"A Cycle of Giving"

Over the last few weeks I've been browsing for appropriate gifts to send home to my immediate family members, weighing a lot of factors such as: Will this be useful/appreciated? Is it the right size/style? Will they think I'm bananas for sending this to them? Will it fit in a postal box size 3?? I think I have to kiss that box away after the gifts I got yesterday but we'll see.

I'm also about to spend a substantial portion of money on myself. This Wednesday I meet with the landlord of the beach apartment to pay the next 2/3 of February's rent, and then Friday I leave for an excursion-and-nice-hotel-filled vacation. While I'm white water rafting down the border of Chile, I hope I pause for a moment to thank my lucky stars that this is, in fact, the incredible life I lead.

Part of leading a great life means having the resources to help others. I don't do as much as I should or could in the way of charitable donations of time and money, but I do try to support several organizations that are important to me throughout the year. I am most consistent with Kiva, a microfinance system that allows you to choose which projects to fund and then reinvest that money once the loan is paid off. During the holidays, though, when everyone who has money to spend on gifts should have some money to share with a charity, I always choose Heifer International.
Every Christmas, in addition to agonizing over finding the Perfect Gift for everyone in my family, I also make a donation to Heifer International in their honor. Three years ago I bought a sheep (pictured above, too cute not to buy); Two years ago I bought flocks of ducks and chickens (also unavoidably adorabe); last year I bought bees (in bee solidarity against CCD and as a celebration of finally getting over my fear of these amazing creatures). This year, I bought trees (for obvious reasons since everyone knows I am a tree hugger; sorry for the spoiler, family).

I just can't say enough good things about Heifer. I am often skeptical about international aid programs because so often I hear from friends who have lived and worked abroad in developing nations that a lot of this aid goes to lining people's pockets and never makes it to the people it was intended to serve.

Heifer is different because it doesn't send money; it builds community. Their primary focus is on providing regionally appropriate animals (also trees and seeds) to people in developing nations. But, these animals come with training: how to care for them, how to sell their products at market, and how to help restore their land to create a profitable but sustainable future for their families and a better world for all. I'm tearing up just writing this, it's so fantastically well-rounded!

And as if I couldn't love them any more, one of the principles of Heifer is that you must pay it forward (hence "a cycle of giving"). So, if your family was given a flock of ducks and they thrive and procreate, you must then give a few baby ducks to a neighbor, and pass along all the same training you received. They have other admirable initiatives as well, such as gender equality, microfinance, and HIV/AIDS education. Plus, they like puns and alliteration, so my English nerd is also stoked. For example, the two photos I posted were captioned "Shear joy" and "Light up a life with a llama." Awesome.

If you already have an organization that you support during the holidays or all year round, that's great and I salute you. But if you are looking for a worthy organization to share some of your own lucky stars with (or feel like you want to after reading this), I highly recommend trying on for size the warm fuzzy feeling that donating to Heifer provokes.

Three announcements (one with a photo!)

**Update: unfortunately I've been getting a lot of spam comments (if you've noticed any 'deleted by author' those are 95% spam) so I've turned on word verification for comments. Don't let this discourage you, but rather try to find humor in the random, wacky letter combinations they come up with!**

I know I promised a post filled with exciting details of the last month or so, but that is not for today (it is coming though, I swear). Instead I have some housecleaning announcements to make, and like all good things it comes in three parts.

1) I need to give a heartfelt shout-out to two Yanqui friends I had to say goodbye to not only on the same day but in the SAME HOUR on Tuesday. Renée and Bradly, you are both missed. And, you better come back!

2) I'm moving. I won't go into details about why in consideration for the parties involved (myself included) but what I can tell you is that I'm quite excited for the new situation. I move on Sunday from Caballito, a neighborhood I have loved and to which I will dedicate an Ode To post soon, to Barrio Norte, a very hip and happening (and SAFE, Mom) spot where I will have a balcony and a big kitchen. Amy, I am so looking forward to our honeymoon period that we can hopefully extend several times by my coming and going in December and then again in February!

3) I'm going on vacation over Christmas. Yay! I am going with a girl named Beth and we leave Friday, December 18 to fly to El Calafate. On Saturday we will hike the Perito Moreno glacier. (Yes I am worried about being out of shape, yes I am worried that I have zero outdoor gear, no I am not going to let either of those things bring me down.)

Then we have from Sunday to Tuesday to figure out how to get to Bariloche. It's about 24 hours away but we are considering a few options. The place we are staying looks amazing and we're even getting a free night and a free bottle of champagne! This is where we will spend Christmas:

It will be my first Christmas away from my family but at least I'll be with a friend at a beautiful resort. The hotel has a big dinner and then I guess it's customary in Argentina if you are young-ish (or just really energetic) to go out dancing until dawn, so we might try that on for size.

We come back Sunday December 27 and I plan on working all that week to make up for taking the week before off. I'm also looking forward to spending New Year's Eve with some local friends, apparently that works a lot like Christmas in that it is family time until 2 am and then it's out dancing until the next day.

I hope you are all well. Merry cold holiday season to those of you in the Northern hemisphere!

Robbed at long last

I've managed to make it a long time without getting robbed. In the U.S. my apartment was broken into on 9/11/1 - one of the lowest crime rate days in U.S. history - and my car stereo and CDs were stolen out of a shady parking lot near the stadiums in Seattle, but I wasn't there in person when either of those happened.

It's not for lack of trying on the theives' parts down here. Practically every time I got on the subway in Santiago, Chile someone had their hand in my bag. And, you might remember the scary incident in Mendoza, Argentina when two punk kids ripped my messenger bag off me while I was biking which made me wipe out in the middle of a highway. But, they dropped the bag. Every time someone tries to rob me, they come up short. Until last night.

I was walking from a bar to a restaurant in a nice enough area of town with a girlfriend from the U.S. when a short man ran at us. He got to Amy first but I put myself in between them as fast as I could and we were both yelling and getting defensive, ready to take this little man down. By this point he was closer to me and had his hand on my bag which I was not about to let go of, until I saw he had crazy, desperate eyes and a 3 inch blade raised and ready to jab into my right shoulder. I let go immediately and he went running down the train tracks we had been crossing.

A half block up we saw a cop and I started walking toward him and yelling, hey, we just got robbed! No one paid us any attention, except to glance curiously at us. The cop sort of slowly wandered over to us and asked a few questions, were we ok, what did the guy look like. Then he took his time - a full 10 minutes - searching the dark tracks while we stood uneasily waiting for him to come back. I mean, we had just been robbed in that exact same spot. But a lot of times they'll ditch the bag and anything else except the money, and if he came back holding my purse I wanted it, so we waited.

Eventually he did come back with another man in tow. He had wrestled up some poor, illegal immigrant from wherever he was camped and asked us if this was the guy. "No, no, that's not him" we said several times before this scared young kid finally got that we were not accusing him of a crime. He had a dark red mark above his right eye, and I really hope that it was a birthmark or an old sore as Amy speculated and not a recent pistol whip on my behalf.

The policeman finally let him go and I thanked him for trying. He asked if I wanted to make a 'denouncement.' I said, is it really worth it? He seemed to think it was but then when I asked how long it would take he said, "You'll be at the police station until about 4 am." It was only 11. I politely declined, opting to keep our dinner plans and maybe come out of it with a semi pleasant evening instead, and he walked with us a block before we caught a cab.

During that block he started to try to lecture us on the importance of safety. "You have to be careful... if you had just taken a cab..." I cut him off right away. I thanked him again for his help but told him I didn't need a lecture. I am always safe. We were in a well-lit area with a ton of people around, early on a Friday night. I wasn't alone and I wasn't calling attention to myself. I live here and I speak the language, and I'm not going to take a cab every time I need to walk a few blocks just to avoid any potential danger. I'm a woman, not an idiot, and there's nothing I hate more than being treated like some sort of delicate flower that needs constant protection.

I also hate it when people tell me I need to be careful here, because it's not that Buenos Aires is dangerous; LIFE IS DANGEROUS. I happened to be crossing train tracks in a nice part of town, but the exact same thing could have happened in literally any other spot in the world. BsAs is a huge city, and as such it has more theives due to sheer population. But I actually feel a lot safer here than I do in New York, for instance.

I wasn't really that upset. Amy was more angry than I was. I didn't cry and even during the actual ordeal and immediately after my heart barely raced. (Clearly I'm the kind of person you want around in an emergency - cool under pressure, baby!) But I wasn't upset because I knew it could have been worse, we reacted the best way we could, and I had almost nothing of value in the bag, unlike Amy who had just been paid, so really it was lucky they got my bag. She bought me dinner as a consolation prize, plus I had no cash so she sort of had no choice.

And, just because I'm very type A and wanted to write it down, here is a list of everything the bastard got.

A beautiful black leather handbag that I just bought
Inside:
My umbrella that I've been trying to lose for 2 years ever since I bought it to replace the last umbrella that I loved and always resented it as inferior
My trusty Guia-T guide to the buses in Buenos Aires
A half-full bottle of water
A purple clutch I bought in Philadelphia 3 years ago and was the best purse EVER
Inside the clutch:
My crappy red cell phone I managed to keep in working condition since Chile, plus all the numbers stored inside it
My keys, with an elephant keychain Casey brought me from Africa and a flashlight keychain I've had for years
My favorite pen, I have no idea where it came from but it was very ergonomically pleasing
An easily replaceable chapstick they sell in every pharmacy here
An assortment of bobby and safety pins
A sweet black wallet I bought at Nordstrom's and was the best wallet EVER
Inside the wallet:
My WA state driver's license that I hated
My AAA card
90 pesos in bills (less than $30)
4 pesos in coins (almost more valuable than the 90 pesos, coins are to be hoarded here)
A variety of receipts and business cards that for some reason I found important

A few things I was NOT carrying:
A debit or credit card
my passport (which I never, ever leave the house with if I don't have to travel)
My camera (or video camera; see?? This is is why I've been so nervous to go out with it!)
My sunglasses or their cool case, having taken them out just before leaving to make room for the umbrella

You may think it's odd that I am able to recall such a specific list of items, but the reason is because I had randomly decided to clean out both purses and my wallet the night before. So I had a good mental inventory of what was lost, which is nice because otherwise I would be wracking my brain thinking, "but what else??"

So, yeah. It sucked. But, it's also not that big a deal. PLEASE, unless you are my mother who is obligated to do so, do not post comments telling me to "be careful." If I weren't a careful person, this would have happened a lot more often to me in the past.

Coming soon - an upbeat post filled with fun updates such as the rockin' Manu Chao concert, a killer wine debut party, and sooner rather than later, my very first edited video segment.

Two Months in Buenos Aires

Today, December 1, marks my two-month anniversary of being in Argentina. It's a beautiful sunny day and my legs are covered in red, swollen mosquito bites - summer must be close!

Music in the Air

What better way to celebrate my two-month marker than by going to see one of my favorite musicians of all time in concert? That's right, Manu Chao (and his band Radio Bemba) is in town and he added tonight's concert especially for me at the last minute. (Actually it was added as a 20 year celebration of something, possibly the fall of the Berlin wall but it's fuzzy as things tend to be down here; it's being broadcast live over a local radio station, too!)

I'm going with 4 American girls and a Brasilian dude and I'm so excited. I've always wanted to see him live in concert and the stadium where he is playing is just one neighborhood over from mine. What are the odds?

End of a Cycle

Renée and I were talking about how life abroad passes in shifts which seem to be on a cycle of 8 weeks. So, cycle #1 is over, in which I had very little Apex work and I had Renée here to entertain me.

Cycle #2 will be until February 1, until which time I will be busting my butt to get my work project up and running and Renée will be in California with her family for the first time in almost 2 years. (Which means there is an opening for entertaining me until then, fyi.)

And Cycle #3 will include a month at the beach and then March... who knows what March might hold?? I'm looking forward to finding out, but all in good time. First I have to get through three months of torturously humid summer.

Malditos Mosquitos

It's interesting how I feel guilty about killing the most minor of insects, even if I do it accidentally, yet when I see a mosquito I turn into a deadly stalker and will not rest until he is thoroughly smashed. Never once have I sympathized with a mosquito. They embody all that is evil and MUST. BE. DESTROYED. When I'm awake I try to tackle the job on my own and have gotten very skilled at the mid-air-between-my-bare-hands kill, but when I'm asleep I use a plug-in Raid liquid (aka pesticide, probably) that keeps the buggers at bay.

If I were of a normal state of mind I would think, huh, maybe it's not healthy to sleep in a room that is spewing poision every night, all night long? But, my friends, this is no normal state of mind. It's mosquito warfare and they are winning.

**UPDATE: I checked and it uses a chemical called prallethrin. Couldn't find much except this abstract. I'm pretty sure mosquitos are more immediately damaging to my health (plus I'd like to avoid both malaria and dengue fever) than any potential alteration to my "plasma biochemical profile" (hey smart genetics friends, what does that even mean?), I'm going to keep using it. Plus the amount of liquid it expels is minuscule, she justified to herself convincingly.

En Fin

Christmas is just around the corner and I still don't know what I'm doing but I will likely take a trip somewhere. I'll be sure to post Manu Chao updates and I have some pictures to share soon. I also plan on learning how to finally edit my videos together as one of my mom's Christmas gifts, so there's that to look forward to (or not, I think I'm a pretty miserable cinematographer but we'll see).

I hope you are all well!

Happy-ish Thanksgiving

I had been looking forward to this Thanksgiving since last Thanksgiving. As is so often the case, I built up this one night in my head so that it never could have lived up to my expectations. Which is not to say it wasn't a successful dinner - for the most part, it was. Let's start with the bad.

First I burned the pumpkin pie crust trying to get the filling to cook. I did everything I could - reduced the temperature a bit, covered just the crust's edges with foil - but the bottom and the sides still got burned and the pie just wasn't as good as the test run last week. Luckily by the time we got to the pie everyone was too stuffed to eat it. But let it be said it was FRESH! Also in the picture is a can of candied yams I happened to find at a grocery store here, which the yam eaters were happy about (we were never a sweet potato family so it's not a tradition of mine).

Second, the mashed potatoes tasted good but had the consistency of glue. I think it had to do with the sour cream substitution I used (since sour cream does not exist here) and then beating them with a hand mixer instead of good old fashioned mashing. Ironically, this was the only dish that did NOT have leftovers. They must have been good under gravy, which luckily did turn out well.

Third, I had originally planned on cooking a 10-11 pound turkey. Sol's boyfriend George took charge of the task of securing said turkey, and told me he reserved a 15.5 pounder. I only found out AFTER dinner that Sol and George kept the truth from me that the turkey was, in fact, nearly 19 pounds, but they decided not to tell me since I was already stressed out about it being too big. Somehow I managed not to give us all food poisoning since there was no helpful pop-out thermometer to tell me it was, in fact, done.

Everyone sung its praises and one American girl told me it was possibly the best she'd ever had, so despite not having American bacon to cover it with (which was still probably the most popular snack food I offered), real maple syrup to baste it with, or fresh sage to season it with, the turkey was a success. Here's the beast with the always-popular bacon cover:

Fourth, almost everyone was late. Ironically the Argentineans were more on time than the Americans. After 10 hours of cooking, two days of prep, and months of planning, I couldn't help feeling sort of disrespected by late arrivals. It's not like it was an early dinner party either, I told people to come at 8. But, I breathed through it, reminded myself that everyone had a good excuse and it wasn't meant as a personal offense against me, drank some wine, and kept basting the enormous turkey. I'd like to point out that the kitchen is miraculously clean for it being so close to dinner time in this self-portrait.

Ok, on to the good. It was a hot day but there was nearly no humidity so the apartment stayed cool and my 10 hours in the kitchen weren't insufferable. The blueberry sauce turned out really well, as did the green bean casserole and the stuffing. And, the gravy - always my biggest stressor! - was quite tasty. I made too much Waldorf salad but that too was delicious. Here is a shot of my meager effort to de-seed the grapes for the salad.

People were grateful to have been invited. The Americans were glad to have a place to celebrate and reveled in the authenticity of the traditional food, while the Argentineans were happy to experience a new holiday and get a delicious meal out of it at the same time.

Overall it was a fine Thanksgiving - no disasters like you see in the movies, nothing caught fire, nothing was inedible - but it lacked the magic of last year's. I appreciated my Mom telling me on the phone later (waaay later, 3 am my time) that she has prepared many a holiday meal that she would have rather thrown at her guests than served to them. The good news is, next year I will have no expectations whatsoever so it will probably be my best Thanksgiving ever!

For now I'm off to heat up the last of the green beans and stuffing, plus some turkey and blueberry sauce for good measure, before heading off to watch my neighborhood's "soccer" aka futbol team play in the local stadium. It seems like a sort of symbolic transition from American traditions to Argentinean ones.

Thanks and an explanation

Thank you so much to everyone who commented on my last post (after I admittedly badgered you into it). I know I have 40-60 people visiting my blog each day, but I have no idea WHO those people are, and sometimes it makes me a little crazy. So, thank you to those of you who revealed yourselves!

I think there might be a misconception about why comments are so important to me, so I'd like to try to explain myself.

Although I do revel in the thought of strangers reading and enjoying my blog, and it gives me a certain sense of (satisfaction? accomplishment? ego?) seeing increased traffic to my site, that's really not why I write. I certainly have no commerical aspirations; if I did, I'd have to make this blog a lot more concise/interesting/relevant. So, people who don't know me are more than welcome and I love to read their comments as well, but high readership is not my real objective.

I write for two primary reasons. The first is to create a journaled account of a time and space in my life. I'm traditionally a very bad journaler, so having this flexible place dedicated to documenting whatever it is I think might be interesting to me to read in 10, 20, 30 years is great, especially since I can type it out. I'm a much faster typer and as my family and close friends will attest, my handwriting is interesting but often illegible, even to me.

Okay, here's an ugly confession. I'm a very practical person and to keep myself from being sad about not seeing the people I love, I focus on what's present. It might sound harsh, but 95% of the time I don't think about what's outside my current life and location. I do the same when I'm in Seattle, Philadelphia, Buenos Aires, you name it. It's a defense mechanism and it works really well. If it didn't, I couldn't maintain this transient lifestyle. It's not all magic and puppies when you constantly uproot yourself; among the priviledges of experiencing another life and culture are sacrifices and really lonely days. So why do I do it, you might ask? Man, I hate that question! I just don't have a good answer for it. I do it because I am compelled to.

All of this brings us to the second reason I write, which is to maintain a sort of lifeline with the people I care about. I can't belive how cheesy that sounds and I tried to rewrite it several times to make it a little less so but it's the truth.

I try to stay in contact with people individually but there's always the blog to come to if someone is missing me or wanting to know what's going on. At least, I tell myself that people use it that way, and that unto itself is a comfort.

But when a week goes by, two weeks, three weeks, with no comments and not that many people reaching out in other ways, well... it makes me sad, sometimes, because I know as much as I'm willfully trying not to think about people at home to avoid depression, people at home are not thinking about me simply because I'm not present. I'm a very reliable person but the life I've had for the past several years has made me a very unreliable friend in terms of geography. I can't blame people for thinking of me that way, but it does make me insecure. I mean, obviously! There are probably (hopefully??) people reading this right now saying, "can she really be thinking that?" I've had people tell me that they don't reach out since they assume I'm having an amazing time and that there's no way our friendship/relationship could ever be put in jeopardy by a little space, but being so isolated it's hard to remember that sometimes.

So, that's it. My big, dark secret is that yes, I get lonely, yes, I miss everyone, and yes, I crave contact from people in whatever form. Even if you aren't the commenting type, please do know that the smallest gesture, no matter what the form, means a lot.

Pumpkin pie from scratch

For the readers who noticed I stopped doing a blog a day in November (did anyone notice??) I would like to say that although I was fully prepared to finish the month out, it seemed like overkill. No one was commenting and it was perhaps just too much information to take in. So, I called it quits. And now on to today's blog.

Thanksgiving is one week from tomorrow. I have a guest list of approximately 13 people and I plan on making 8 dishes. There has been a change of plan and now we are doing Thanksgiving at our apartment, which means using this kitchen:

This will be the third Thanksgiving I have prepared on Thanksgiving day (not to mention 3 others I've done at random times of the year just for the hell of it) and the second from this country, so I'm confident in my ability to pull it off even in a minuscule kitchen and with almost no culinary supplies.

What I wasn't confident about, however, was the pumpkin pie. You see, I've only made two or three pumpkin pies before, always using canned pumpkin, and I don't remember them turning out especially well. Also, canned pumpkin is not available here. Last year Katharine brought a can with her, and although Renée's friend Jen is coming this week, I thought to myself several weeks ago, "Why not try it from scratch?" (What I cannot make from scratch and what Jen will bring because there is simply NO substitute is a can of French's fried onions. Mmmmm, green bean casserole.)

Of course, this wasn't something I could try the day before and have it be a disaster, so last night I set about making my very first pumpkin pie from scratch. (I have to say, it's a much different experience baking a winter pie in a summer dress with 90% humidity making me feel gross and sticky.)

I have my Aunt Kathy's perfect pie crust recipe memorized so that wasn't a problem. I couldn't find a rolling pin at the store where I bought the pie dish so I made do:

Then it was on to the filling itself. I boiled, drained, and pureed about 4 cups of fresh pumpkin. Although I consulted several recipes I didn't follow any one and improvised to my own tastes while accounting for Argentinean ingredients. For instance, condensed milk only comes sweetened down here and I don't like very sweet pies, so I didn't add any sugar. I also really, really like a cinnamony pie so I added about twice as much cinnamon and nutmeg as most recipes called for (I did not have cloves, allspice, or ginger). I used 2 eggs instead of 3 or 4 since I like a nice dense pie, and mixed everything together:

I love that color! The filling looked and tasted delicious and had the right consistency. I even managed to make pretty pie edges which is a constant shortcoming of mine (which might have also influenced why my Halloween empanadas fell short since the concept is the same). It looked good to me, pre-oven:

Of course, then there was the matter of the oven itself. You might recall that since I can't turn the oven on I don't use it, but the pie left me no choice. Sol was on her way out the door but gave me a tutorial on turning the oven on and then turning it back on when it goes off, which it did several times. Every time I was able to turn it back on and I have to admit I was pretty proud of myself. Don't laugh.

Most recipes recommended baking for 15 minutes at 425 farenheit (210 celsius) and then 40-50 minutes at 350, but guess what, folks? Ovens here don't have temperature settings in farenheit OR celsius. It's just a nob with varying sizes of circles indicating 'hot' and 'less hot.' So, I baked for 15 minutes on 'hot' and then a full hour on 'less hot' after checking it several times. When I finally took it out, it looked perfect:

Renée came over for dinner and sangria and, after letting my orange masterpiece cool for several hours, we finally cut into it. The vanilla ice cream came from the heladería next to my apartment and the pie came from heaven itself:

My first bite was so satisfying. It was a perfect, American-style pumpkin pie and my nervous little heart swelled with pride for the second time in one night. I am not much of a baker and I hate using recipes (greatly contributing to my not being a good baker). This will be the first Thanksgiving where I make the dessert so it was sort of like the last Thanksgiving "first" I had to face.

Renée admitted to me that she was sure she'd enjoy it but never expected it to taste so much like the pies her sister makes. "No offense but I thought it would taste more... earthy" she confessed as she took a second slice.

One thing I definitely could have done - a constant issue with my pies and quiches - is make the crust thinner. Limited counterspace, no rolling pin, and a decisive lack of patience all contributed to a thick crust. I also forgot to brush the edges with egg whites but they were still flaky and delicious. For Thanksgiving I'll be sure to remember both of these things.

So, I'm one step closer to being ready for the much anticipated holiday. I would love to hear your Thanksgiving plans and what, if anything, you will be cooking. (Read: a thinly-veiled request for comments. Stop being a lurker and write something if you're a regular reader! Post anonymously if you want! It's painless and gratifying!)

Sooner or later we're going to have to figure out how and where to SEAT 13 people... but there's more than a week for such plans so, fiddle-dee-dee. I'll think about it tomorrow.