August 28th 2011

So we were suppossed to have some crazy hurricane today. The eye of the storm was supposed to hit NYC, the entire transit system shut down, everything closed, hundreds of thousands were evacuated and scheduled events were cancelled. Now, I'm used to hurricanes and was kinda looking forward to this one. Got everything prepared just in case bc the thought of a hurricane in NY scared me more bc of the amount of ppl living on top of each other.


Anyways, no hurricane in NY... guess i'll be bringin the canned chicken to lunch, and eating poke n beans for dinner next week.


Va had an earthquake the other day... NY felt it too. I didn't bc i was in an elevator on my way back from client meetings with Saks 5th avenue, Sony and lunch at blue smoke with Scholastic. I felt very business woman like in my power suit meeting NYC clients. Met with Polo Ralph Lauren in NJ a few weeks back too, which was pretty cool. I go with sales reps, so they do most of the talking, but I'm good with clients and it's nice to get out of the office although it takes time from the recruiting part..
Earthquake lasted about 20 seconds and did minimal damage, felt primarily in Richmond, DC. I wished i woulda felt it. During the hurricane in VB, there was a tornado in Sandbridge. What is this doomsday??


Anyways lets back track to ESPANA:
Our main reason for going is to visit abuela. She had a stroke 2 years ago when I was 23, and the entire family went back then. I didn't go last year. The last time I saw her completely herself was the summer of 21. Anyways, don't want to delve into this much, and talk about an underlying sadness/blue feeling so just know the point of us going is more for her than anything else, and if we had fun as well, well that was a plus. We hung out with the fam the whole time, making 2 days touristee days. I'll talk about the good stuff:


Number 1 good thing was... (which was another reason for going) meeting LUNA STELLE! This baby is amazing. I need to see her again before she gets much older. My sister, her fam and I got an apartment, one of Chris's friends lent us a car-huge car for Europe-Chrysler that looks like a bentley, Coach interior, rollin on 22s haha. apt was fine too minus the lack of AC, it was so hot there. We all met Lunita for the first time, even my mom (she's been in Spain taking care of my abuela). This baby: happy, happy baby, made everyone feel like they were special bc she would smile and laugh at everyone. Curly brown hair and blue blue eyes. Somehow, I knew that would be the combo. She's such a good baby too. Hardly cried or anything.


Day 1: Got to Spain, no problem
Jose and Alvaro and my mom got me, we had some convos in the car. Since I only speak spanish for 2 weeks every 2 years, I decided I didn't care if I didn't sound amazing at it, I was going to speak my mind and let my personality shine through. If I had to wait the while that it takes me to perfectly form a sentence and get the verbs exactly on and everything, I wouldn't be saying much. Too often, I have to change my personality up bc its easier to get the other one across than my own. Eva is super sweet and talks like a baby in Spanish. On the contrary, she's outspoken and can be a self proclaimed bitch in English lol. Super glad to hangout with Eva and the fam, get some good fam time in. anywho, done sounding naive and innocent (my mom said that's how i came off) no more nodding and smiling, time to be me. haha every year i succeed in this a bit, but did better this yr.
I met the lady Maria Angeles that takes care of abuela during the day, also met the one that took care of her at night, but she ended up quitting. Walked in, said hi, ate some Buchero, I joked aboit wanting a petit swee which made abuela laugh and tell me that tu eres muy grande, abuela told me, que pedaso de culo (big butt) Eva and them werent there yet, but Chari was also suppossed to come. Abuela said that Raul (chari's man) told stories de otro mundo, from another planet haha. I know he cheers her up. Took a nap, then Carmen, Poldito, Sonya came and then Chris Goodloe and fam pulled up in the fancy car and everyone made a big fuss about the baby. I think Lola and Lucy ran off to play with Javi and the kitties. Eva, the fam and I went to get our apartment not too far in Bonanza.
Came back to the campo, abuela was sleeping. Chari and Raul had gotten there. We sat outside and drank wine, ate quesito (cheese), Jamon (ham) talked about travels, etc. good convo.


Day 2:
Ma said "Rooouade" when criticing Chris on his driving. Lots of laughs on that. Lola had a few tantrums during the trip, one in which Chris "refreshing deer flesh" style, called one an "exotic tantrum". Eva and I had fun with that. We also said that we came all the way to Spain to hangout in Bonanza (bodunk lil town). We got breakfast in some lil place downstairs from the apt with momma dukes. Walked around bonanza, took some pics on a boat  on a beach, church pics, went to the supermarket with eva/chris which is so much fun in spain, had paella at the campo and spoke about astrology which raul and chari are believers in, Poldito came and everyone had coffee (except me I still dont drink the stuff) and as we were sitting outside Raul broke one of the chairs and fell on his ass, abuela laughed. It was pretty good. We took forever at a Chino store, buying towels and by the time we got to the beach, abuela and mom were "desesperada". They left quickly and the rest of us took a walk. short day at the beach dont know if lola got her "sheshells"


Day 3:
Dragged outta bed . We went to the plaza area. Chris got lost and we had some ok breakfast. Found out Manolo died-Juli's husband, sad shit. We shopped at the hippies, bought dresses, glasses, went to the Euro store, saw a Prince William and Kate inspired wedding-they all had fancy little hats on. Went to a church, prayed, went back to the campo and had pasta and clams. Reminded abuela about how she went to visit us in VA and she learned "hi, hi" haha. Went home got dressed, spanish music was on the radio which is good for the soul  (we were in an american car therefore had diff stations), went to the Plaza cabildo-i love the plaza cabildo took a million pics of it, will get a large canvas photo of it for my house, Lola, Lucy and I bought cucheria and bubbles, and had ice cream at Tonis, abuela was in good spirits, the night ended a little sadly, but im glad we were able to all get out.


Day 4:
Hectic, hectic morning with the landlord showing up asking for money, house a wreck, everyone all stressed. Went to the campo, chari exchanged presents with us. They left to go back to Madrid. Heard Camaron which made me happy. Chris cleaned up the farm a bit, I hung out with Luni, hungout with abuela, looked at old pics with ma and them. We left, went to expensive, not great mcdonalds- 27euros! thats like 42 bucks at mckedees. Came back to the apt, Joselito and Esmeralda came over and we caught up. Good to see them. Looked at pics, talked about NY, he had a test the next day.


Day 5:
We started off the day with churros! breakfast no jamon, but good chorizo and toast, OJ. went acesory shopping at the lil boutique, went to stradivarious, a thrift shop where the girls got flamenco dresses, went to the hippies, store to buy flamenco shoes. Then we went to Barbinos for tapas: we had chocos, camarones, pulpo, and cerditos. We went to the internet cafe, finally wrote Seth, went to Toni's icecream where I had an accordian solo, then to the supermarket and fishing store that chris found since he had suffered thru our shopping day. then off to abuela's house, hung out with Carmen and Sonya, took pics of Alvaro driving the fancy car, and then either Joselito and Esmeralda came to the apt or came to hang out in the farm.


Day 6:
We slept in, ate at the house, had icarly on in the background, spent the day at the beach in Rota with Alvaro, Joselito and Esmeralda and played uno.Good time at the beach. We treated everyone to Baskin Robbins-which is for them American ice cream, bought some souvineers. Then drove back home and went to pizza planet. Chris went fishing and Eva and I watched "hallpass". had a lot of good hangin out time with her


Day 7: Went to the Gitanos which is a must do with Eva and bought matching dresses among other things there, not too many accesories this year, bought a chicken asado and brought it to campo where abuela was more aspabilada, cousins were there hungout with Loli, Soraya, Leo. I dont think i saw soraya when i was there last time. Then went to the Paseo Maritimo with Abuela and Alvaro. It was a little stressy. When we got back, Chris picked her up and she had the biggest smile on her face.. She laughed and smiled so hard. everyone had fun with that. Then we drank beer, had some tapas with Jose, Carmen, Abuela, Edit, bonded on the old days with Carmen and Jose.


Day 8: (Thursday 30th)
(as im writing its now Sept 5 and my parents just left nyc)


We went to the beach with Alvaro. Me, Lola, luci and my mom played in the water and did ring around the rosie and there was some part about touching culitos? i dont know it was funny. We ate tapitas in the chiriguito at the beach like tomato soup, chocitos, that kinda thing. Had some posicles. later that day, we ran into Frankie, which was random and then we got on a touristee bike. ive always seen them in virginia beach and now I finally got to do it. I feared for my life when lola was drinving, but it was fun. i drove too. We got those good fresh potato chips from the stand that luci and i like and then lola threw a tantrum so we went home.


Day 9: July 1
This was more of a touristee day. We went to CADIZ-the main city part of where we live. We walked around and admired the beautiful Cathedral including the basement area which I really enjoyed- i luv cathedrals. Ate a yummy lunch of motaditos. got lost thank god i had the track phone with me. went to the Torre Tavira where all but mom climbed up swirly stairs into a dark room where a concave projection screen we were all looking down on showed a 360 degree view of the city-kinda nuts. the guide spoke english while explaining the history of what we were looking at. we climbed further up to the roof and then were able to see the view of the city that was shown to us before. It was hard to pick the topthings we wanted to do. We asked a couple of people. Went and got coffee. It was really hot. We saw another castle/church from the outside and then went to the Plaza de Espana where there was a monument commemorating the signing of the Spanish constitution. Definitely a full day. i know Chris appreciated doing something touristee where he could use his fancy camera. We went home, Joselito and Esmeralda picked me up that night -Fri- and we drove to a spot and got a beer at a bar, sat outside-chatted about everything then went inside to a bar where there was live flamenco. jammed to that for a while, got another beer then after walked on the boardwalk where ppl who were out were hanging. Fun. the past years i spent every day with them, this year less, but I luv it. Esperanzi arrived from Malaga this night.


If I forget to mention it, one day we went and hand-picked the pasteles from the bakery-not like a quaint bakery but a steel pan, ppl quickly and precisely spreading pastry toppings  they were being made at (pastries) brought them back to the campo for everyone to have with coffee.


Day 10:
Talked with Seth for a bit on phone, slept in didnt go to breakfast. Eva went to Rota. I went to the campo. I walked around, took pictures of really seemingly trivial things that were so important to my memories of the campo like broken pink tile from the original steps of the front of the house,  or broken blue tile from the bathroom or the laundry room with the painted over green palm tree that my sister painted when we were younger and wanted to make the farm prettier. Little things like that. or somewhat bigger things like the cactuses, el pino, the path to en ca de carmen, the non paved road to abuelas. . Just walked around the land and inside the house-those blue curtains or that picture of my uncle from his first communion whose eyes always seemed to be following us or the parrot sofa bed that was evas bed in our flat in spain. the picture where abuela was in front of our house in virginia where chris is in the background running outta the dorr late for his job at mcdonalds, the cast iron sewing machine, Esperanzi's cabbage patch doll, so, so many things. I could write a book on that stuff alone. Anyways, it was my day to reflect, write a little, have the sun shine on my face and appreciate.
We got ready and took Abuela out, we had tapitas- fun and then Toni's ice cream-everyones fave. She was being funny and did some funny tongue thing that made us all laugh. she told me "como tu, no hay otra" and I think the night was a success. She had a fun time. I lost the bunch while buying souvineers and had no way to reach them. I had a guitar i bought for lucy bday around my neck and waited on the corner. I looked half retarded with the damn baby guitar and ppl were looking at me expectin to play lol. Then I went out with Joselito and Esmeralda. We went to the boardwalk, saw Soraya and chatted with her for a bit, then met back up with her at the chiringuito on the beach and drank and danced with them. as always a good time. got home late and had to be up a few hours later for a full day hanging out with Cristina and her man in SEVILLA.


Day 11:
This was probably the most fun day. beat the pants off of Cadiz, it reminded me of Paris, soo many worthwhile things to see. Just me and the Goodloes. Lucy puked on the way there, we passed a town called the cabezas de san juan  and we saw a man dressed in a baby outfit diapers and all way too early in the morning, We finally got there and we went and fed doves in the plaza de america. Lola was sad bc she hadnt gotten any to fly to her. Chris looked like the pigeon lady on home alone and they scratched the mess outta me while landing on my shoulders. pretty cool experience. lucy got a few no problem. Then off to the plaza de espana (we saw other countries plazas that they built for the Expo) and it was frickin huge and gorgeous. The building on the plaza was some castle from star wars- the haboo monumental brick building. Has historical events from each province. Cristinas man antonia gave us a history lesson, in fact they both looked up facts and figures studied if you will before giving us a tour, they were very very hospitable. Bought some spanish fans from an old man flattering me. Rode on the outside metro to see the famous Cathedral, we mostly saw it from the outside and saw a subsect of the cathedral where the 2 lovebirds were getting married. They treated us to lunch, passed by the plaza de toros where Chris has a funny video of me pretending to be a bull, got some yummy icecream, saw the famous tower of the cathedral-so cool, then went to the Islamic Real Alcazara-huge. where the king and queen of spain come when they visit-absolutely beautiful, room after endless room of ornate and meticulously crafted islamic decor and architecture. A pond for his mistress that looked like it wuld be straight outta thailand, a gorgeous graden with waterfall, so pretty. Then topped off the perfect day with a horseback ride for me and the goodloes through the city back to the plaza de america where we started. By the time we got on the horse the jaded Lol was already asking about the pigeons again. these kids are jaded, I was estatic. riding in the front and all. We got back to the plaza and ...Lola got a dove!
Thanked them and said our goodbyes.We went back to the campo to hangout with ma, abuela and Esperanzi and I made her laugh by imitating her snoring which i totally forgot about until something triggered it. Then while watching crazy spanish tv, there was a feauture on Miami and all these huge-like triple z women were in bikinis and dancing and talking. we all had a lot of fun with that.


Day 12: had to go back to the real world the following day. This day, 4th of July, we decided to celebrate Lucy's bday. Im glad too because I wanted a way to get the whole family to hangout. Esperanzi (I think it was this day) gave Eva and I very thoughtful presents. A journal that smelled like sobre cartas and a poetry book in spanish. Not sure what else we did this day, but we got the party together and entertained. Poldito commented my spanish was good. Lucy liked the guitar the best. One of the best parts of the day was when we all took family pictures and abuela was cracking short jokes cracking everyone up like how chris was so slow that "le calle los juevos" and things like that. It was a good ending night and I said my byes, most emotional one with abuela. I was trying to make her laugh during it though.


Then the next morning, i flew back 22 straight hours of travel-dont know why the hell I booked London? then got home at 9 pm exhausted, Seths mom and bro were there and I chilled with them and went to bed, then work the next morning.


Come to find my boss that had been there for 4 years had gotten fired... which sucked for me bc i liked her and she liked me a whole lot. definitely took me a while to get back in the swing of things.


Weekend July 8 and 9th
Not sure what I did that Friday. Saturday went to teh meatpacking district to watch Jeanne's band open for the Bouncing Souls. im not a big fan of them but wanted to see her and show support for her band. She went nuts and was stage diving, seth and i left to get pizza and beer and saw the ritzyish kinda area that we're never around in. weirdest part of the night was when we were hanging out with the only other person that Jeanne invited. After a series of questions found out he was our fuckin next door neighbor! we only have 4 apts in my complex and hes in the one right across from me on my floor (only 2 per floor) what are the odds??
The next day, the 10th, Sunday we went to the beach. Jones Beach. took us forever to get there 1.5 hours on public transportation. We met Seth's coworker a 35 yr old hippie that gt his kicks from tying a dollar bill to a fishing rod, tugging on it and seeing what madness ensued. Nice guy. His gf was in a thong which was surprising and crzy but a pretty fun time at the beach no less.Nice beach.


The following weekend Amie came! this was how i looked back on it: i look like hamlet in your profile pic lol miss ya already. im glad we didnt have a completely touristy time in nyc. it was like bringin JMU to nyc. randomness, getting lost, loopiness, dancing, drunken bliss, hangover hell, laughing about everything and nothing, eating terribly but amazingly, roaming around clueless, crazy ruckuss, drama, going with the flow, jasmine, kelly, Room mating, doggin on crazy ppl, hatin on skinny dumb bitches, reminding ourselves that we are soulmates ETC. good times.


We: Went to Roberta's pizza with Kelly and her school teacher friend from home, went to the Moma for the first time on the free night and took funny pics "little girl" and paintings that we questioned if they were really art, impressionist paintings with kelly remind me of paris, favorite was seeing "the persistence of memory" by Dali. St patrick's cathedral went inside, Mr softee icescream, pregamed with red solo cups but fancier vodka than burnetts haha and went to the Woods bar, met drunk seth and robbie there danced and drank, got pizza at ana marias. 


Next morning, went to the Brooklyn flea and got fried chicken biscuits and lemonade, then the ferry ride to see the 3 bridges-sadly found out jasmine decided to move back to VA to teach dance, accidently ended up on Governors island, met Jasmine at the flatiron building, saw my work, ate at rickshaws dumplings, said bye bye Jasmine ... went out to Libation club, drank way too much danced met heather miley but only hungout a while longer, cab drove us to wrong moore street, puked my ass off, next day hungover city, to Jones beach hungover as hell for the bumpy 1.5 ride 19 stops on J. 4 on long island railroad and a bus ride on a highway, puked on the bus in a bag... the gay brunos in front of me were disgusted. I carried my baggie, died a little more and recovered with a strawberry popsicle, met tim who again coincidently ended up working the floor below me, crazy. seth and i didnt have a great night that night and instead of having to call amie, she was already there lol. It was very much a vicky amie weekend which i luved and needed.


I am going to make pulpo linao. bbs
Well hopefully that turns out edible. never made it b4


July 18th and 20th went to some mets games. 1st one against Marlins went with Sheila, her lil sis-her sister's friends who are from florida and robbie, tim and seth. it was alright, pretty uneventful, good to see sheilas lil sis again. think mets lost.
The 2nd one was more fun against the cardinals with more work ppl, matt l and his fiancee, amy, shar a, taleb, jesshart, tomo, peter and seth. A guy ran into the field (i didnt know what was going on-thought it was part of the show) and dodged the officials. Also, pretty sure we got a home run towards the end and i got to see the apple pop up.  and we won.


July 22nd, went to Stout with some work folks and chilled in the downstairs area, then went back to sheilas with the toms, grecco and drank. then seth came over and we played some easy fun drinking games with the too fuckd up to think folks. pretty fun night.
July 23rd, went to Harry Potter 3D, the last one at the theater, pretty good, funny ending. Got some baller vietnamese sandwhiches and ended up getting max brenners chocolate by the bald man, fondue (couple days later i bought a set)
Juy 24th-Early that morning, Jenn R and her man -nice, quiet guy with tats came over and we drank sangria while playing cornhole that they had never played before. cracked my phone when i put the phone in my bikini top going down the fire escape. Then we met Kristen and Drew who were in town and we all went to Ippudo which they enjoyed then came back to our place and drank a little more. fun couple day.


July 26th, sheila and I had a random KFC night. I dont even know what that means entirely haha. 
July 29th: Atlantic City! I'd never been and Sheila brought it up to me before that Gillians man had a free room (ended up being a nice sized suite) and that we should go. Seth, me, Sheila, gillian and her man and aaron (bata) took a bus up there. And i was sober all night unfortunately since no one thought to bring a bottle. Got up to the big suite, got ready and just gambled downstairs of Harrah's all night. Sheila was beastin blackjack, i played safely and i think was down 80 bucks? for the night. Bata was throwin money around and losing it all. gillian lost 200 bucks instantly and stopped playing. We never did see the backstreet boys lol that were supposed to be there. played roulette and ive decided i hate slot machines-you know those levers arent even real? u push a button instead. im coughing now just thinking of the smoke I inhaled with them all smoking. Fun night just walking around gamblin. Slept for  a few hours then got back on the bus. Seth went directly to work... dont know how he did that. 


In the month of August, I started working out like in gyms and not just gilad. I bought a scale-the one from bed bath and beyond that told me I was the lightest. i did hot yoga on August 2nd with jess, amy alexa and cassandra from work and while the tiny ones looked refreshed the rest of us looked like we were going to die. they all laughed at my facial expressions, but think 90 minutes in a sauna working out when you havent in a while. man. but the next day, i felt like a rockstar. that week, Jason and christian (who has since quit-as a matter of fact a lot of ppl quit) went to Spin which again was a first for me. our ghetto instructor nikki was so cool "if you need it want it gotta have it, turn it up" good music too. "dont blame me blame your friend for bringin ya" went to yoga the next week and spin, yoga the following week and went to NYC sportsclub to do cardio and weights that i got a trial membership to, the next week worked out once and the same for the following (spin-very gay man teaching, bobbing his head to lady gagas born this way' and such) Besides working out, ive been Not eating right, went to Deweys on August 3rd for drinks with the coworkers found ourselves segregated in corners Brown corner, jewish corner, italian corner and gillian haha.


August 5th, i think seth and I rode our bikes around to bars, on August 6th sheila and i went shopping then to olive garden, then Seth and met tim and some folks at a german beer garden which had a pretty cool atmosphere. August 7th, seth and I went to a cold soup contest in williamsburg which was interesting. our fave was the one with bacon of course, then had a nice meal at the crib with wine. We do that a lot. 


That Friday August 12th Kelly was in town (i know she comes a lot which is nice) and her, her bro and seth went to a Yankees fame, got some close up seats this time for sure. Foul ball came somewhat close to us. that night seth and i went to a the broadway comedy show-has nothing to do with broadway, pretty funny stuff altho one guy in the audience was being annoying, sat with some fun, loud latinos from jersey that made it more funny.
Saturday, Ashby 1150D came into tow, Jeanne and her roomates used to live there in Harrisonburg, so thats what i called them. hadnt seen them in a good while-randomly saw stacey at galax actually last yr. Went walked around like 15 ppl deep, felt like a freshman at jmu searching for a party, ended up at chinatown in some random kareoke room to ourselves-most fun singing bohemian rhapsody, toms and grecco joined too. 
Aug 14th went to an "all you can eat and drink" seafood thing with Chris Choi, but it rained and the lines were beyond redic. i have a sense of what would happen if we ran into a scarcity of resources in ny-not pretty. we made friends with the ppl ahead of us and event. got food. it was not bad besides the redic wait.
August 18th out from work sick thanks to the roomies ahem ahem 
August 19th had drank a little at work, (Don moved to UK) then continued at Life Cafe with seth yum chicken wings and mac and cheese
August 20th, got into words with friends, met tom c out with seth and chilled with him for a bit with some work folks from the SF office. Seth and i got pom frittes, then we did something adorbs-camped out on our roof. i miss camping and thats the closest we were gonna get.


August 21st sunday, moms bday-NY was her bday gift, went to Junipers for wings and mac and cheese again haha then Jets preseason game against the bengals. it was raining its butt off we were soaked throughout the game. cool besides that. saw plexico in action. We even got to go rediculously close for the last few minutes of the game since no one was really there. 


I talked about my meetings on the 23rd and how we had that random earthquake. that night we did trivia at brooklyn winery with taleb, amy, robbie, then liz joined later. we got 3rd place.


August 25th, went to the long island wineries for "forced fun" day with work ppl. It was fun, but i think it would have been more fun to go somewhere where they could be their normal drunken selves. Had a pretty good time though going to the different wineries, learning, teaching, not being at work, seeing green grass. that night i stocked up on supplies for the hurricane. the 26th, sheila and i went to tj then to Rogue where i think we should change our work spot to bc its cooler than deweys and drank a lot, caught up. then we met seth and joseph and played pool. 


I think im thru! if i rem anything else ill let you know. next entry will talk about what me and the folks did on their trip to the big city!