Signs that we are going downhill

I ate a box of Reese's Pieces for dinner.

Oliver came home raving about an adorable rat he had seen on the subway platform.

I had to set a timer for 15 minutes and physically pry the laptop from his hands. "We're going to sit next to each other and just talk, damnit!"

Ekeko

I've never been a big vacation souvenir person, but I found the perfect one in Bolivia.

I was in La Paz's Witches' Market when I saw Ekeko. The Witches' Market sells all sorts of things to be used in tribal religious rituals - llama fetuses, fake money to be burned in offering, powders, vials, etc. Some stands, depending on the time of year, also sell Ekeko dolls. Ekeko is the god of household wealth, and a steady stream of sacrifices and offerings to him is said to ensure good fortune (the money kind) for your home in the coming year. He is said to be a demanding god, and loves cigarettes and booze.

He also has a mustache. That probably isn't so relevant, but I think the mustache really sold me.

I bought this little doll for about $5 US, and became obsessed with protecting his more fragile parts from chippage and crushage as we moved from place to place. We had a 15 hour bus ride at one point, and I held him in my lap the whole time. It was worth it in the end - he made it back to Brooklyn with only minor damage. He is now sitting on a bookshelf, grinning out at us from under the weight of the car, house, money, confetti, and food that hang from his shoulders.

Tribal religious rituals! How cute!

Only since we got home, some strange things have been happening:

• I washed Oliver's brand-new sleeping bag (according to the instructions!) and it came out ripped and melted in little spots. Wha???

• Oliver broke a lamp while trying to close a window.

• I noticed a giant rip in our bedsheet.

• Our kitchen became infested with flour weevils, and we had to throw out all the grain-based products that were not sealed air-tight.
  

• I discovered a leak in our ceiling.

• One of Oliver's favorite pairs of pants basically exploded. The rips - the humanity!

• Ditto for his favorite shirt. A hole in the elbow.

How often do you have to buy a pack of Marlboros for a figurine? He's not a pack-a-day kind of guy, is he you think?

...

And while I'm at it, here is my other vacation purchase:


The best part? The llama didn't come with the hat. I sought that out separately because I felt this need (NEED!) to put a hat on it.

Our Pesticides, Our Selves

You know you're a strong woman. You can handle life as it comes, and could handle it alone if need be. You've taken care of yourself for years and have not only done it well (to pat yourself on the back), but have enjoyed the independence you feel in the process.

Your husband goes out of town for a month and a half, and you discover that you are still totally able to function on your own. And not only function, but thrive. You're proud of yourself for not having lost your identity once you added "wife" to your list of titles (Wisconsinite, math hater, candy connoisseur, overreactor).

Then you come home one night from one of those "girls' nights out" that make you feel so empowered, and you discover that your home is full of ants. And spiders. Did I mention that you are REALLY afraid of spiders? You buy a can of Raid - even though it's terrible for the environment you don't care, you just want to kill those horrid beasts - and you start spraying and screaming.

You really, REALLY miss your husband.

Do you feel tiny ant feet running across your scalp? Did you just feel that?

Sleep Well, Mon Amour

Oliver's out of town, and it's been an interesting week so far. I've been insanely productive, and cleaned every room in our apartment. Pretty heavy-duty cleaning too, involving mops and scrubbing down on my hands and knees. I've also gone to my sushi restaurant again, this time making brief eye contact with another "table for one-r" complete with book in hand.

All in all, I've really been enjoying this time alone. I get to be in complete control of every square inch of our apartment, and I get to set the "tone for the evening", which never works for me when he's around. "Tone"... does that make sense? When I say this I mean that during my walk home from the subway after work, I say to myself "tonight I'm going to light a couple candles, call my parents, then dig into that history of the Balkans I haven't been making much headway in." I picture the mood, my evening's accomplishments, and my satisfaction with the end product. When Oliver is around, it's about five times harder to stick to my plan. It's funny how one person's mood can affect yours so strongly. If he feels lazy/exhausted one evening and wants to watch a movie, it's almost impossible not to join him. This is a good thing, really. It probably keeps me from going off some sort of overscheduled, zero-spontaneity deep end. Still, I like "my" evenings.

Problem is, I lose steam when it's time to go to bed. The apartment suddenly seems so big and dark, and I can't help but notice how easy it would be for a ruffian to break one of our windows and make himself comfortable in our little home. The quiet, which I loved half an hour ago, is now oppressive. My solution: tv. I've been sleeping on the couch these last few nights, and the tv is my loving companion as I drift off to sleep. It can't be a movie either. It has to be a regular broadcast, because then I know that thousands of other people are watching the same thing at the same time, and that of course means I'm not alone (Is this ridiculous, or do you feel the same way about these things?). Unfortunately for me, we only get five channels. One of them is CSPAN-style coverage of government proceedings, and the other four are in french. If you wanted a little "company" in the dark of night, which would you choose: programming in a language you can't understand, or CSPAN? The upside: it lulls me to sleep right away.

Cherry Walnut Beasts

My plan last night was to spend about 30 minutes baking Cherry Walnut Bars - a nice, homemade gift for some co-workers before the big Christmas break. From start to finish, "start" being the opening of the cookbook and "finish" being the bitter taste of defeat, I made three trips to the store, spilled maraschino cherry juice on the recipe, baked the crust too long, didn't chop the cherries finely enough, and screwed up the frosting so that instead of blending nicely with the powdered sugar, the butter clumped together in oily, mucus-y globules. I also fouled just about every mixing bowl we own. Incidentally, I know that "fouled" isn't really the right word to use, but the image it evokes is perfect.

Today I gave my co-workers an explanation of why they weren't receiving anything from me, and a look at the photo I had taken of the failed bars. More importantly though, I gave them the gift of not having to eat the total crap that I had just baked. Do you wish you worked with me?

Ronald's Warm Embrace

This is a crude drawing of my mouth and the McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese that recently entered it.

Rewinding a little bit...

This is Fast Food Nation, a book I read back in the late fall of 2002. I had just graduated from college, and was rediscovering the idea of choosing my own books and reading them just because I felt like it. Fast Food Nation was fascinating, and it was also frightening/angering (yeah, I know). Eye-opening book plus 22-year-old idealist equals McDonald's boycott. No more little hamburgers with their tasty minced onions. No more shamrock shakes. Never would a McGriddle pass my lips (it was added to the menu after I started my boycott... dang). December 8, 2002. From that day forward.

Fast forwarding a little bit...

Earlier this week, we had a big event at work. It was a healthy lifestyles carnival of sorts for about a thousand kinds in the area. Part of the focus of this event was to get kids thinking about eating healthy, and we got all sorts of product donated for them to sample. Bananas, yogurt, carrots, juice, and so forth. We even got some pre-packaged apple slices, complete with caramel dipping sauce. We had a few extras of the apple slices, so a colleague tossed me a bag. I was really hungry... the apples looked good... I saw the picture of Ronald McDonald on the bag but didn't put two and two together...

...Until it was too late. At slice #6 I looked straight into the eyes of Ronald and a chill passed through me. I was a little horrified, and confused at the same time. Apple slices? Did these really count? Did I throw away my impressive 5-year record for apple slices?

The only thing to do then, was get in the car that evening and drive to a McDonald's - a really ghetto McDonald's, preferably - and do it right.

So I did it. Right. And hilariously, that night I felt a little lost. If I was no longer a person who didn't eat at McDonald's... who was I? I've decided to reclaim my identity then, with a new quest. No fast food (except for Subway and/or a Wendy's baked potato in emergency road trip situations) for one year. Oh yeah, and no McDonald's ever again. Just because it's fun.

A Trip to the Dentist Yields

1 appointment for a root canal

TBD number of appointments for 11 new/replacement fillings

Ugh.

This is why I never go to the dentist. Umm, wait...

A Really Elaborate Game of Charades

I'm still very much into the no-tv-for-a-month thing (August 25th... piece of cake), but I've decided to allow myself one movie per week. This week's selection was Babel, which Oliver was crafty enough to download. I knew a bit about it beforehand, had heard it dealt with barriers of communication and the isolation they can bring with them. The movie even plays out in four different languages, which really adds to the mix/confusion.

About 5 minutes in, we were both confused. Where were the subtitles? Oliver checked the settings and everything was in place - apparently Babel doesn't come with subtitles. This made sense actually, and added to our sense of alienation/miscommunication. I even started to get into it, saying things like "what an original idea. I have no idea what three-fourths of the characters in this movie are saying. What a great way for the filmmaker to drive the point home!"

So of course I had to go and read reviews of the film - find out more about this "revolutionary" technique. Strangely though, no one mentioned it. Huh. Odd.

About to close the window on Review #4, I saw a footnote: "2006. 198 minutes long. Filmed in English, Arabic, Spanish and Japanese WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES."

Two thoughts:

1. Oh my lord how stupid are we? We watched an entire movie without subtitles and didn't think anything was wrong with that? Who does that? What about those occasional scenes where the camera focused in on the faces of characters having what appeared to be serious discussions? I guess I just chalked that up to bad editing - "that scene where the detective questions the gun dealer... yeah that was way too long. There wasn't even anything going on; they were just... talking."

2. Oh my lord we actually understood it. Maybe we're actually brilliant interpreters of body language and subtleties of facial expression. We had no idea what anyone was saying but we still absolutely knew what was going on, who was connected with who, why characters were doing what they were doing etc. (And the movie held our interest too. I'm actually sort of at a loss for words here.) I'm tempted to download another movie and just turn the sound off.