Gloriously Lazy Sundays

Every once in awhile I let myself have a day to recharge. I call them reboot days. There are only a couple of rules: Don't get dressed if I don't want to; don't do anything at all if I don't feel like it. It's harder to do than you think. There are actually a ton of things I should be doing, and nagging thoughts that tell me to listen to the shoulds, the you-betters, the why-don't-yous. But reboot days are necessary. I've had a few weeks of going non-stop, which included making some major decisions. So this is my first free day in a long time, and my chance to catch up on sleep and to relax. Reboot time. Tomorrow I'll be refreshed and ready to jump into my last week of work before moving on to my next gig. Saying goodbye will be tough and starting a new job nerve-wracking, but giving myself this day to relax and reflect means I'm equipped to take it on. With a fresh start. Even though my laundry pile hasn't gotten any smaller.

Kool-Aid absorption

OK, how bad is it that I sorta felt sorry when I heard my allergy medication is going off-patent? For a moment I had a twinge of sympathy for this little pill that has helped me through so many picnics and naps with kitties. This fall, Singulair will get LOE (Loss of Exclusivity, for you non-pharma types, or, well, everyone else in the world), which means my allergy meds will get much, much cheaper as they go generic. Probably $5 instead of the $90 or so I'm currently paying. So finally, I drank the pharma kool-aid and it tasted good. May be time for a detox....

Superpharmablastwikifuntime.com

So, career update: Late last year I left behind my red pen and picked up the green one. That's right: finally, I'm a copywriter. Well, I shouldn't say "finally," because really that was never my endgame. It was just something a few people had encouraged me to do, and since copy editing is not as sexy as it sounds (really, there's way less glamour in proofreading than you'd expect), it was time for a career change.
So it's been 6 months. And things are pretty good. But the last couple of weeks have been excruciatingly slow. That is, I have no work. And since my entire day has to be billable, I have to scramble to find things to bill to (or else!).
Luckily, my boss found me a little task: name our new proprietary database. Easy, right? Uh, Bob. Or, no, wait, Excel. Dang! That's already taken. Actually, in the ONLY sort of direction or hint I've received (a vague email describing more or less what this person supposed the database would do), it was recommended we take an already-popular web product and mash it up with something agency branded. Very serious suggestions were: WikiPharma, or GoogleMed. Seriously. 1) This is no Wiki, so you can't call it "wiki"; 2) I think Google might possibly take issue with us using their name.
After several attempts to get in touch with the people who are actually developing this web site, no one has returned my calls or emails. So I get to name a database based on a third-person's interpretation on what the database MIGHT be like, looking at a beta version that so far hasn't returned any actual results, and oh, did I mention they want the name by Friday? Huh. No pressure.

Hurts so good

I'm going to let you in on a little secret about me: I love pain. I'm not talking about the strap-me-in leather-and-tie-me-up kind of pain*, but the kind that slowly chinks away at your ego. Yup, you got it: I play Scrabble. 98 letter tiles, 2 blanks, millions of combinations that somehow I can just never find. Limitless self-loathing.

My friend, Ed, keeps starting up Scrabble games with me on Facebook, and like a good little Bottom, I keep accepting. His first word usually tops 40 or so points. And I counter with something like "made" - 12 points [not actual score. I don't know if I mentioned I am also the foremost expert in creative scoring. See also, golf]. Currently, Ed and I are 4 words each into our latest game. And I'm about to reveal the humiliating truth: Ed, 110; me: 67.

Yesterday I logged back on to the game to put my word in. And as I moved the tiles to the board (IS, AM, JAM???), my hand suddenly released the mouse and my eyes moved to the table listing my and Ed's stats. Finally all the games, all the losses, the ranking that places me somewhere between a drooling parasite and Dubya. In response my hand goes back to the mouse, shaking I realize how Ed has systematically been destroying my very being. And I click PLAY WORD. 6 points. I stand poised and ready to be whipped again.

*Which reminds me of that time I treated my own cavity with a red-hot needle, but that's another story.

Writer's blargh

Writing is not hard. I mean, everybody does it - they have their blogs, tweets, Facebook updates. So why do I have to wrestle with words everytime I try to write anything. Case in point - I wrote that first sentence an hour ago. See? Once I start it's easy, but words and I have a very contentious relationship. For one, I don't like what I write. Ever. Well, I do at first. Start to think I'm the next Hemingway... until I go back and read it and think it's a steaming pile of overly ponderous poo.

You know, Words. We don't have to fight all the time. I will ease my stranglehold on you if you just try to relax a bit more. See, we CAN work together.

Now if we can both ease up, I can go on to my next point: Total avoidance. This is the third or fourth time I've checked up on my blog in the last several months. I've thought several times about adding a new post, then I (a) find something - anything - better to do or (b) is that a squirrel? And yet nothing has been updated. Turns out no one is going to write it for me. So what's the point of it? I'm starting to see how my job as an editor has turned me into a desconstructor of writing, not the creator. So now it's time to get creating again.

Thus I present my 2010 this-time-I-won't-be-a-slacker declaration of self-blogging: You'll see me again. Soon. Or later. But I'll be back.

Resurrection of the five star

More than 4 years have passed since my last post, which, let's be honest, was not that stellar or scintillating. Still, re-reading the entries gave me some great memories of a couple of past lives - when did I ever live in southern France? In that sprawling garden specked with palm trees and hugged by a 6-foot stucco wall that Oliver seemed to scale without the least bit of effort. The barbecue terrace roofed by a criss-crossing of grape vines and a twinkling string of dragonfly lights. The images are in my mind, the photos filed deep somewhere in a folder called 2005. How was it that I lived there? And how is it that I'm now stuck in this most pedestrian of a life, back in the U.S., a 9-5 temp job, most of my French forgotten?
Which brings me to the resurrection - the revival of the five star. My inspiration for "Wanna be a five star" is here, but now, in the middle stretch of my early 30s (please can we just stop counting birthdays now??) my five stars have taken on a whole new meaning. My five stars are not about languages, they are not five countries or the five office days a week that lie as an obstacle between me and the weekends. Five stars, my friends, continues to be the setting of goals, the personal challenge I always meant it to be, but now that challenge is much different, much more profound -- at the moment, the challenges are not entirely known to me, the outcome even less certain.
I have my Master's degree, I have a vague idea of what I want to do, I have no idea where I want to be, or where I will end up. But for the moment, the challenge lies ahead. The 9-5 drudgery or the infinity of possibilities? Only the stars know for sure.

Lost inspiration

I found this incomplete entry under "drafts," and since this is the first time in 4 years I've even logged onto my blog account, I had no idea it was here. I'm so intrigued, I wonder what great, cold-medicine induced thought inspired me to write this post. It was called simply: "Frenadol Inspiration", dated 8/23/05.

I got one of those nasty summer colds which are always blamed on 1. air-conditioning or 2. "change in air pressure". Wherever it came from, I'd like it and all of its brain-filling mucus to go away -though it did allow me to take a 1/2 off from work and yet another excuse to not go to the gym (I've now put going to the gym off for 23 days, the last effort was foiled by my forgetting to bring workout pants. argh). Anyway, I am taking Frenadol, which is the worst-tasting cold medicine you can find, and may have no effect whatsoever on the actual cold symptoms. It does have paracetamol (acetominophen) and caffeine, which makes my headache go away and makes sure I'm awake to enjoy it. Last night I couldn't go to sleep, so I blame it on Frenadol. But while I was laying there, I started thinking about

waaaaah!

I just had lunch with a friend who had also gone to the interview for the TV show and they told her right away that they wanted her, while they told me they'd "call me next week". So even though the week is only half-way over, I think my budding TV talkshow career is all the way over. I think that if they didn't tell me right away, that they won't tell me at all, so I will just add it to my list of almosts, along with any play I ever tried out for after high school and all of the decent flats I looked at while looking for a place to live (well, even the really decrepit ones had just been taken). Next time I will try for loud, obnoxious, pushy instead of my usual mild-mannered self and see if that gets me anywhere. I had nothing to lose anyway, and it was a fun experience. Right?

Another kind of star

On Tuesday I got a call from a woman I hadn't seen or heard from in about 3 years. She left me a message saying a friend of hers is producing a new daytime tv talkshow and are looking for people of different nationalities to participate in a weekly roundtable to discuss current events. They were looking for an American (me!) who speaks good Spanish (also me!) and who is nice (but of course, me!). So I called up Juan Carlos the producer and he had me come in for an audition on Thursday. I went and met one of the writers, who had lived in New York for 5 years as a kid and was wholy unimpressed that I was from Colorado. He seemed to think I grew up wearing skirts and skipping through fields and milking cows instead of being a real American, which was for him someone from New York. Ugh, I hate it when I meet foreigners who think there's nothing more to the US than NY or LA. Unhappily, a girl walked in right after me from New York (bi-atch) and the writer and her became fast friends while I sat quietly trying to think of something to say about New York so he would be interested in me again. Aaanyway, next I went into the meeting with the directors and some writers, I guess I don't really know who they were. They grilled me on current events and asked if I had access to info on events from the American point of view, to give a spin to the show. I don't know what they really thought of me, but seems to smile and nod appropriately. So they either loved me or were giving me sympathetic encouragement. I'll find out next week if I get to go on to the next step as token foreign girl...

Big birthday bonanza

Lisa and I decided to put on a dinner for Hamish's big birthday (denial) party. His birthday was over a month ago, but this was the first time we could all get together. The following is the story of one of the most pathetic birthday parties ever (aside from my own, which are always much worse):
the dessert we bought had CAT HAIRS on it, so we didn't use it and lisa was going to make a cake with some cake mix I'd bought from France but couldn't get the oven to light, she also had balloons and forgot them at her house, but that didn't matter because she showed up an hour late and Victor showed up 2 hours later, so the party was just me and Hamish for a while. then we got the grill rolling and it started to rain, so we had to bring everything inside and use my new table (which did a great job!) and set up an umbrella to protect the bbq. food was good, but there was no b-day cake and I only had 3 tea lights and some cheese, so I thought we'd do dessert French style, with cheese, though Hamish wasn't too keen to blow out the tea candles I was holding in one hand and feast on the cheese (wedge of Laughing Cow, grated parmesan, and a bit of spanish cheese) I held in the other. Can you believe the ungratefulness!? :) Then we were going to go to the fireworks, but they got rained out, so it was a terrible bust but at least we had a great light show au natural. At least we managed to get the birthday boy good and drunk, so maybe he won't remember what a pathetic party he had!

God help me!

So when they gave me the laptop for work in France, I was told it was installed with a DVD player (true), so I went to FNAC to look for a DVD I could watch when I was otherwise unoccupied in Montpellier. I picked up Alias, season 2, remembering how my brother and his wife love the show, so I thought I should see what the buzz was about. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the DVD player didn't work. Why? Must have something to do with our 60-year-old IT guy Carles who never leaves the building (and who's actual knowledge of modern-day computer systems is completely suspect), and won't let anyone else touch his stuff except for poor Carlos 2 (affectionately known - but not by him - as "dos") who is only allowed to touch certain buttons and never ever make decisions for himself. It was Dos who told me I had a DVD player, but it must have been the Captain who sabotaged it! This is odd because he seemed to have acquired a particular affection for me, telling me that I was "no sólo buena, pero también buena" - meaning, I was not only good but HOT. I thought maybe this unreciprocated admiration would encourage him to change cologne and shower, but so far nuthin'. Oh, I am getting mean, so better to continue the story (which you will find out at the end has no point whatsoever). Soooo, to make a long, uninteresting story even more so, I couldn't watch the DVD for 3 months, it was sitting on the shelf staring at me, though I hardly gave it another thought except for "why did I shell out 30 Euro on Alias, when clearly Friends is the only show that matters!" Well, I got back to Spain 3 weeks ago, unpacked and found that fateful 6-disk pack. I pulled out disk 1, and stuck it into the DVD player hooked into the TV set. The last 3 weeks have been a blur of strange wigs, funny accents and ass-kicking suspense! Lisa, my roomie, and I have been hooked and discussing where we would fit into the CIA - I'm pretty good at remembering where I left my keys (most of the time) and Lisa thinks she's good at encouraging others, so maybe they need some key-remembering, uplifting CIA babes, both with 3+ languages under our belt ('course we'd have trouble with the fake Russian accents, but our Spanish is sure better than Ms. Bristow's). One night I think I watched 4 episodes in a row and had to try to think of some un-embarrassing reason why I was so tired at work the next day. All my dreams are of being chased and beat up. Wow, spy-life is tough. On Monday I finally watched the last episode of season 2, and Lisa and I will have to scrounge around FNAC to see if they have any more seasons. My spy days are not over yet!
One question: if Michael Vartan was born and raised in France, why is his French accent so bad? And to answer your question, yes, I do spend my work hours looking up the bios of actors from the series. I'm pretty sure that's why they gave us internet in the office, right? Right?

End of séjour in France

Oops, been over a month since my last posting! Finished classes in Montpellier and had a week of vacation in Switzerland, now I'm back in Barcelona, at the office. Over 200 emails to read, so.... I know this is lame, but I'm copying some emails I wrote:
RE: Tour de France finishing a stage in Montpellier:
The tour was really exciting, and there were supposed to be 70000 spectators along the 18km route that passed through Montpellier. I was on a bridge with a great view and we could see them coming from abt a 1/2 mile away. A large caravan of sponsors passed through about 45 min before the racers and handed out things like caps and key chains, so I got my souvenir! I took a bunch of pics, but they passed by so fast I barely got to see anything. One of my pictures has a pretty clear shot of Armstrong in his yellow jersey. I'll send some pics when I can, but we are leaving for a week's vacation now (to Switzerland and south of Germany) so when I get back to barcelona I'll get on it. Yesterday was my last day of class, so we went to lunch, then I went to see the tour, then ran home to clean the house before everyone came over for a barbecue! I was a long day, especially since Thursday was Bastille Day, so there was a fireworks show, then I went out dancing and didn't get to bed til 3. A great way to end my 3 months here.
And...
I'm now back from our little trip. Switzerland was just wonderful (but expensive!!). we went up the Matterhorn by cable car (not all the way to the summit, though, that requires special equipment!) and people were skiing on the glacier while others were trudging up the other side with crampons on their feet. I can't believe I am now in Barcelona and it is so hot, when days ago I was shivering and standing in an ice cave! We also did an awesome hike in the Jungfrau region, the glaciers above us were settling and shifting and it sounded like thunder. the 6 hr hike also passed through cow pastures (with cows wearing the typical bells around their necks). one came up and tried to lick me!

A night on the town

Lisa and Hamish came this weekend, which I was so grateful for because last week I was really missing my Barcelona life. They came on Saturday afternoon and we walked around a bit downtown. Dinner at my place, I made baked fish which was actually quite edible (I'm always afraid to make fish but it's so easy- see chocolate dipped strawberry disaster for further info on why the simplest recipes are not so simple...). We ate outside on the terrace and I brought out rosé wine and was embarrassed to realize it had a twist top. oops. I guess that's what you get for 2.50 Euros. Anyway, it was drinkable and made my super fish recipe seem MUCH more impressive than my wine selection. Then we were to meet some friends for drinks, so since buses stop running at 8:30, we'd have to walk the 30 min to the city center. This was perhaps the most surreal 30 minutes I've had:
1. We walked by a drink stand where everyone was smoking hash, including a taxi driver (this should have been a forewarning for later in the night).
2. The Pinte Pub, a bar we went past, was lined with parked HarleyDavidsons. This was not so weird as remarkable. You kind of had the feeling that if you stood there long enough, someone would get thrown through the glass window.
3. A car full of boys obviously off their heads (maybe they'd come from the drink stand in n0.1) pulled up alongside Lisa and kept saying things (incomprehensible because of my bad French or their slurred speech??). At first we tried to ignore them but they kept following us, so I delved into my vast vocabulary of retorts and insults in French and came up with "vas-y" with I think just means "Go ahead". They said, "vas-y" and laughed then drove off, so I guess it was effective. Maybe they took it as a challenge like "Bring it on!" and decided they couldn't take us. yeah, that's the ticket.
4. Lisa stepped in dog poo, where she had to stop and do a little dance twisting and dragging her foot on the dirt. which led to number 5
5. Two really drunk slurry guys saw Lisa's dance and decided they needed to come over and talk to her about it. They blocked the way but eventually we were able to cross the street when,
6. A girl sticks her head out the window of her apartment and asks for a light for her cigarette.

We finally made it to the bar unscathed (just a little poo on the shoe) and had a nice time with Ruth, who was leaving the next day to go back to Germany, and others from class. We left around closing and went to get a taxi.
7. Taxi driver was driving way too fast and on the bridge crossing over the railway tracks, he swiped an oncoming car which tore off his side-view mirror. He stopped the car on the bridge and got out to go after the other driver, but they were thankfully long gone. The rest of the trip was in silence (out of fear of the crazy taxi driver while he fumed and cursed). We got to my place and the weirdest thing of all happened:
8. The taxi driver charged me the price on the meter and did not try to rip me off! Sent shivers down my spine.
Better just go home and lock the door!

The rest of the weekend was so dull: nothing weird or threatening happened at all on Sunday or Monday.

Last one, I promise! This is Megalo, stairs were put in much later, but you can see the net used hanging from the primary tower. 

Megalo meteora 

Little guy in the path on the way down 

entering Kalambaka with Meteora in the background


Meteora


At the top.



Supplies are raised by a system of pulleys and a net. Even visitors were brought in this way, sometimes taking an hour sitting in a net while the monks turned pulled you up


terrace of monastery

Meteora 

entering Kalambaka with Meteora in the background 

Cozy travelling in our Cinquecento


Greek salad, wine and cheese. dinner of champions