick of beans and overly salty meat but trying to find alternatives that we can all live with. Seriously the food is the biggest problem right now for me! I remember the last time I lived down here that I got bored with the same old same old, but at this point my body is down right rejecting the typical food! I seem to only be able to stomach pizza, calzones, and popcorn. Oh and smoothies of course. I have always liked beans but at this time I just about wretch looking at them.

Pobres frijoles.

Ezra doesnt seem to be tired of the food, and has even taken a liking to corn tortillas much to his fathers delight. I couldnt care less about them, even though I have to buy 15 of them every day. Cristian cant eat without tortillas. The hand where the tortilla is supposed to be just hangs there limply. Poor Guatemalteco. We like some of the same things, like eggplant and chicken, but he likes everything dripping in grease, namely margarine grease. My poor grandmother, watching me cook with the palm oil horror day in and day out. Food is basic and necessary, and while I was worried about a lot of different things, I wasnt prepared for the confrontations of combating cuisines. Oh and he also likes MSG, as everyone does here. I shudder.

But he and Ezra are getting to be pretty good friends and its adorable. Ezra understands more and more and Cristian understands more and more too. Ezra says "Im hungry" and Cristian says "Tienes hambre?" Hes always been good at detecting what someone is saying.

We have more gall darned pets. Two more birds and one dog. The dog was fogotten at our house by a friend of Cristians who came over to help do some landscaping and proceeded to get wasted. So drunk you forget your dog, for two weeks. We assume the dog will stay. Hes ok, nice enough, when he isnt eating the toilet paper or burrowing Ezras shoes deep in the dirt!!! Just what I need. No more pets! I mean it!

Ok, well, I wish I could just sit and ramble but Im at the internet place by my house and theres no apostrophe button and its irritating. And I still have to make flyers for my English lessons.

Savor your favorite foods! Especially if those near and dear agree with your palet.