Mom

When I was little I thought that when I grew up I wouldn't need to sleep. In my mind adults could just stay up all night and all day because that's what my mom did. The poor woman was raising two kids, working 60 hours a week and getting her master's degree all at the same time. Since I would wake up at 4am for a glass of water and there she'd be sitting, typing a paper or something of the like, I just thought she never slept.

My mom was and still is a superwoman. She has literally dedicated the last 24 years of her life to helping me and my brother reach our goals and our dreams. I know a lot of moms are selfless but mine took it to new levels. I think she went years without buying a single item for herself...no new clothes, new shoes, no candles for her bedroom, nothing...just so she could spend money on other things for her kids, like band camp and new cleats for soccer and piano lessons. We may not have been materially wealthy but my mom encouraged us to do every single extra curricular activity we were interested in, even though that was a huge strain on her budget. She didn't want us to be deprived of any of the experiences life has to offer. She indebted herself to buy a plane ticket for me to Chile 10 years ago, and look where that got me. When I told her I made the cheerleading team and that required buying whities, a separate pair of shoes for tumbling and for stunting and for jumping, new warm up uniforms in the fall and winter, cheerleading camp in the summer (NOT cheap at all), she said, "We'll find a way to pay for it." When I wanted to join band, she found a used flute to buy me.

And aside from making financial sacrifices, I cannot even imagine giving of my time the way my mom gave of hers. Some of my friends parents would come to soccer games or band meets or cheerleading competitions when they could make it. Some other parents never went. My mom falls into neither of those categories. She went to every single event I ever had in high school. And I had a lot of events. From August-November I played club soccer so I'd have one game a week, plus I cheered at the football games every Friday and had band festivals most Saturdays. She went to them all. December through March were the cheerleading competitions and indoor soccer games. Soccer was once a week and so were cheerleading competitions, six hours long every Saturday. The reason many other moms didn't go to all of those competitions is because of the six hours they're 5 hours and 50 minutes of watching other teams, and 10 minutes of watching your own team's three rounds...and of those three rounds, each girl isn't necessarily in all of them. So you may get to watch your daughter for a grand total of 3 minutes during the 6 hours you're sitting in back achingly uncomfortable bleachers in a hot sweaty crowd of screaming cheerleaders and parents. And don't forget, these competitions were all over the state of Michigan, sometimes four hours away. THEN, we'd get home and I'd make her watch the videos with me over and over and over, sometimes in slow motion. I'm sorry mom, I was an evil child.

Then came soccer season from March-June, and we sometimes had three games a week. My mom never missed a game. She never missed anything. In my childhood, I never lacked for a supportive adult figure in my life. Oh, and let's not forget, I'm not an only child. My mom also juggled my events with my brother's, although he was significantly less involved in sports than I was.

So we have financial and emotional support covered...how else is my mom the best mother in the entire world you ask? Well, she's never been a judgmental kind of person, but with her kids I can truly say that her love was unconditional. She never belittled us for the choices we made or tried to get us to go down a path we didn't want to. I went from wanting to be a mermaid, to Janet Jackson, to an Olympic gymnast, to World Cup soccer player, to president of the U.S., to a business woman to an interpreter, to who knows what else. Never once did my mom say, "No, that's not possible."

When I got a job as a celebrity gossip blogger the response elicited a lot of looks. You know the look...the one that says you're using your college degree for that?!? You're doing what with your life now???

Guess who never gave me the look. Guess who said, "I'm so proud of you. You're a talented writer and I'm amazed that you've been resourceful enough to find a way to make a great living in Chile!"

Yeah, of course it was my mom who said that.

She's a woman whose love for her kids knows no boundaries. And aside from the fact that she's my mom, I genuinely enjoy her company and think she's a fascinating person. We make each other laugh, enjoy doing similar things and always have great, stimulating conversation together.

And she arrives in Chile tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the first time ever, I will be hosting my mom in my home. Finally, after so many years of her giving to me, I am able to give something to her. I helped her buy her plane ticket down and it felt SO good. I have been wanting to have enough money to spoil my mom ever since I've can remember and now I finally can! It's also different that now she will be coming to stay with me, which means I'll get to take care of her for a little while. Usually I'm staying with her, or we're both at a neutral place.

I don't know, writing this whole blog entry feels totally inadequate. I don't know how to even come close to expressing my gratefulness for everything that my mom is to me.

So mom, if you read this before you get on the plane, thank you. I love you and I can't wait to see you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(And to everyone else reading this, please send a few good thoughts/prayers/wishes up in the air for my mom to have a safe trip).

Because Lactose is Vital

We live near a Lider, which is a really tiny, crappy grocery store without a lot of variety in products. It also only has like 6 cash registers for all the gazillions of people that shop there every day so the lines are usually at least 10 minutes long if not more. Annoying.

So the other day we discovered that our favorite grocery store here, Jumbo, delivers! S. started browsing through the website to decide what he wanted to order. Upon seeing all the different flavored milks and many kinds of yogurts he shouted out, "I'm going to fill the fridge with lactose!"

WHO SAYS THAT?!?

I laughed so hard I almost cried. Sorry if this isn't funny to anybody else, but my husband cracks me up.

*updated: I should probably add, he said this in Spanish. No language barrier here, just S. being weird. :)

Chicureo

I'm indecisive and I can't tell which version I like best. I do crazy bright colors all the time so I thought I'd switch it up a little and try something new.

Anyways, I did a photo shoot with the cutest little girl on Sunday, and she lived out in Chicureo. It's a really beautiful area about 30 minutes north of Santiago. The day was gorgeous so I snapped a few pictures out my window while we drove to the client's house. It's not a properly exposed or composed picture, but for some reason I really like it...enough to spend time trying 3 different kinds of post processing.

If you want to see the photoshoot of the little girl, check out some of the pictures here.

And better yet, if you haven't bought postcards yet, get them here!

Filtering Chileans

Heather just wrote what I think is a pretty brilliant comparison of Chilean and gringo cultures when it comes to friendships. Her post is called, "Good advice, develop your people filter." Aside from one remark she makes about worrying whether people might steal her stuff, I've pretty much had similar feelings and realizations to everything in her article.

Chileans, to me, are much harder to read than gringos.

On multiple occasions I've thought that a Chilean woman seems cool and would be fun to hang out with. Then we've done the phone number exchange and I've called only to get blown off or burned if we make actual plans.

After years of trying to ingratiate myself with S.'s friends girlfriends, after one particularly fun night I really felt I was making progress and that they had totally accepted me as one of the group. Then later that same week I found out that they had all went out together and hadn't invited me.

It got to the point that I was so nervous about actually trying to make a Chilena friend that when I met a cool girl at a party 6 months ago I didn't even want to ask her for her phone number. I made S. do it, and at first she was put off because she thought a married man was trying to get himself a little somethin' somethin' on the side.

S. got her phone number, she added me on facebook the next day and we made plans via The Wall to go out. On the big day that I went to meet up with her I was very nervous. I spent forever trying to choose an outfit that didn't scream, "loser trying to hard to make friends!" Although that fact that I did spend forever on picking it out means I was a loser trying to hard to make friends, but I didn't want to give off that vibe. :)

I arrived at the given meeting point and she didn't show up. I started freaking out. I called S. in tears, "This is the LAST time I EVER talk to a Chilean woman again. I hate them all!"

I thought I had been burned once again.

Yet, for some reason, I didn't leave (which, again, shows how desperate I really was to have one nice female Chilean in my life). After waiting for a half an hour I was packing up to go home when she showed up, frantically apologizing -- she was stuck in a meeting and hadn't been able to call.

Now that same woman is one of my good friends. She's been nothing but loyal and amazing....just how she seemed from the get go. But, I strongly feel that she's the exception to the rule. Not that there aren't loyal and amazing Chilenas out there, because there are. It's just way harder to find them because things aren't as they seem here. People often come across as really friendly and open, they'll say, "Yeah, let's hang out!" and then later on you find out that they have zero desire to form any kind of relationship with you.

This girl was different because what you see is what you get with her.

Is it because appearances are so important in Chile that you must act like the nicest person in the world even if you plan on crushing their hopes and feelings quietly and discretely later on...just so as not to appear like you're a mean person?

This isn't about what's better or what's worse. It's just about differences in cultures, which is a major impediment when it comes to making friends in this culture. In the U.S., what you see is usually what you get. If a gringo acts like a rude asshole, he is a rude asshole. If a gringo acts like he wants to be your friend, he does want to be your friend.

In my gringa eyes, because that's the system I've grown up with and know how to work my way around in, that way of relating to people seems much simpler.

In Chile, the rules are different. In general you're expected to act like you want to be everyone's friend, and never be a rude asshole in public. Only time will tell a person's true intentions.

Chileans are used to this system, which is why, as my husband puts it, "We trust no one."

Do I Really Speak Fluent Spanish?

I think I speak fluent Spanish....or at least sometimes I think I do. Granted, I have the horrible accent and all that, but I speak quickly and easily in the language without having to translate in my head or anything like that. I dream in Spanish quite often and sometimes even when I'm speaking or typing in English I'll accidentally write a word out in espanol just because it's what comes to mind first.

But, every once in a while I'll overhear something that makes me wonder, "Did he/she really just say that or I am totally misunderstanding because I don't speak Spanish."

Today at the pharmacy, an older woman walked in, and to no one in general began mumbling, very loudly "Donde esta la crema lechuga, crema lechuga donde estas?"

It's always funny to hear someone talking out loud in public, especially if she looks like a crazy cat lady and is repeating over and over, "Where's the lettuce lotion, lettuce lotion where are you."

I thought I was losing it and that she must have been saying a word that sounded like lettuce but had a different meaning more related to personal hygiene products and not edibles.

A guard quickly approached her and replied, "M'am, the lettuce lotion is right over there," pointing her in the right direction. I stared at him incredulously, and may have even said out loud, just like the crazy cat lady, "Lettuce lotion?!? That can't be right!"

So I casually meandered on past where the crazy cat lady was staring at bottles of creams and sure enough, she was holding one that said "Crema Lechuga."

Now my brain was really about to explode. Could I be translating "lechuga," wrong? Does lechuga not mean lettuce? Could lechuga really mean freckles or bags under your eyes?!? What is going on???

I walked home pondering the mysteries of life and Crema Lechuga. Then all of a sudden it hit me! There's a saying here that goes, "fresco como lechuga," or "fresh as lettuce," in the literal translation, which would be the equivalent of saying "fresh as a daisy," in English.

Fresh Lotion would make a lot more sense than Lettuce Lotion, even though Lettuce Lotion does have a nice ring to it.

And YAY, I do speak Spanish, just like I suspected. Why do I doubt myself, and then start thinking that I'm the one going "round the bend," in the words of the great Roald Dahl? I'm not crazy...the cat lady isn't even crazy. We're both totally sane...because the fact that Lettuce Lotion exists here makes perfect sense :)

PS. Just googled crema lechuga and it has it's own website! Coolio.

Cupcakes!

Ok, not actual cupcakes...but it's a cake made from a cupcake recipe, which I Betty Crockered up from scratch yesterday.

I'm off to go meet up with fellow Chile bloggers Clare, Emma and Heather.

I just wanted to post a picture (bigger on Flickr) and show my culinary delights because by tomorrow it will all be gone. :)

Hygiene, Mirrors, Sex, and...Finance?

When I was a kid, in say, 4th or 5th grade, I distinctly remember the girls and the boys getting separated for a sort of birds and the bees type talk. Well, I guess it wasn't really the birds and the bees, but we were herded into the library so we could learn about "becoming a woman."

I sat there for two hours while Mrs. J. droned on about how now that we were going through puberty we needed to make sure we always wore deodorant. We were also not supposed to laugh when the boys' voices cracked. And the most vital part of the course was that when talking a shower, we weren't to wash our butts and then our faces....always the other way around. My teacher really covered her bases. Nothing about condoms, sex or STD's, but all vital information, of course.

A year later our science class started preparing for the big eclipse, that happens, you know, like once in a million years. So in order to get ready, we learned how to build special mirrors that would allow us to look at it in the reflection rather than stare directly at the sun, burn our eyes, and go blind, as the adults all warned us. Well, let me tell you, someone bet me a piece of gum or something special like that to stare at the sun for 5 seconds to see if I would go blind. Because I was an exceptionally intelligent 5th grader, of course I did it...and lived to tell the tale, 20/20 vision and all.

So what am I getting at with the post that just seems to be like a walk down memory lane?

Because today I spent hours googling information on how to invest for retirement. And then it occurred to me, why did nobody ever teach me this?!? And it's not like I never took a business class in my life, because I did. I suffered through economy and finance and marketing and all that jazz. I had my brain stuffed full of really useless information in grade school, high school and college, yet none of my professors or teachers ever mentioned personal finance. For pete's sake and crying out loud, I was forced to take math through A.P. Calculus, yet no one thought it would be more relevant to skip the logarithms and go straight to talking about a 401k??? What are our educators thinking?

Sometimes I get really frustrated because I just feel like I should know about this stuff and I don't. I've struggled trying to work out a budget for us, to figure what makes more sense to save where. I've got the basics down, spend less, save more...but the specifics, as in, what should I be doing with the money I'm saving, totally baffle me.

Why didn't I learn this crap in school?!?

Chile Postcards

Hey peeps!

I've had several inquiries about prints of my photos recently. I know a lot of you who read this blog don't necessarily have the cash (or desire) to shell out for a fine art print.

So I've decided to offer postcards of Chile featuring some of the most popular images of everything I've shot over the year...and trust me, these are not the typical shots you're going to find on the street corner postcards here.

I'm really nervous to put this little venture out there. If nobody buys them, I'll feel like a total idiot. So if I've ever been of use to you and you feel like supporting me and this blog, at 5 for $15, they're not a bad deal :)

Chile postcard information here.

Rainy Days

It's grey and wet outside. The rain has been falling pretty hard all day. I love listening to it, although living in an apartment the noise is just from outside, since our "roof" is the people above us' floor.

I've been worried about winter getting me down. Like so many of us gringas have blogged about/talked about in real life, every year it's easy to go into it with the mindset of, this is the year I will not let Santiago winter make me HATE LIFE. You start out with positive thinking and then little by little the cold and dreary chip away at your happy outlook.

In Michigan, at least snow would make the cold worthwhile. It's cold, but beautiful. Here in Santiago, when it's nothing but drizzly rain, it gets old quick.

At least I have a lot of things to be excited about! My mom is coming in less than three weeks. I am going to meet up with some of my old colegio friends from here whom I haven't seen in almost 10 years, so that should be so much fun! I'm going hardcore at the gym, trying to make it there at least 5 days a week. I love going because it warms me up, so I've been really enjoying exercising. In August I'll hopefully be going to Brazil for work. We're having a gringa party when my mom gets here, so those are always awesome. For now, I have lots of stuff to look forward to.

In a month or two when I start bitching and complaining about how depressed I am living in Santiago winter, will somebody please remind me of this post? I have the best intentions of keeping positive, but we all know how easy those plans can go awry when you haven't seen the sun for weeks on end. :)

Back in the Day

When I was just a little girl, waaaaay back in the day, my mom shipped me off to Chile to study abroad. Almost 10 years ago, I came here for 3 months, and since I didn't actually speak any Spanish at the time, I actually didn't do much studying. Don't get me wrong, I went to classes at a local high school in Puente Alto here, but since I didn't understand anything and the teachers already had dozens of rowdy kids on their hands, nobody even tried to make me do homework or take tests or anything like that. I basically sat in the room with the kids, listened the professors lecturing, and took down notes of anything I understood. By the end of the three months I had like 4 whole pages of notes. :)

I think I've mentioned this before but when I arrived I had only had one year of Spanish so my speech was severely limited. I knew how to say, "Where's the bathroom. My name is Kyle. I like blue."

Even though I could barely communicate with my classmates at the colegio I went to that didn't stop me from having a great time! I have a horrible long term memory so I really don't remember a lot of specific people or moments, but I do know that in retrospect, that trip was definitely one of the funnest years of high school for me. Contrary to my feelings about Chile now (sometimes hot and sometimes cold) my time in high school here was nothing but good.

I'm not sure if it's that I was more adaptable as a kid, or if I had less expectations. Maybe kids at that age are more open to making friends or less judgmental about things like the social and political stigmas that come attached to being a gringa. The most likely scenario is that it was a combination of both those things that made my time in Chile the first go around so totally enjoyable.

Somehow, one of the kids found my blog and then contacted me! Now I'm facebook friends with a bunch of people who only knew me once for three months so many years ago. It's so weird, but really freaking cool! I'm pretty excited to be back in contact with some of them. I always wondered if I would ever bump into anyone on the street here that I knew, and a couple of times I even though I had seen someone that I recognized, but wasn't sure enough to go up and say hi.

Talking to everyone again has brought back so many memories! At this point in my life, the faces, names and events of that time were starting to fade. I'm glad to have been reunited with people who take me back to that time.

A few things I specifically remember about going to school here is that I felt so much younger than everyone in my class, even though I was actually only a grade behind them. I went to school with the older kids because my host sister was a year ahead of me in school so our parents thought it would be best if I stayed in her same class, since I wasn't actually going to learn any material anyways.

But, it wasn't the age that made me feel different, it was just their experiences. Coming from a really conservative town, I didn't drink or smoke or anything and then I arrive and here are all these kids, babies in my eyes, just like me, were boozing it up like adults and smoking like chimneys! There were also a lot of kids who were seriously long term dating at the time too, which was nearly incomprehensible to me. I just couldn't fathom it. Why would you spend 5 years of your life with someone in high school? And they had sex! Not all of them, obviously, but back home I didn't know a single girl who had lost her virginity and the big moment wouldn't come for me until like 7 years later, so I had a hard time wrapping my mind around that too.

Everyone was so nice, though. They invited me to their parties, we hung out after school and did projects at their houses. And by did projects, I mean, they worked while I watched, goofed around and distracted them. I remember playing soccer with the boys at recess. I remember that they had a big party for me during class right before I left. It was a surprise, during a math teacher's class. He had massive furry facial hair and they called him Chuck Norris. All the girls were wildly in love with him. I also remember the English teacher. They called her, "The Miss," pronounced Meese, which I thought was hilarious.

A couple times I've driven around in Puente Alto wondering where my old colegio was and where I used to live. I could never find it, because that damn neighborhood is huge. I also went back to my host aunt and uncle's house like three times, but twice they weren't home and once the maid answered the door. She remembered me, but the whole family was gone at the beach. Those were the only attempts at contact that I ever made. I always wished I could find the kids from colegio and hang out but my only way would have been through my host sister whom I'm pretty sure never liked me.

Anyways, so it's really cool to be back in touch with some people. I'm still waiting for some of them to accept me as a friend so I can Facebook stalk them. :)

A Rose For No Reason

On Friday S. got me a rose, just because. He makes me so happy :)

Good thing he's around, otherwise I think the little things would be getting me down about now. Our hot water has been off for three days now. Yep, that's right, I have not showered in 3 days and I feel disgusting. I did wash my hair in the faucet, though. It felt like dipping my brain in ice.

The reason the hot water is off is because there's a gas leak in the building, on my floor coincidentally. On Friday afternoon our whole apartment started to smell like gas. I wanted to take a nap but I was too scared I wouldn't wake up! Excitement, I know. Anyways, the leak still hasn't been fixed because the building administration is oh so competent.

But, we put gas leaks aside, heated the apartment with the oven, and had a couple friends over for an impromptu drinking session. We stayed up until 7 in the morning! I slept in until 6:30...PM today. Ahhh, nursing a hangover, can't take a shower...can't say this has been my favorite lazy Sunday ever.