like, duh...

no, freezing a smashed cake will *not*, I repeat, *not* put it back together.

At least now I know.

Mothers everywhere: This is what happens to little girls who are not allowed to help in the kitchen. They turn into ...ME!

And life continues...

I struggled all night to get a good night's sleep through a terrible sinus headache. Not even medicine--for those of you who know me, yeah, GASP! I took something!--helped. Just splitting. But I made it through the night and decided to go on with the plan to take the monitos out for a little Buckies treat this morning. It can only get better, right? So they sat like angelitos as I made the order...not even daring to touch the black-and-orange sprinkled doughnuts that sat right in the middle of the table (one thing about my kids, they know when not to make the proverbial "fit hit the shan"). I got the single hot chocolate to split between the two, no whipped...excuse me, I said no whipped, please...sent that back and got my decaf iced (yeah, I'm nuts) mocha--oh (here insert choice swear words) as my decaf iced mocha spills all over the *bucks floor behind me...and my jeans legs received some choice splatters as well.

And I'm not even pms-ing. Yet.

Knowing it can really only get better (right?!) I took a deep breath and didn't even fulfill my social responsibility of reporting the mess I made...another rarity for me. I just left. Total escapism. I told the kids we are heading to the next Buckies down (yeah, two *bucks within about 100 feet of each other) and they followed, each toting their 1/2 hot chocolate in their own cups.

And we sat and enjoyed.

Got the groceries without much ado. Of course, I decided to do it all this way since gas prices seemed to have hiked 20 cents overnight, so time to start condensing trips. Funny how *buckies enables by hooking up with Safeway.

And I got 10 cents off per gallon of my fill-up. Whoo-hoo!

So, I figure, go get the kitty food. But they were closed, so I wasted the gas that I would have used by going to the *bucks my kids would have rather gone to. Such is life.

Now I am feeling like my sinus headache is starting to break up a bit. I think we are going to rake the silver maple leaves that are all over the backyard and play in them this afternoon.

And screw everything else right now! At least I have already-filthy jeans to wear for the job! (wink-wink)

By the way, I stuffed the entire cake back in the cake pan and stuck in into the freezer. Let's see if physics will stick it all back together...?! HA!

I can do absolutely nothing right.

My daughter's birthday cake just fell completely apart as I removed it from the pan.

Completely.

I am tired of everything I try to do in the kitchen ending in complete fracaso.

I learned recently that, to get a cake to frost well, one must freeze it first. So I thought I would actually plan ahead a bit.

I am not a cook. I don't know why I bother or try...except that I, for a change, actually wanted a piece of cake for a birthday and, since I'm off gluten and soy, I can't just go buy one and still eat it. I must make it.

I am tired of being the one to smile and say No, thank you.

As this happens, C is pelting me with some stuffed animal. I am the robber and he is the pizza man. I am tired of being hit by flying toys.

Feeling the rage boiling inside, I finally just yell.

WILL YOU STOP THROWING THINGS AT ME! WILL YOU JUST GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN? BOTH OF YOU. OUT!

I am tired of yelling at my children.

They just fled, C meekly uttering an "ok mommy" as they ran from the kitchen into K's bedroom. They have been fighting each other all morning, including while I had a student this morning.

I chose the wrong repair service, evidently, for my washer. It is filled with water and I had to hand-wring out my clothes yesterday after finally giving up. Yet I have had not a minute to sit, go through the phone book, try to blindly find (yet again) a more reputable service.

I am tired of having to make all decisions.

I don't have the patience and I don't want to. Honestly, I don't want to do anything. But I have to. All day yesterday I kept reminding myself of the women along the Río Tomebamba in Cuenca, Ecuador, washing their brightly colored clothing on stones in the freezing Andean water and then decorating the riverbank hillside with brilliant reds, yellows and blues to allow their clothing to dry. How I used to beat the ice out of my panties in Japan to get them to dry in the winter. What do I really have to complain about?

I'm tired of wishing to have my past life back.

The past three days, my children have flung themselves on top of me to bury me in hugs and kisses. I ask why; they say that it just looked like I needed to be hugged and kissed.

I will never tire of that.

But I just feel so tired. I would like to migrate south. I would like to not feel so alone. Amazing, how I am constantly surrounded by others, namely my children, and I can still feel so alone.

the tooth saga

La Princesita lost her first tooth the other day. And when the women of this family lose their first tooth, it is with gusto. I lost mine in the fashionable and conveniently enamel-colored carpet of my bedroom while with a babysitter when I was five years old. Heartbroken, I wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy in the last-chance attempts at being assigned an understanding, compassionate Fairy (rather than a mean-spirited Troll that leaves coal under my pillow? Who knows.) who would forgive me this foolish slip-of-the-tooth.

La Princesita's tooth was hanging on for dear life. As being the first, she is not yet so agressive as to just yank it out; instead it became a loooooonnnnnnnng, draaaaaaaawwwwwn out process with her even afraid it would come loose and she would swallow it during the night. It so happened the tooth dislodged while out on the playground, during her kindergarten class on Tuesday. I was greeted upon picking her up from school with a sobbing little girl and a teacher who assured me that "she did everything she could" (which I am sure meant scouring that mulchy playground at the request of my daughter...)--one would have thought the world had ended and, during our walk back home she stopped several times to just cry into my shoulder. We did make it home, and I suggested we have lunch together and read "My Tooth is About to Fall Out", which made her feel a bit better. She then proceeded to write a note to the Tooth Fairy, again with the same hopes in her mind, I believe, and then we left to carve pumpkins at the purplescrapbooks' house.

And we had a live jackie o'lantern for Halloween this year!

P.S. The next morning La Princesita came running out and said, "Momma, the Tooth Fairy understood!" She was thrilled.

May she always believe...

All Saints

This is the day that normally seems to begin my downward spiral into my personal abyss of profound sadness each year. Halloween is over, my favorite "hallowed-day" of the year. This leaves me with my darling daughter's birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Getting to Christmas is the hardest part for me, as my father died one week before Christmas, eight years ago (gasp) this year. Once I get to Christmas Eve, singing the carols and rejoicing in Christ's Birth, I am fine again for another year.

I prepared a mini-lesson on El día de los muertos, the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead, celebrated not only one day but in reality throughout the month of November. It was interesting in reflecting on this celebration with my student this morning (no--wait, yesterday morning. Damn this insomnia screws with my internal time settings) and drawing comparisons to the Shinto tradition of maintaining the shrine to one's antepasados with ofrendas maintained daily: the rice, the sake, the photos, the embracing of this person who contributed so much to the lives of those still living under that roof. (I need to get back to my Nakanojo furusato blog!) Making this person a part of our daily lives. Creating a space. Paying attention. Learning from the past and creating a present from this past. The Mexican holiday is cast in much the same light, a mixture of the aztec traditions and Catholic belief; indeed, no ofrenda is complete without a cross, mole, often tequila and the cempazuchitl, the yellow marigold believed to be the flower of death (much like the chrysanthemum in Japan). El día de los muertos is a perfect illustration of the Catholic church's need to compromise with the indigenous people of the Americas in post-Conquest times so as to gain followers; an "indigenous Catholicism", in a way. Rooted deeply in the traditions native to the peoples, one traveling throughout Latin America, and even in various parts of the United States, will see a very a Roman Catholicism that is very distinct from that which is seen in Rome, filled with idolatry and accepted sacrifice and celebrations that stem from Inca, Maya, Aztec and even, as illustrated below, Afro-creole and a wide host of other external influences.

Interestingly, I also learned today--no, sorry, yesterday--that the Jewish faith does not look at death in the same way. Instead, Jewish followers turn down the photos of their deceased loved ones for a mourning period of a year. There is no open-casket velorio and the burial occurs one day after the death. Mirrors are turned away or avoided so as not to witness our suffering due to the loss...or perhaps due to the not wanting to see the memory of the antepasado still alive in our eyes, our facial details, our expressions. I am not well-versed enough in that tradition to know or to expertly present, but the comparisons and the contrasts deeply fascinate me and create in me a deep desire to learn more.

I live next to a cemetery now. I grew up across the street from a cemetery in Oregon. I have always found peace in death around me and could respect the idea of embracing the life of the one who has left us behind. My life was turned upside down with my father's death and yet I embraced him. My choice in profession is due to having a marvelous, patient public school teacher for a father, and I believe his spirit lives on in me, in allowing me to at least strive be the best teacher I can be, both in and out of the classroom. Each year I have so longed for my mourning to be different, feeling by this point that I have reached the acceptance of his death and the readiness to move on, but a deep emptiness remains in my soul. Perhaps the darkness of the year and the pointless commercialism of the season drags my spirit down as instead, each year presents me with a battle. I want to move on and not feel so sad...but I can't. There are other (rather huge) reasons as well, which I suppose I will write about, now that I seem to have found a bit of relief in writing, come December. I don't want to start to dwell too early.

Today, the mantra in my mind will run, over and over, for my dear father, for the innocence lost, for all the loss I have had to endure,
St. Michael, pray for us...

worms in blood sauce with maggots...

The menú for the evening--aka spaghetti with meat sauce.

Something to spook your socks off

A public figure in a port town, he constantly was faced with decisions. Whether or not to close the port. Whether or not to stand up for principles over corruption, in a country and culture operating under the thick influence of corruption. Whether or not to call off search and rescue efforts due to inclement weather conditions. Such decisions can create strong allies with those respectful of one’s commitment to humanity and justice. Even more powerful are the enemies that inevitably form once their interests are violated.

In 2005, serving the first of a two-year mandate in the Town, he opted to follow the law and ignore several bribery attempts in various scandals that shook the area. One exemplary case revolved around medical professionals fraudulently filling forms required for law enforcement officials’ proof of eligibility to serve. He turned all evidence over to the Powers that Be, and several were brought to justice, some currently serving prison sentences.

His position often called him out of full nights’ sleep. He had to live separated from his family, his wife and his young children. He had to travel frequently to the capital for legal proceedings in which he was tried under money laundering charges stemming from service under a past president’s regime. He had to constantly deal with the press, especially when there would be a death at sea. He had to answer to fishermen or tourist agencies that depended on the sea to grant them their daily bread each time he closed the port. Once every so often he would be able to get out for a run; he enjoyed running and could easily run the length of the shore between the fishing and the tourist ports, a distance of about ten miles. However, as his daily decisions continued to garner him both the strongest of supporters and the worst of critiques, threats began to reach his ears and he felt he must only leave his quarters either accompanied or packing heat, usually both.

In the next year his health began to deteriorate. He began to experience intense stomach pains. Having always led a rather stressful existence, ulcers were a normal health consideration, and his doctors continued with the same diagnosis for the new pain. He stopped smoking, he stopped drinking and he began to eat well. His physique radically improved, yet the pain only continued to increase. Toward the end of his two-year charge in the Town, he underwent a gall bladder removal. Soon thereafter he returned to his home, leaving the Town and all those issues, optimistically, behind. Three weeks later he fell deathly ill with vertigo while out running and was admitted for a two-week stay in the hospital. He was found not guilty on the money laundering charges, although many others tried alongside him were sent to prison. He recovered from the vertigo, but the stomach pain ensued. Endoscopy after endoscopy, blood test after blood test followed, with a diagnosis of metaplasia--pre-stomach cancer.

The stressful life continued, as work continued to drain him of positive energies. He was held at gunpoint as a thug attempted a robbery on his car. Both he and his wife were involved in minor car accidents within the City. Legal proceedings revolving around the possible interception of telephone calls then took precedence and, although the hearings still have yet to begin the stress of pure anticipation eroded his soul.

It seemed that one bad thing after another continued to occur and, all the meanwhile his stomach pain increased, to the point of barely being able to eat. Bowel movements became problematically loose and he was beginning to lose hope that he, at 39 years of age, had much time left on Earth.

An old friend, of whose daughter he happened to be named godfather, approached him one day and mentioned the possibility of a hex having been placed on him. Both being Catholics, living in an extremely Catholic country, he laughed off that extremely Nancy Drew-esque possibility yet his companion persisted. Over the course of a month he continued to press him to visit a special doctor, a shaman, one who is known for being able to see what is wrong, beyond that which traditional Western medicine will, in what can be its limited scientific scope, be capable of identifying. Finally convinced that he had absolutely nothing to lose, he allowed himself to be taken to this doctor. In a very short time he was told that he had been stricken with powerful curses and was to be sent immediately to visit a type of a sage, a seer, a priest--the appropriate title is elusive but this man had the ability not to cure, as the shaman would, but instead to define and to cast out or undo spells, tasks that fall beyond the scope of a shaman's abilities.

Extremely dubious but feeling, again, that there was nothing to lose he found himself at 6:30 a.m. the next morning at the steps of this seer. There were five others already awaiting his attentions, and there was nothing he could do but wait. He was invited in at 6:30 p.m. and the sage spent two and a half frightfully irrational hours with him.

The region in which he served his two years is one of great Afro-creole influence. Witchcraft is famously practiced there; world-famously, individuals have been known to travel to this area in search of cures for maladies which Western medicine had written off as terminal. White witchcraft invoking the Christian God, Biblical study, love and natural remedies acts as a powerful antidote to black magic that calls up diabolical powers to act in pure hatred against its victims, and both are actively and naturally sought by the population of this area; indeed, the embracing of such powers is as natural as breathing and as accepted as eating.

It was discovered that three different individuals, on three completely separate occasions and in three different locations had created powerful spells of hate toward him. The sage presented him with three bags in which a doll, hand-printed hatred chants on evidently-aged paper, and various “charms” were enclosed. Among these charms were dead frogs, snakes, bullets, items collected from what had been a meeting between him and each of these individuals, and one bag even included a photo of him that was a couple of years old, taken of him when he had assumed his position in the Town in 2005.

He was dumbfounded. His rational mind refused to comprehend the pure quantity of items that were laid in front of him, the demonstrated hatred toward him. How could he, a well-educated Catholic believer and a moral man, fall victim to or even believe that such witchery could do such damage, let alone exist? He logically determined there was no way this photo could have been obtained by this sage or by anybody merely working with him. His identity was unknown to this man previous to the visit. How could he have been so hated? He was presented with evidences of identity of those who created these black death wishes, who are indeed currently serving prison sentences for crimes committed. Also spoken of were explicit details of his life that are not public knowledge and with such detail that he left, two and a half hours later, completely stupefied.

Somebody wanted him to die. Three people wished him to die. The curses varied, but in common they all attacked his gut, with snakes in the entrails of the dolls. There were written desires for him to die in an accident or to be shot. The priest undid these curses and told him that he could only undo that which was the Devil’s work. Any naturally caused bodily degradation would require medical attention and treatment. Homework readings of Bible Scripture were assigned for mental cleansing. The sage said that any other person would be dead already after trying to fight the power of this hatred already for two full years; he did not see how this individual had thus far overcome the evil working over his being. The human body and soul cannot tolerate the manifestation of so much pure evil.

This which I relate above occurred this past Wednesday and Thursday. He was reported on Friday to feel at about 75% less abdominal pain than he had felt in recent months, without any production of gas whatsoever in digestion, also a rarity now, and he purportedly could eat chicken that day.

Believe it…or not.

Happy Halloween!