Movies at the cinema, "always" a “democratic” event

As living residents in one of the continent’s most politically driven countries, my husband and I rely on democratic policies to choose almost anything worth debating for.
The cinema is one controversial matter that always pops-up when we’re deciding which movie to see.
“Chick flicks” are a constant choice in us (women). Always looking for the fairy tale that has the potential to become real and be our saving grace from cinema productions.
Who can stand to see those bullet shooting-police pursuits-action scenes types of movies? It seems that men can, because those are the films that my husband always wants to go see.
So picture this: if in a household you have two members, one being a man (my hubby) and the other one being a gorgeous, funny, loving woman (me)… where’s the democracy in this situation?
A tie-game… and a non-existing democracy… unless (that’s what I love about a democratic system, there’s always a “but”) you’re intelligent enough to withdraw at the right moment and save your energy for a worthy premiere.
In this particular week, we had a girlfriend of mine staying with us and on a rainy day the cinema it’s always a unanimous decision for entertainment.
So I searched the web for movie times (this country can be run with a computer directly from the comfort of your home) and choose the “chickest most flickest” movie ever in the history of “chick flicks” and we headed for the cinema.
I enjoyed the high dosage of love, kisses, pick-up lines and fairy tale… my friend too!
However, you should’ve seen my husband, slumped in his chair, hands in his face, doing disgusted-expressions during the hour and forty minutes that the movie lasted.
Where is the feminine side of men? If it were for my husband’s reaction, I should assume that they definitively don’t have one; or it’s hidden pretty well under all that dark-strong exterior, and on the inside they’re as slushy and comfy as a pillow.
Better not o find out, for slushy and comfy we have women… men need to be macho and stuff.
You’re still wondering: what’s the movie we choose?...
Here’s a hint: There’s always a time and year in life when you can take a leap to achieve something different.
Kisses from a clam, happy as a crustaceous…
Vengeance is a B@#$%, so prepare for the heaviest action movie ever!

www.fandango.com

Eighteen days of dieting and my metabolism doesn’t take the hint

It’s been more than two weeks since I was forbidden to eat anything with fat or cream or butter or sugar… the list goes on and on.
However, as usual, I haven’t lost more than three pounds; which it’s nothing considering the obligatory effort I’m doing, because my lazy metabolism it’s in the wrong page of the book… lost as always.
Realistically, if heaven would be the good naughty things that we have in life and give us pleasure and joy… and hell would be the flat-out boring things (like low-cholesterol, fat free, no-sugar… puaj!); I’m definitely a “heaven girl”; probably that’s where I’m going in the after life, I say probably because my gall-bladder removal crushed all my chances to being an angel in the white paradise, because with this diet I’m definitely destined to be at the bottom of the flame-burning hell.
My current alimentary chart is missing a lot of levels; the size of my stomach is more or less, the size of a pea, my clothes are non-loose fitting (no-change there) and I still can’t sleep in a comfortable position because my inner-things push at my internal scars when I try to get at ease while I rest.
And you imagine what I have to endure when is dinner time and I have a non-dieting husband to feed?
He: Honey, its dinner ready?
Me: Ohh… yeah!, come sit at the table.
He: what’s this? salad? (he’s thinking: grass?)
Me: sweet bunny, do you remember our wedding vows? … for better and for worse… ring a bell? (I’m thinking: if I have to eat cardboard, so do you)
Needless to say that cereals and milk are a constant menu for my husband’s dinner now… twelve days more to go until I can start adding items to my diet… come to mama dear heaven!

Prepping for a job interview… more difficult than the interview itself

I don’t have an established routine to drive me through the day… this is a permanent fact for us, unemployed people, so I try to cope with “unscheduled” on a daily basis.
Most of the time I don’t even know what day is or if it’s already lunch-hour or time to prepare for dinner or if my husband is almost arriving or not even close to.
So in the particular day when you have an appointment for a job interview, I start to prepare two days prior to the big event.
First I cleared my agenda (housekeeping and “housewifeing” are tasks for another day) and made arrangements to do my nails.
As I arrived to my usual salon, I couldn’t decide in what color to wear.
Is it light-pink too plain? As a marketing professional, do I need to stand out with a red color… a burgundy? Tough decision when you’ve to decide on a nail polish, it’s a choice that will live with you for the remaining seven-days of the week and it has to combine with your clothes during that period.
I opted for the red one, because I’m blond, and because we can… blonds I mean…red is our most engaging color (excuse the immodesty… someone has to brag for me)
After the salon, I came home and moved my whole closet to the bed… not that I have a lot of “working professional clothes”, but when you don’t use them that often, you kind of forget them and don’t remember what you have… so, to enlighten my head I tried a handful of combinations, choose the most promising ones, and then I exhausted four hours putting everything back in place.
When my husband came home, he found me doing a modeling show in front our tiny bathroom mirror (we’re definitely investing on a head-to-toe mirror soon) and trying different make-ups and styles.
He helped me in the final stages of the decision-making-process (talking sophisticated helps with my interviews) and I went to sleep with a knot in my stomach and a small prayer tucked under my pillow.
Safe to know that everything went splendid! Hope this is the one!
I will not change the name of the blog, but I’m really hoping that this would be my year!!
Married and soon to be employed greets you from NYC!

Back to my routine… well, more or less

My first days at home have been pretty slow, and I’m not referring to the fact that we’re back to our habitual non-vacational schedule but to the fact that I move like a turtle… in slow motion… so you can imagine the little things I’ve accomplished regarding the unpacking, arranging Christmas gifts… even laundry takes me a ton of time!
I’m unable to floss my teeth without wincing as I put my arms up to my face, or bending to pick up something without looking incapacitated.

Even my dog has realized that I’m not my usual self because he’s not expecting me to feed him every morning, nor change his water… he just waits as the hours of the morning pass and I’ve only consummated menial tasks and not yet arrived to the kitchen.

I’ve a constant rumbling in my stomach (can’t say that I blame the poor guy because he hasn’t received anything worth digesting in the past few days) and I cheat hunger with a huge cup of tea and some toasts, pouring cereal or lifting the milk jug it’s too difficult to manage so I cry defeat without even trying… so much for my Italian heritage and super woman Latino force.

My husband has been helping all he can while I’m recovering…

I receive him seated on the couch, waiting for the door to burst open at six pm and with a to-do-list in my hands. He runs around our home and tries to comply with my petitions… I say “tries” because, let’s face it, it’s not an easy task to satisfy your grumpy bossy wife yapping away while she’s laying on the sofa and you’re doing all the hard work and she’s still using the “sick” card to evade housewife duties.

I've already read two books, saw all my TV series, applied to a hundred jobs, wrote like four more postings in this blog, uploaded new pics from our trip in Facebook, emailed, skyped, chatted, bossed around and I’m still bored out of my mind!!

I can’t wait to be back in full-mode-me… I think my husband is hoping for it to be soon, because if not, I’ll be a homeless, dogless, husbandless post-op recovering patient, with a authority complex and a cranky mood.

I'm coming home baby

Well, me, the stitches in my belly, two pillows for my pain, four overweight bags, my purse, the laptop case, and of course, my dear, loving, best-in-the-world, strong as a horse, husband.
Because, you know that when you’re in a post-op (with twelve stitches I might add) is humanly impossible to carry anything other than yourself and the clothes you’re wearing, because God forbid that I end up with a rupture in my wound and a huge scar in my stomach… okay, maybe I’m blowing this out of proportion considering the finger-tips sizes of my cuts, but nonetheless, like I always say: Safety first!... well, not always but in this occasion, I’m sure it was worth it.
So there I was, standing all by myself in a huge line in the airport, holding my belly to make it look completely real, and there he was (my husband, I mean), surrounded by bags, cases… you name it!
I was feeling for him… not that much, but enough to want to help him, so in my solidary soul, I search all my inner strength and I grabbed… my purse.
What were you expecting?! I’m a post-op patient; there should be rules against doing any effort at all!!… I’ll check into that for next time, not that I want a next time… just saying.
The positive news is that I never was a Tote-bag kind of girl, I always preferred the clutches, small purses… so if for a minute there you were getting worried for my health, a two pound bag wasn’t all that bad, I think with all the dieting I did after the operation, those two pounds were only a reminder of my weight four days before… so, no biggie!!
Thus, with my small purse and my husband’s goodwill to move our entire luggage during our waiting time in line, we finally arrived to the check-in point at the Airport.
I’m not a big actress, but I definitely learned how to lie in my adolescent years, so I put my best victim-in-pain face and I positioned myself in front of the airline’s employee.
The New York – Buenos Aires – New York route is really busy on this time of the year, so it’s a long shot to receive anything more that what you paid for.
Remembering Jerry Maguire’s movie, I said to her: What can YOU do for ME? (I think it was the other way around in the movie, but… who cares) and as a hocus-pocus spell, we were moved to the first row of the plane, with enough room to stretch our legs and near the aisle for my always demanding bladder.
Twenty hours and a connection flight later we got home with the need to be in a horizontal position, on my comfy bed.
So long throbbing pains, take these pills!!

Damaged goods and no Post-OP recovery

Twelve hours after my operation I was back at home with a three-page list of things I couldn’t eat, indications NOT to be laying down and many, many walks to help my stomach move…function… you know what I mean: pelvic movements.
What a crappy recovery is this?
I wasn’t even being pampered.
Other than not being allowed to carry anything, I was just like my old self… except without an organ… and four holes in my stomach… and a pillow stick to my behind for occasional ache… and pain-killers (which luckly, improved my mood… I’m talking really strong ones).
My doctor really went out of his way to make this recovery as mild and unnecessary as possible, I was hoping for a: laying-on-my-back-food-to-my-room-TV-all-you-want type of recovery, instead I got the: walk-all-you-can-move-your-valves-release-the-gases-eat-healthy type.
And I was even allowed to travel!
I mean… what was this doctor thinking to allow me to get on a plane for a twenty-hour flight? Doesn’t he have one iota of compassion?
In Buenos Aires we were suffering the highest temperatures ever and I couldn’t even go into the pool, but a plane was okay… I tell you, medicine is going down the toilet (regards to my twin sister, the doctor-to-be in the family).
And the worst part was the annoying family follow-up phone calls… people always manages to ask the same thing when you’re sick:
How did this happen? (abrupt pain… really unexpected… no, I didn’t feel anything before this episode) Did it hurt? (I was medicated as a horse) Does it hurt now? (still medicated as a horse).
Don’t people know that if you had a stomach operation, when you talk you build up the gases in your belly? I had to reduce my answers to one to two syllables at the end:
sudden... no…hmpt!
They called the least talkative soon-to-be-recovered patient in the history of the gallbladder-removal-operation.
So now, I have to find joy in eating a lousy apple (not even the serpent wanted this boring fruit)… I fell like an eighty-year-old who’s not allowed to eat anything for fear of her to die… I'm completely attuned with my grandfather’s complaints now, I’m a twenty-five year old housewife, looking for a job in a new city, with a freezing cold weather and I can’t even have a warming heavy meal for the next decade or so…
My sweet-tooth is retiring early; so long dear friend… you’ll be missed.

A stop in the E.R.: four holes, ten stitches and an organ removal later…

With my body aching all over, seating in a ninety-degree position and a huge pillow holding my butt, we started our four-hour trip back to Buenos Aires.
My father can’t deal with traffic, so we did most of our travelling by night, arriving tired and hungry at four am the next day.
At six am I woke up with a pressing pain in my esophagus, and being a member of a pharmaceutical industry connoisseurs’ family, I decided that it was a heartburn and I popped two Omeprazole… after 45 minutes of being seated in the couch (laying wasn’t an option, even if my coccyx was killing me), taking water, a glass of milk and even a spoonful of salt and warm water (for nausea), I arrived to my father’s bedroom and pleaded for something stronger because this heartburn was eating my esophagus and my stomach was next.
He took one look at me, pondered wether it was worth it to wake up after only three hours sleep, and decided against his judgment to keep resting when he realized I was with bloodshot eyes and twisting in pain.
So the Grand Connoisseur declared (yet again) a heartburn, gave me two Ranitidine and went back to sleep. An hour later, seeing that the pain wasn’t receding, I decided to call my stepmom who very patiently gave me yet another medicine for heartburn; so after five hours, I was still grabbing my stomach, folded in half, trying not to throw-up and with fever/cold switching episodes.
One’s body can take so much, so I grabbed the phone and without the ability to even speak coherently I tried to explain to some operator that I wanted a doctor to be sent and explained that: NO, IT ISN’T HEARTBURN… HOW DO I KNOW?! BECAUSE I ALREADY TOOK EVERY POSSIBLE MEDICATION FOR THAT CONDITION AND IT HASN’T GET BETTER… He was impressed with my pharmaceutical experience and thirty minutes later, a doctor was examining me at home.
The physician declared it to be a “really strong gastritis” and without further ado prescribed me with two different drugs and left.
Needless to say that after six hours, five drugs and a doctor visit later, my stepmom realized that it wasn’t heartburn, or gastritis, or stomach-ache, or indigestion and we headed straight for the E.R.
With one look at my face, the attending doctor called the condition by its correct name: gallbladder stones; and with one echography, a blood test, and two very-strong analgesics diluted in an I.V. saline solution (complete bliss) I was assigned an O.R. and operated.
The next day I arrived at home seating in a ninety-degree position, the same pillow on my butt, four holes in my stomach with a total of ten stitches, minus an organ, a thirty-day diet and a learned lesson not to medicate myself, even if it means that I’m almost sure what I have (the key word-to-be: COMPLETLY)
Regards from a convalescent patient, drugged as a horse and 10 pounds lighter-to-be... so long pastries and cakes

Drive calves to a fattening-farm and don't die trying!

After a hell of a plunge and two days of mild rest to recover from my coccyx’s injury I decided to joined the horseback riders’ party to drive four hundred and sixty calves, thirteen kilometers to another field where they gain weight and then, bye bye little “calvies”… if you know what I mean.
However, who could manage to stay seated with this pain?! So I hop on a four-wheel and became the water-carrier for the occasion.
On that particular day, the sun shined on all his glory, and the coward little clouds were nowhere to be seen. The temperature was in its high 35º C (95º F) and the steam that the heart gave off was like riding inside a huge sauna.
My father was giving orders (as his usual self) and with a colossal task at hands, we started our way.
The calves are inexperience “little” creatures (whoever named them as baby cattle, didn’t know S… about sizes) who have never been herd to another place before, so no matter the road ahead, the rider showing them the way or us in the back pushing forward for them to move… they figured that running right and left was the correct approach.
As the injured one, I could've stay seated in the shadow of a tree and waited for the commotion to pass… but this damn temper of mine couldn’t stand inefficiency (the calves’… obviously!) so I grabbed my… bottle of water (ugh!) and headed for the thickest, most impenetrable underbrush to drive the calves back on the road.
One thing you learn while herding cattle, it’s if you get one, only one, to move in the right direction, the rest will follow…
So, there I was, swinging my bottle of water at them, screaming all this strange noises (a practical joke from our forearm who told us that they get scare by them), hunched like an old lady, with a hand in my lower back and trying with all my might to move thirty-five standing bodies from a big-ass bush, full of thorns and bugs… when the only thing that really did the trick was my little brother’s imaginative self, who turn-on the four-wheel and accelerated the engine, to make it sound like a motor-saw, and just like that, all thirty-five calves run towards the nearest exit… the road ahead.
So, the next time that you’re in a country house, doing farm labor, with precarious utensils and traditional methods… bring your top-of-the-line, high tech four-wheel.

Greetings from an injured/temperamental laborer

Polo injuries: an elite game for a lousy player

After a peaceful and relaxed time alone with my hubby, we headed back to my father’s country house to spend New Year’s Eve with the family.
The assortments of activities that you have to endure, while being my father’s daughter, are numerous and risky… "NO" it’s not an option, because for him, his first three daughters are in fact, his high-endurance, super-power, always willing three first children. It doesn’t matter the long hair, manicured nails, waxed legs and feminine manners; no sire! (Sagittarius guys are a pain in the butt, no offense to my future brother-in-law).
So in the particular day of the end of the year and the starting of a new decade, at 8 pm, with a temperature of 32º C (90º F), which felt like a furnace, and a humidity of 99.9% (my recent sleeky hair was a mess, a smoothing product can take so much… do you hear the irony?) I was up in a horse, with a taco (or polo mallet) and a helmet running around chasing a small white ball in the field playing Polo (or attempting to play).
We looked like stupid (definitely unintelligent) people being led by completely clever, bright beasts… they wanted to run to the fence and get out of there! (Why didn’t I listen?)
So after exactly four minutes and five seconds, in a slow-motion play, where I was almost hitting the ball in the right place for a change (almost being the key word in this sentence), the smart horse grasped his chance to escape and while I was aiming my body in the direction of the ball, he was aiming his body for the door… needless to say that I ended butt-first in the lawn (in a frozen portrait you could see my “F…” face, the potent angry one) with a hoof tattooed on my back and a acute pain in my coccyx.
The last day of the year, I spend it laying in a mattress on the floor, with twenty-three pillows, two blankets, drugged with analgesics and the awful realization that:
I HAVE TO LEARN TO SAY NO!!
Damn this italian heritage of wanting to be an almighty woman, when in fact I'm an adult latino female with a superiority complex and a damaged butt... So long comfy seats.

Getting together once a year while organizing a family picture: a titan´s task!!

This entry is dedicated to my BFF who reminded me of the nice occasion (NOT), where we took our yearly family picture…
While I was voiceless (greetings to my patience who´s back in my body, as well as my voice… nice timing you too!!) in my grandparents’ house, we organized a big lunch with my six uncles, their wives and husbands, and of course, us… their sons.
We make a total of forty-six people, without including my husband, and my sister´s husband to-be (still without “legal” rights to appear in the family picture), with three pairs of twins; thirteen blonds, two old people (my grandparents of course!), six dyed blond, twenty brown hair (it´s a wonder that we don´t have a redhead), thirty-four cousins being younger than twenty-six, the age of my big sister, and of course: all forty-six dreading the family portrait.
After ingesting a huge amount of food and desserts (the table looked like a buffett from a hotel before the ravenous attack) we were called like a herd, the key words for a no-show being: “Picture time!”, and after forty-five minutes of dragging kids from every hole in the house, we finally succeeded in getting everyone together in the same spot (and you wonder why I lost my voice – and patience).
Luckily, we have a big lawn where we all fit (almost). We were arranged by age, my big sister in the top, and then, all thirty-four cousins behind her. I attached the picture for the skeptical readers who need proof… You see what I mean when I´m apprehensive for a family vacation??

Back online after days without internet connection or cellular service

After Christmas, my husband and I decided to spend time by ourselves (a rare commodity when you´re visiting the family) and travel to Cordoba, an Argentinean province with beautiful sightseeing surrounded by mountains.
We decided to part on the 26th of December, with my husband driving and I, as the copilot… the one that reads the map, hands the snacks and beverages, screams when the car almost hits a pedestrian… typical stuff.
A non-stopping rain accompanied us from the beginning. After two hours on the road, we were deviated to another route because the path was water-flooded… with my map in hand and the sky pouring we chose another course, losing almost one hour in the process until we arrived to a major highway where the traffic was faster and safer.
However, as in most third world countries, only major cities are connected with well-tended roads. So, with another divert we ended up in a 20 km dirt road in a 500 kilos heavy car with no use of the four wheel drive (occupational hazards of an armored car).
It was truly a crisis, so when the (out of the blue) heavy rain caught us in the middle of the road, and the mud started to build up, we started grabbing the map, my husband swatting at the wheel and shouting like a mad man... I felt for him, I´m totally incompetent at understanding and being down to heart when I´m being shout at, but in that moment, I simply watched ahead and gave instructions: TURN THE HELL BACK!! (In a softly, low manner… of course)
Needless to say that we arrived with a knot in the stomach, the car covered in mud, a non-existent patience and all the need to be back at home, being looked after and pampered by our family… but it was only a tiny, minuscule moment…luckily we kept our wishes to stay with our mini-vacations in an inhospitable place, with no cellular signal, no Wi-Fi, no electricity, no pavement and, especially, no neighbors…
Entertainment wasn´t a problem though...

Beep beep beep… OUT OF COVERAGE AREA