El dulce sabor de una mujer exquisita

Una mujer exquisita no es aquélla que más hombres tiene a sus pies;
sino aquélla que tiene uno sólo que la hace realmente feliz.
Una mujer hermosa no es la más joven, ni la más flaca, ni la que tiene el cutis más terso o el cabello más llamativo;
es aquélla que con tan sólo una franca y abierta sonrisa, con una simple caricia y un buen consejo puede alegrarte la vida.

Una mujer valiosa no es aquélla que tiene más títulos, ni más cargos académicos;
Una mujer exquisita no es la más ardiente (aunque si me preguntan a mí, todas las mujeres son muy ardientes... y los que estamos fuera de foco somos los hombres);
sino la que vibra al hacer el amor solamente con el hombre que ama.
Una mujer interesante no es aquélla que se siente halagada al ser admirada por su belleza y elegancia; es aquella mujer firme de carácter que puede decir NO.

Y un hombre... un hombre exquisito es aquél que valora a una mujer así.
Que se siente orgulloso de tenerla como compañera...
Que sabe tocarla como un músico virtuosísimo toca su amado instrumento...
Que lucha a su lado compartiendo todos sus roles, desde lavar platos y tender la ropa, hasta devolverle los masajes y cuidados que ella le prodigó antes...
La verdad, compañeros hombres, es que las mujeres en eso de ser "muy machas" nos llevan gran recorrido...
¡Qué tontos hemos sido -y somos- cuando valoramos el "regalo" solamente por la vistosidad de su empaque...!


Tonto y mil veces tonto el hombre que come mierda en la calle, teniendo un exquisito manjar en casa.

-------------

The Sweet Taste of an Exquisite Woman

An exquisite woman is not the one who has the most men at her feet,

but rather an exquisite woman has just one man, who makes her truly happy.

A beautiful woman is not the youngest, or the thinnest, nor the one with the smoothest skin or most beautiful hair.

A beautiful woman is the one who, with nothing more than a frank and open smile, rights the world with with a simple touch and good advice.

A valuable woman is not the one with the most titles or academic degrees hanging on her wall.

An exquisite woman is not the one most passionate one(although, if you ask me, every woman is very passionate, and it is us men who are out of focus).

No, an exquisite woman is one who trembles with the pleasure of making love just to the man she loves.

An interesting woman is not the one who is flattered to be admired for her beauty and elegance; it is the woman with a strong enough character to say NO.

And a man... AN EXQUISITE MAN is the one who appreciates a woman like that.

Who feels proud to have her at his partner.

Who knows to touch her like a highly skilled musician plays his beloved instrument.

Who struggles by her side, sharing all of her chores, from washing dishes and hanging clothes to giving in return the care and caresses that she lavished on him first.

The truth, my fellow men, is that women, in being "one of the boys," are way beyond us.

How foolish we have been--and are--for appreciating the gift only for the beauty of its wrappings!

A fool, a thousand times a fool, the man who eats shit in the street, having at home a delicious delicacy.

--Gabriel Garcia Marquez

State of the Onion

Agent P in Washington, DC, send me a note last night asking if I would live-text the State of the Union address, as he had been apprehended trying to sneak into the building and would be unable to access a television until he could make his 'one call'. Here are the results:

Wed, Jan 27

7:06 PM: Hail to the chief!

-Agent P: Have we solved healthcare yet?

7:13 PM: Yup. The next hour will just be a dramatic reading of the Obama's grocery list.

-Agent P: Oh, good. I heard laundry lists were out and I was wondering what they were going to use as a replacement. Take a shot every time he says 'arugula'

7:18 PM: A shot of high brown choke cherry liqueur. Ok. So far... things aren't great right now but haven't been for years. Don't blame Obama, blame partisanship.

7:20 PM: Step one- the economy. Bailout as popular as a root canal. But it kept us from losing our entire metaphorical jaw. But we are still in recovery room.

-Agent P: Got to love extended dentistry metaphors. They give you so much to chew on.

7:25 PM: Jobs no. 1 focus in 2010. Applause! And now let's look to the future: clean energy, high speed trains, no more tax breaks for outsourcers, oh my!

7:32 PM: Get your act together, America. Germany and India are so hot right now and we won't settle for second place! Chanting!

7:36 PM: Financial reform! We be serious, yo! If it ain't legit, I'ma veto that shit. More nuclear power plants, more offshore drilling and coal. Hippies are crying!

-Agent P: Is he wearing a power tie?

7:39 PM: Yes. Wide windsor knot in peppermint pink and red. Climate bill! Clean energy for the win and/or global domination. New trade deals?

7:40 PM: Oh hey, education. Who be stealing our future? Will there be an intermission?

-Agent P: Yes, after Brutus and Marc Anthony make their speeches.

7:43 PM: Student loans out, Pell grants in. Public service jobs = loan breaks. All debt erased after 20 years. Assuming you're alive after 2012.

7:48 PM: Let's clear a few things up: healthcare reform isn't fun or easy, unlike my bedazzler. But it has got to happen.

7:51 PM: Deficit time. Cue funky breakdance music. President probably has parachute pants on behind podium.

7:54 PM: Although Obama will pass on devastatingly good looks to future generation, deficit stops now.

7:55 PM: Or maybe next year.

8:02 PM: Transparency new watchword. And now, bringing it full circle, the split along party lines is lame. Seriously, guys, get over yourselves. Oh, and democrats still pwn.

8:07 PM: Terror watch: not a new bad ass model from rolex. We better look alive! Bring it Al Qaida. Iraq, you are on your own. Kind of. Maybe. Uh, at the end of term.

8:08 PM: Epic serious face.

8:13 PM: Enemies: nuclear weapons, HIV/AIDS, climate change. Friends: human dignity, the underdog, law abiding citizens.

8:15 PM: Ask! Tell! Wave that rainbow flag! And that pink lady flag! And the Mexican flag while you're at it! Oh to be a militant lesbian from Durango right now!

8:21 PM: Never give up! Never surrender! -end transmission-

So says Jim

ME: Daddy, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? You're going to be all alone...
JIM: Well....it's just going to be me and Ruby. I'm going to tie a little napkin around her neck, and for just one night she can eat at the table.

You ain't got not alibi!

You ugly, yeah yeah, you ugly.

The walk home from work this afternoon left me feeling a little lonely, so I reached out to family and friends via the novel technology of the 'mobile phone.' I took a horrific photo of myself in the metro:


and sent it out along with a request for them to take the ugliest picture of themselves with their phone that they could and send it back to me. I told them it was 'for science.' Which it isn't, but it sure lent the whole thing an air of credibility. Below are the first arrivals. I will post more as they come in.

Multimedia Update!

Here is a video of Rodrigo and Gabriela's playing style. Wish I had the video from the office concert, but I guess Bob Boilen doesn't feel like sharing.

Note: Those are Rodrigo's hands in the video, Gabriela is off screen.

Revelations

As I delve further and further into the world of NPR and the city of DC, I realize just how much there is to the world that I hadn't paid attention to before. At the office, everything is a novelty: company e-mails, conference calls, boardroom meetings. All the corporate tradition is something I had only ever heard of before in legend, and on Office Space. Thankfully, NPR is what I like think of as 'corporate lite'. The umbrella of casual Friday extends over the entire work week, and the weekends are a free for all. Any competition between co-workers is channeled into pick-up games of waste-paper basketball. It could be worse.

Around town everything is new, too. On weekends I leave the house in the morning and walk down to Colombia Heights to the metro station there. In the half hour that it takes me, I pass through neighborhoods of big Victorian three-stories, then move into the tightly packed Queen Anne row houses with their scrolled balconies and shuttered windows, their stateliness undermined only a little by their peeling paint and the faded and mismatched lawn chairs on the stoops. Just after I pass the house with the miniature adobe style village on the front gate, just beyond the yard with about 6 statues of the virgin nestled into the various potted plants, the homes give way to a stretch of rudimentary commercial blocks with signs in two, sometimes three languages. There is Herman's hardware store, the Guatemalan Bakery, Ropa Latina clothing boutique, and four or five pupuserias. There is a Brazilian Beauty hair salon, and a Puerto Rican souvenir shop. What I am most excited about, however, is the helote trailer parked in the front yard of an old house, behind their chain-link fence. I am hoping, in some Brigadoon-like glory I will one day round the corner to find them with windows flung open selling the tacos and helote and tamales that they advertise on the side.

The small, colorful storefronts give way to the shining, sculpted behemoths of Target and Best Buy as I get close to the metro, though still there is an empanada stand on the opposite curb from Payless, and the kids running around in the newly built fountain are shouting at each other in Spanish. The magic of DC is that when I emerge from the metro downtown, close to work, I will find myself in the middle of Chinatown, under the elaborate friendship arch and her paper lanterns. The ethnicities here are as numerous as the stops themselves, and each few blocks you stumble into another neighborhood ripe with its own language and culture.

Big Day!

Friday night I arrived home exhausted by a full run of 18 hours of awesome.

Work is still incredible, partly because it's so new, but partly just because it's NPR. In the afternoon, the acoustic, flamenco-influenced jam duo Rodrigo y Gabriela were on the fifth floor and they played a few songs for us in the middle of the office. Incredible. Will post video later.

After that goose-bump inducing performace, the rest of the afternoon flew by in a daze, utnil I was pulled fro my musical high by an offer of free tickets to the Shakespeare Theater to see Helen Mirren in Phedre. Of course I said yes.

I had just enough time to get off the bus, throw on some more appropriate theatre-going clothes, and jump right back on the bus to chinatown and the show. The performances were a little scattered, but that falls more to the director than the cast, and over all it was beautiful. Depressing, but beautiful.

And I get to do this every week!

Introductions all around

So I moved into my home-away-from-home this afternoon. It's a great old house, I'd say about 100, 120 years old? It's got a friendly red door on the outside and a spectrum of richly colored paints on the inside. But even better than the paint job is the family who inhabits it. Here's the rundown:

Cindy Morgan-Jaffe: Woman of the house, mother to three grown children--Anna, Claire, and Rose--and parent to the twins. She owns a software company and a moped. She is originally from Wyoming, so she knows how it is to be a Westerner in the big city.


Tanya Renney: The other woman of the house, biological mother to the twins. She's got Western connections, too, with family in Livingston and some cousins in Helena. She recently built a greenhouse onto the side of the house, which is now home to two tortoises. She also loves to cook, so I will keep you updated on the epicurean side of things as well.

Clara: The au pair from Brazil. I haven't really talked to her much yet, but I do know she has been in DC for 6 years and that she is very good at french braiding hair.

Paul: One half of the twins, he plays the cello and has recently enrolled in acting classes. He is very blond and very blue-eyed and sometimes goes by the alias "the Swede". He is not Swedish. He does, however, love Harry Potter and the back yard and being 8.

Olivia: The other half of the twins. She plays the violin and often sports the french braids in her hair that are the handiwork of Clara. She is starting to think boys are not quite so gross as they used to be, but still not worth her time. She likes horses, of course, and hiding behind the sofa to avoid bath time.

Sanji: The aging pitbull of the house. Very sweet, but please don't let her out the front door as she has a tendency to run off

Hannah: A mutt, part basset and part something else. She is low and stubby and shaggy, with one ear that goes up and one that goes down and a tail that goes all directions at once.

Study up, there WILL be a quiz.

Natty Hist

After an uneventful train ride--marked, however, by the first time I have ever been in New York City (or below it)-- I arrived safely in Washington, D.C. I took a taxi to Peter and Jessica's and promptly settled in to the spare room. I spent my first full day in the city cruising around on the metro and wandering aimlessly through the Museum of Natural History and the American History Museum.

I'm doing much of the same today, riding around town, trying to get used to being just another drop in a sea of 600,000.

First Impressions: Everyone in DC has incredible front yards, and it's not half as scary as I expected.

I'll upload the few photos that I took when I get the proper cord for my camera. Until then, I leave it up to your collective imaginations.

EDIT: Here are a few photos from my first day in DC

A prime example of lush DC front gardens :

A pair of foxes at the Natural History Museum:

Any my favorite, the bull elephant in the front hall:

D.C. Bound!

So BIG NEWS here at the Worcester outpost. It turns out that the NPR internship that I applied for back in July, that I didn't get... well, I got it. Someone had to cancel at the last minute, and they called me up (why is it I am never anyone's first choice?). So I've spent the last two days frantically planning my trip down there, searching for housing, and in general freaking out about my move to the Big City.

I've been keeping the phone lines open to the Montana Headquarters, staying in touch with M&D while I figure all this out. My father is always full of such sage advice. This morning, he reassured me with the following:

"You know, Annika, all these things always seem bigger than they really are. You're just going to DC. A lot of other girls your age"--here I thought he would say something like dating dead-ends, or working at McDonalds, things to make me seem awesome by comparison for having ventured into the wide world--"are packing to go to bootcamp and getting deployed to Iraq."

Oh. Well great, Dad, how can I follow that act? I thought a lot of other girls my age were getting jobs and internships and trying to figure out where they belong in the world, too. Now my brain is just overrun with images of me landing in fatigues and dust on a wide avenue of downtown DC, fresh from the helicopter. Cut to a scene of me crouching behind a pile of construction debris eating rations out of a can, a look of war-weariness on my dirt-smeared face. Of course there will be the requisite reading of letters from home and lovelorn notes from my beau. Insert sweeping Michael Bay music and machine gun noises here.

Dad's parting words were much more reassuring: "You'll be fine, just stay away from congressman."

Dundun, dundun *ominous music*

So, according to BBC science news, which I happened to be skimming this morning, four great white sharks were tagged this weekend just off of Cape Cod. And guess where I just sent my uncle for an end of summer vacation... They announced the beaches will be closed for the rest of the weekend, and I instantly had flashes of a disasterously short-sighted mayor talking to chief Brody and striped swimtrunks and gnawed limbs. Although, I like to think that New Englander (New English?) sharks might be more well-mannered. Or, on second thought, if they are Red Sox fans, they're probably all tools.

La Tamalera Mas Guera

A nice chill day today in Worcester, MA, where I have been for the past few days. Laura and I walked down to starbucks for some refreshing drinkies, followed by a shopping spree at the Goodwill, where I found my wedding dress--now all I need is a fella!--and then headed back up the hill, where I promptly made a bucket of tamales.

About Damn Time

Alright, I'm not famous for having regular blog updates. So, after about a year, I present to you:

FINALS WEEK!
I have my first exam in a couple of hours. Wish me luck!

The Cold

After a snowy start to Matt's arrival--we were planning to head back Saturday morning with Greer, but the crazy over-night snowstorm put us back to the afternoon with Erin--we arrived home all in one piece.

It's a lot colder in Helena than it is in Missoula. Mother said that this morning it was -24 when she got up. I wasn't awake for that, thank goodness, having chosen instead to sleep in until a sensible, warmer hour. Like Noon.

Also, this morning, we discovered that the strange popping/snapping noise we heard least night was one of the windows in the living room cracking, it was THAT COLD.

And now I'm down in the basement, several layers deep in clothing, cleaning my old room and building a nest to sleep in and listening to music. I might have to kidnap Ruby from upstairs and use her as a heater later. I'm sure she'll love that.

Election Night

I have just gotten back from the bars (don't judge) in one of the most epic nights I can remember, not on a personal level, but communal. I suffered from anxiety all day, well, for weeks, induced most strongly by the RNC and Sarah Palin's silver speech.

Two days ago I was thinking what I would do, really, REALLY, if Obama lost, and how I would feel. And that imminent feeling of doom sat heavy with me. I said I would cry. And I meant it. Had Obama lost, I would have been deflated, and hurt, for lack of better words, and yes, I would have most likely cried. It's my country, and although I dont wear patriotic colors or shirts, don't chant USA USA in large crowds or jump to declare my nationality, I love it.

And tonight, yes, I cried. But out of relief and joy in the fact that for once, something I believe in counted and had weight. It's just so nice to be noticed everyonce in a while. GO BLUE!

Keeping with the tomato theme... SALSA

And day of the dead.

Saturday was salsa night, and also the official day of the dead. SO I dressed up with a marigold or two. And Sunday, yesterday, was the celebration of day of the dead, and Greer, Erin, and I went down to the parade in the rain and froze our toes off and admired the african dancing and cheered the zombies dancing "thriller" down the middle of the street.

Here, witness the amazing before and after, Saturday to Sunday...


















Of course the day of the dead is best spent in company....











UPDATE: A few photos from the Halloweens
VALKYRIE POWER!

Soup's Up!

I have been recovering from a nice strong cold--it's that time of year again--and I believe I have found the cure. Or at least an aid, and it's much more delicious than NyQuil: Tom Yum Gai soup. It clears out the sinuses with its spicy zing, is packed with lemon grass and lime juice for vitamin C, and based on a chicken broth, which we all know is good for what ails you.

Hurray for a happy tummy, a clearer head, and hopefully a happier immune system as well.

Ketchup

Last Sunday Greer, Erin, Bill, Eliza, and I piled into the car and drove up to Big Fork for a cider press. When we stepped out of the car, it was like walking down the road into an LL Bean catalogue. There was golden afternoon sunlight, leaves everywhere, children running all over the place laughing and wrestling, live music coming from the garage, and the hum of small talk. Add to that a spectrum of fuzzy hats, gloves, and scarves, various jackets and vests, but no heavy coats, and no bitter cold. It was the perfect fall afternoon.

We took turns slicing apples, cutting out wormy bits, sorting them and tossing them into clean water, and Eliza took her hand at cranking the press, which was old, and from Kentucky. There were wheelbarrows full of apple mush, the remnants after all the juice has been forced out, and I expect the neighborhood deer were looking forward to a nice dinner, as the mush was going to be scattered throughout the trees later in the evening.

It was just as fall should be. I have a few photos on Bill's cellphone, when I talk him into giving them to me, I'll put them up.

EDIT: Here they are!

I have been reading too much poetry as of late

I want to make a mirror of your roof,
lay tongue in groove,
want to mock the warped white pine boards with our soft white bodies
and your freckles.
I want to feel their laquered silence
and listen to their sighs in the quiet that falls after ours
and know that it is jealousy
and not the shy heat of morning
that coaxes from them that muted groan.

Target may be hazardous to your health

Apparently, things get dropped a lot in the warehouse in the back of Target.

Of the various horror stories that Glenn regales me with most days of the week are the following:

He was almost concussed by a falling box of helmets. He started hallucinating after a pine-sol spill. And my favorite to date, the great Soap spill of July, 2008.

G: "Yeah, and then the soap exploded"
ME: "How did that happen?"
G: "There was running, and screaming, people falling over."
ME: ... O.O'
G: "Yeah, it was awful, I had powdered soap everywhere, in my nose, my ears. But at least the truck smelled nice. This was after we had spilled some cans of Progresso soup, which, in a hot truck, is not as appetizing and you'd expect. So, that was a relief."

Or the time the entire truck was covered in maple syrup.
G: "This one employee even had a serious reaction to it [the Aunt Jemima's]. I guess you don't realize you're allergic to maple syrup until you're bathing in it."


**UPDATE** apparently they also once stumbled upon a hundreds strong plastic animal orgy. I want a new job.