gravis

I discovered what that word meant in December, before Christmas. I was really worried as I didn't want my mother to be ill. At that moment, doctors said she was ok.

Yesterday the diagnosis was confirmed, "gravis" has landed in our world and even though two studies are on their way to reconfirm what has already been confirmed, I feel it's unfair.

I know, there up and downs in our lives all the time, but I thought I could take some time to gasp for fresh air until the next wave of tough situations appeared. I was hoping for it. I was praying and begging for it.

And I also know that gravis could be bad, though there are other deseases much more serious and painful. I know it, but it doesn't make me feel not a little bit relieved. I want my mother to be healthy, enjoying her life.

So I'll do my best to bring joice whenever and however I'd able to gather my own thoughts, feelings, digest them, and encourage everybody else.

But I don't like gravis, not one bit. And what's worse, there's no cure (it's a chronic desease).

lion king

I found out that the South is full of sea lions. I've seen some of them. In one of the ports. Just dancing hip-hop in the water.

Or was any other reason why the seaman turned the volume up when they were around? No, no. He said they liked music.

have you heard about...?

Oh, by the way, it's cinema we're talking about...

atardecer en el sur

Mi primer día en el sur fue algo realmente lindo: llegué con el atardecer, el mar calmo, y ganas de vivir momentos de tranquilidad. Porque a veces desenchufarse está bueno.

Y sentarse a mirar la puesta del sol también.

Es una forma de conectarse con uno mismo y con todas esas cosas que nos pasan, que a veces no podemos expresar en palabras.

Hace poco alguien que me conoce bastante me dijo: ¡Pero vos te lo pasás viajando! Y yo pensé, sí, es cierto, aunque no tanto como quisiera.

Conocer mi país y la gente que lo habita en los pueblitos que no están tan cerca siempre me pareció algo interesante, porque a todos nos pasa más o menos lo mismo. Vivimos ocupados sin siquiera mirar el cielo, o prestarle atención a esas cosas que nos hacen bien. Porque aprendimos que tenemos que trabajar todo el tiempo para ser felices, ¿o no? Pero, ¿la verdad? ¿por qué no disfrutar un poco lo que la naturaleza nos da y esos paisajes maravillosos? ¿la felicidad está sólo conectada con el trabajo? ¿o puede que mirando nuestro interior y lo que nos rodea también seamos felices?

A veces no sólo es una cuestión de mirar a nuestro alrededor, sino de observar...

Lost, House, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, etc.

Finally! They're back. I'm back to watch them all while Brothers and Sisters is in Spring's break.
Btw: do you know when it's going to be on again?

dictionaries

What if I bought a Spanish dictionary that is almost my age, and I couldn't find some dirty words?

dialogue vs monologue

Can you let me know the difference in meaning of one thing and the other? Because, after so many years, I see that messengers sometimes play a trick on you: you never know if there's somebody watching at the monitor (and not answering back), or if you were left alone just to air your stream of consciousness...

in the news

Argentina is a country known by its beef. And by the way we are when foreigners visit our country. And by our so many tourist spots. And by many other good things.

But in the last decade, we are also known by our cacerolazos (hitting our saucepans against their lids) to show that we are against the government rules.

Now that I'm back in the city, after a fourteen-hour journey in which I had to stop in every town (because truckers were blocking the routes while farmers just stopped cars to give people sheets of paper with information regarding the taxes our government set, impossible to comply with, according to them), I see the whole picture:

why can't we stop complaining and do something more productive than watching how things go wrong? Not exactly the country I enjoy living in!

Happy Easter!

I could not think of a different message. I lost my ability to think and write at the same time earlier today (my imagination was definitely gone!).
But I hope you'll enjoy the chocolate feast, hehe.
I promise to be more creative in my next entries. Oh yes, that's for sure (taking for granted that I'll be lying on the beach).
Keep your fingers crossed, just in case the storm heads south-east. "Me not like the idea"...

timetable

Oh! crazy, crazy time. Why are we ruled by our little tic-tac machines? Or by timetables?

Can you imagine a day when you can spare some time without paying a look at your wrist (or wherever you have your watch?). What would you do? Do you think you could survive?

Because I'm almost certain I could be on time even without a watch! (or maybe not that certain, now that I think about it).

caugh caugh and Easter

I am about to get a cold. I'm sneezing and caughing all the time, and what's worst, I'm about to travel.

And what about Easter? I can think of many ways of dodging it. First of all, can anybody tell me why Easter bunnies are so expensive this year? Even if that's one of the reasons I decided to have a late Easter with my family, I cannot say it's the most important one.

What I'm going to do is to bring some chocolate from the South of Argentina (I've heard there's fantastic chocolate in Puerto Madryn!).

wedding

Walking along the coast, I saw a small table with two chairs. Everything was covered with beautiful handmade tablecloths and white flowers. Some people were wearing their smartest dresses to be enjoying the beach, so I guessed there was something else going on: it was a guy wedding on the beach. Really nice, I thought.

I was tempted to take some pictures of the table, but you know what? They all deserved some privacy and decided to keep walking.

I wonder if this could ever happen in my country...

quotation

it's about moving in to a different place:

"Being here is like being with a lover whom you lost your heart to years ago and you desperately still want him, even now, but you cannot have him. And instead of being able to mourn for him and move on, it feels like each time I return here I'm again faced with that love of my life - and yet, unable to have him. So arriving here and knowing I have to leave again breaks my heart; and each time it does, a little bit inside of me feels like it dies.”

It rings a bell with me, I don't know exactly why... maybe it sounds like a cliché, but it's so real!!!

cats and dogs falling from the sky

Could anyone explain to me why El Niño is taking place in Summer??? And the reason why its's been raining for more than a week in the city??? And what about those waterspouts in the river?!

Something is wrong, wrong, wrong!

nice underwater experience

I thought that during my holls all sort of things could happen. They did:
1) I lost the bracelet of the hotel where I was staying (did I mention how rude the hotel manager was? She wanted to charge me what I'd already paid before leaving home!)
2) It rained almost everyday (at least for an hour or so). It turned out to be that it was the full moon that caused a change in the weather and wiiiiind (what was real was the cloud following me. It was right above me all the time!).
3) Planning scubadiving with people of my own country as partners wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. In fact, it was worse. This guy wanted to teach me how to dive (by the way, I took the course some years ago that lasted about 6 months, had my test in open waters in Brazil and everything went well, thank you very much for bothering me all day long because I didn't want to go his way. Did I mention this guy took a course that lasted a week in Brazil while on hollidays? And he supposed he could teach me?!).
Enough of my comments, some pics to show the precious fish I saw in the magic deep blue underworld (and there're more!). Now, when was I thinking of taking holls again?

sonnet in valentine's day

I read it more than ten years ago, when I was in the way to become a translator. It was the first formal approach I had to his work (though I had previously read some of his work). Of course I loved it. Today, I re-read it.
It made me sigh in the same way...

CXVI
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:-
O no! it is an ever fixed-mark
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his hight be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out ev'n to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare

As I have never left Borges out of my library, there's a quotation about love: “Estar o no estar contigo es la medida de mi tiempo” (oh, the translation? something like "To be or not to be with you is the measure of my time"). Romantic, uh?

birthdays and bad news

Having attended the same birthday twice made me reconsider some things. It was my mother's birthday, of course. Otherwise, I would have said no.

What made the difference the second time was that I found out that a blogger in my list is ill. So I thanked God for my mother, for celebrating twice and for all the good things.

I asked God to give this girl many years with her family and child.

politics

Now that the holls are gone, there's nothing else to talk about but politics. Obama vs Hillary?Cristina (our president)/ energy plans/Venezuela's offering Argentina oil in exchange for meat?

Are we all crazy or what?

And by the way, have I told you that in my country there's a new holiday? It's called "National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice ". Don't believe me? Take a look at the official site where I found it! (connected, most probably, with the Faulkland Islands).

I need some time off. Or even better, I think it would be great to take another look at my work mates' holls photos! (pretending that I care this time!!!).

Will I go to hell for thinking aloud?

slippy

After scubadiving twice that day, I needed to relax a little bit more (as if that were possible) at one of the hotel swimming pools (the one closest to my room). I'm not boasting about my holidays, scubadiving or the amount of pools the hotel had. Not at all.

I was there, quietly thinking of that day and suddenly ups! he slipped! An old man was next to me, entering the pool when he missed one of the steps and plunged in the pool. It was clear that he had arrived at the hotel that day (he was as white as snow). So, we began talking. I was worried about the fact that he could have been seriously hurt. Good Lord, he wasn't. Then, he told me he was from Canada, but born in Greece. Very polite, he was. And very old (in his seventies).

I met him several times during my holls, and I've seen him swimming and chatting with his wife. I exchanged hellos and good evenings with both. She even invited me to visit them (after casual conversations) in Rhodes where they have several houses and stay there with them. So nice they were!

The thing is that I could not find them the day I was leaving the hotel to say goodbye. I never asked their room number. But they were very nice. I just can't stop thinking of them, almost in their seventies and so high-spirited. So, wherever you're in Quebec, thanks for your invitation. It would have been a pleasure to share some time with people like you!

(how nice is to find people to chat about places and life as if they were your grandparents?).

A friend told me that it was like sharing time with a bunch of people in a retirement place. I thought, let's wait until you age like them, then you tell me...

back in the city

Short holls, but take a look at the island where I spent my time...