we were on the verge of getting him here– the point where we’d been approved by the u.s. embassy and bought tickets– just waiting to pick up his passport with the stamp in it, when the embassy calls and says they’ve made a mistake.

it probably can be resolved. maybe not in time to make his flight, but at least before the proposed wedding date. the thing is, he needs to be in lima to sign a document and then wait for his passport with that tiny visa stamp on which everything depends.

so, days earlier than he expected, he packed his bags, sold his motorcycle, said a few hurried good-byes, and left. he missed the big family wedding in which he’d say good-bye to the family, the last sunday at church, where he could have some closure with the youth and congregration he’s poured himself into the last year and a half, and even the closure of properly saying good-bye to a place where’s he lived almost his whole life. and just like that, without a complaint and without self-pity, without the worrying i always immediately fall into.

“pero amor, lo mas importante es que nos aprobaron. y mira lo que me espera.”

(basically, “but look babe, the most important thing is that we got approved– and look what i get at the end.”)

i shy away from the really important stuff here. i like to stick to funny little things or great abstract things. but i just wanted to say– look, this is the man i love and get to marry.

I just spent my entire and very-much-looked-forward-to fall break emptying boxes of kleenex’s and watching entire days of TLC programs. Don’t judge though. I finally understand the delivery of the placenta and how to drop $5,900 on a wedding dress. Life skills, life skills. It has been so long since I just vegged though, and I forgot how much I like it.

Now I have a sinus infection (yummy, I know) and medication, so it is back to being the goddess of productivity for me.

I. have. so. much. to. do.

Let’s list it out here…

To Do before December 20th:

- Plan wedding
- Plan honeymoon
- Find somewhere to live
- Furnish said home without exceeding approximately $300
- Travel to Lima and back for the visa interview
- Fill out 2,148 MORE forms of paperwork to get Pocho here
- Introduce said fiance to my family, and um, all of my friends
- Be the best 2nd grade teacher ever and plan the school years’ biggest event… The Greek Festival

I found most of this out within the past week. That Greek Festival, which is pretty much my job, is scheduled 2 days after our visa interview in Lima. I mean, how do you tell an embassy in South America that you need like one more week to pull yourself together?

Wow. All this is good, of course, and exactly what I begged for all those times. I just have to enjoy it and work fast, I guess. It’s a happy stress; certainly better than the horribleness of being in limbo and/or waiting.
Sorry if you don’t hear much from me in the next litte while!…

i’m resurfacing from several weeks of random vacations, which, by the way, involved getting dropped off in a random desert town because of nation-wide transportation strikes and– get this– surfing. yes, i surfed in peru, and by that i do not mean simply paddling around stretched out on a surfboard. very, very, fun.

i would put up photos except that we can’t find the camera. the only evidence is one photo on facebook with my new favorite new yorker and jungle fruits buddy, kristen d. i have been very unlucky with technology lately as i also accidently sent pocho’s phone through the washing machine. i like to take care of my man but we can all be thankful the 50’s housewife in heels isn’t my life plan.

just a few more lovely, summery days with my (ahem) fiance left…

so, la clinica san lucas decided to have a day against discrimination against the handicapped. they needed two “muñecas,” or dressed-up people, to give the event a more festive flair and make things even more fun for the participants who were children (read: dubious peruvian sense of “fun” and/or “flair”). you know those people who dress up and stand by the road to sweat and wave you into a restaurant or store and you feel sorry for them and wonder what’d it be like for life to suck so bad that that was your job? yeah.

when morgan, the other american and i volunteered (read: were coerced) into the job, i didn’t realize it would be held in the main plaza, for all to see, along with the local news stations standing by. i’m telling you, nice surprises like this happen all the time here.

but… what can you do. we arrived yesterday morning to find in the program that to make matters worse we were dubbed “pocho y sus amigos”– which in pocho’s words “sounds like ‘barney and friends’ because i haf a big stomach.” anyhow, they kept calling us the king and queen even though i was obviously, in a cruelly ironic twist, in a snow white outfit.

we ran off to get changed because everything was suddenly starting, so in a huge rush i donned my dress, complete with crown and cape, trying not to let it touch the wet bathroom floor and arranging it all in front of a dingy mirror. elvira, the director of the program, called us up the rickety stairs onto the enormous decked-out stage for the introductory remarks– for “the photos,” you know. the mayor and other important officials all sat there too, along with the three newly crowned “señoritas”– miss moyobamba, miss orchid, and miss tourism. we stood there squinting and awkward, like any huge foreigner would, led the “no a la discriminación” chants, and then were mercifully informed to get down and say hi to all the kids.

i gathered up my plentiful skirt and started to go down the stairs (remember, it was more like a ladder and the stage was at least six feet tall), trying to do so gracefully and not let my dress get caught. alas– i forgot my cape, which did get caught. of course i am not coordinated enough for that, and so i went flying and fell all the way down the stairs.

of couse everyone freaked out and all the officials ran over to see poor (and now disgraced) snow white. i don’t even know in what form i landed but it couldn’t have been pretty. i had to be extracted from the ground in my yards of satin-in-primary-colors, recover my dignity and reset my tiara, and then spend the rest of the morning waving and smiling and handing out free pencils.

i now sport several new bruises on my left thigh (pocho’s little nieces were practicing their colors in english on them last night) and a new paranoia whenever i’m walking the streets now… because, let’s face it, i didn’t blend in before anyway.

in morgan’s words: “yeah, i didn’t think this could get anymore embarrassing…”

in pocho’s (in response to my question of whether he still loved me after we about wet our pants laughing over it all, later in the afternoon– this is for sarah and must be imagined in a spanish accent): “yes. i like you… i like you because you are… different.”

what can a girl do.

many fabulous topics could be written about, but i can’t concentrate enough to do justice to any of them, except one:

i am the luckiest girl in the world.  i am packing my bags in exactly 12 days to go

- see the man i love
- in the jungle
- in south america
- for two entire months
- with no other plans.

how did life get this good?

pet peeve: unlocking doors.

it’s such a drag: arriving at the door of my house or car, carrying a butt-load of stuff, probably late, and then having to stop and perform an all-out search through the mary-poppins–esque-scale of the inside of my purse to actually find my keys. mary poppins, i suspect, would efficiently drop her keys into an easy-to-find side pocket.

all my friends (or maybe people who in the olden days would have been categorized “acquaintances”) list people who use ellipses as one of their pet peeves. i don’t like them either, in excess, but i do like them and they save me time and fuss in emails especially. now i’m paranoid and feel like i’ll be judged on the basis of my ellipse-usage.

i wrote like 2 posts back about being awesome and productive of late and then LOST MY PLANNER which was the key to all of that. it’s been a month and i have yet to find it; i’m convinced someone stole it. (i don’t blame them.) i bought a new one though and am slowly recovering the contents of the original. my favorite part is in the back, where i listed the main things that have always kicked my butt and continue to do so (paperwork, running, dancing, etc.) and am slowly attacking them. to address the third item, i am going to this class later this morning at the gym called “zumba”– the title of which almost made me not go– for the second time. it’s latin-inspired dancing/aerobics/something and wants to defeat me, which purpose is aided by my questionable sense of rhythm. 

however, i have a SOUTH AMERICAN boyfriend. i. must. learn. how. to. dance.

do capitals annoy you? would you put their constant usage up on your list of “25 things about me?” what about my lack of cpitals? i am so paranoid. it’s like when i accidentally get off the interstate an exit early and go straight through the intersection at the top of the ramp and get back on. i am always glancing around, in my mirrors, certain someone is howling over my dim-wittedness. buuut blogs are meant to be fun. agonizing over grammar, while generally fun, is not on the agenda this morning. some good shakira moves, however, certainly are.

one more thing: my life is complete because i have read a famous/must-read/well-regarded book that abby farson has not. (middlemarch, by george eliot.) i do not exactly remember it, just that i loved it in high school. i don’t generally remember books unless i read them at least three times, which is unfortunate because dropping “oh, i loved (insert impressive title)” into a conversation loses its punch when no actual details of the story come to mind. i am SO pleased, though. abby farson has read more than anyone i know and probably can talk intelligently about all of them, too. i suspect that today, with such a promising beginning, will be incredible.

he is not here, he has risen

today ranks among some of my favorite easters. it was not especially peaceful, in the contemplative sense, but busy and loud– full of people. i mentioned before that i love my new little church, and everyday moreso. i love that we’re small and when i say “my church,” i don’t picture a place; i picture all of them.

i love that so many are completely new to everything. i’m probably the only one who showed up planning to align herself with this group for their minutely specific theology and practices and therefore had much of an agenda. (how many of my fellow-generation-ers aren’t imprisoned by self-conscious agendas?) most of the energy goes to the old-fashioned basics of Christian love: hospitality, charity, sharing, serving.

we had a baptism today. i love baptisms, and this one was so imperfect and joyous.  i think i like the imperfection of things; i don’t generally like a place that comes off too polished and too seamlessly structured. the whole afternoon, latin-american style, was spent eating and playing together, with new people showing up all the time and most of them new.

it did occur to me just now that in my flurry to do, i think i missed remembering. i was worried about teaching a good sunday school lesson but don’t remember being especially awe-struck myself, which would surely have made a farther-reaching impression. the classic mary vs. martha, i know, and i fell prey.

no, wait, i think there was a moment– when we arrived at the empty tomb scene on my (amazing) flannel board, and i let it in and didn’t hurry past, inside.

on the retreat last week we spent time in john 20. it was well-timed. i won’t go into all of it, because i am queen of intently reading blogs until they arrive at the gushy spiritual meditations, at which point i skim and/or peace out. briefly, this part was a big deal:

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?

   ”They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

that sums up and addresses very many things. i cry all the time now, i can’t figure it all out,  and i miss Jesus when he is in front of me.

and then he speaks:

“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
      Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

i will gladly give my life to him. He so consistently gets to the meat of things. even the whole afternoon– during the crazy mix of spanish and english and a wild variety of places on the spiritual/economic/social spectrum– in that joyousness i was self-absorbed. and i do not want to be left to myself, to the preoccupied Self with so little space for anyone else, the same one that depends on the five-second rush of flattery or temporary gratification for its joy.  

Joy came then after several dark days and i know it comes in the picture of that, from a life given over and lost in order to find it again. to think in an instant of busyness i toss its it’s rule in me by the way, or so it would seem– in reality i can no more tear away the rule of Christ in my life than i can instate it. there is indeed cause for rejoicing, amen?

do not try to write an entry after perusing christa’s blog, you will only be discouraged because the possibility of ever being so delightful– original?– seems so distant.

basically anything can be over-analyzed, especially in the internet age, but i still like blogs. my friends tend to write well and i like keeping up that way. i am nosy, though, and mommy blogs or sites of friends of friends are an extremely enticing option for wasting a few good hours thinking about/envying/judging people i will never meet.

(oh my GOSH i just saw a coupon for “barbara’s shredded oats.” they are unbelievably good and i haven’t thought about them in two years. i adore cereal since being back; sad but true: it’s the highlight of many days recently.)

i am on easter break from school. still got a few side jobs going, but a break from the kiddos sounds heavenly. today everyone was wired from too much candy and the excitement over the coming break, which was a headache but i maintain they could NEVER create the daily chaos back in good old annie soper. being an elementary spanish teacher is great. it’s all about games, songs, and whole-body activities, with a little coloring and culture thrown in. i am looking forward to switching to second grade (hello, charlotte’s web unit) but i will never get the same rush from teaching how to borrow from the ten’s column as i do with spanish.

i was listening to lots of npr at first, but i am tired of the economy so now it’s almost exclusively embarrassing latin pop. sometimes awesome songs come on, which is enough for me. yesterday i switched cars in order to drive the baby i nanny home, and realized i’d left mine on the spanish station with a  mix of mostly bad latin pop for her mom to drive home with. i am glad not everyone is as judgemental as i am. anytime “tito el bambino” makes your day, there is room for concern. but gosh i am missing me some moyobamba and the boyfriend today!

i have a lot churning in my mind– stuff from the retreat i went on last weekend, various conversations, etc. i’m eager to write it out but not yet. i have grand plans and projects for the next week and hopefully some time to pause and think and write will materialize. what fun.

today was not a good day for the to-do list.

i have been amazing lately, really. in an astonishing turn of events, i have started to do things i never thought possible. examples:  doing my taxes a month ahead, cleaning my car out, making my lunches the night before, exercising consistently… i mean, i could go on but you might be tempted to hate me, until you remembered that for me all these acts could be termed heroic– akin to haven kimmel’s mother getting up off the couch.

all my life, i have been a horrible procrastinator. other people found some strange delight in order and doing things ahead of time, but it always seemed to me such a miserable existence.  if i could have been so together effortlessly perhaps it would have been worth it, but i preferred my spontaneous, peaceful existence.

i should say that i have always experienced an inordinate amount of disasters in my life, as well as lost items. it has supplied me with more adventures than most, probably, however, and kept me extremely, extremely accessible. it is hard to be intimidated by anyone locked outside her house with her car keys and cell phone inside and a child waiting to be picked up from preschool in 15 minutes.

it is probably megan’s fault, though, that i suddenly decided a change was necessary. i suddenly find joy in lists and getting up early, and… i like running. running has always kicked my butt. when i saw people running, pouring sweat with their faces screwed up in intensity, it always made me so sad. i wanted to say, “just stop if it’s so horrible! go home! you look great already; go take a nap for goodness’ sake!” but somehow i started and am actually following a plan for it and somehow it’s great. now i feel sorry for the poor swimmers who are jumping into that wickedly cold water in the wee hours of the morning.

today i was mainly a bum, though. you know those days when doing anything sounds taxing, even pouring a bowl of cereal?

my mom came home with a whole stack of books about being “green” (kind’ve an annoying phrase, huh?), and between those and the recent time in carrboro, i am newly convicted. the amount of waste, especially, that we produce is totally selfish and wrong. way to create a toxic world for the generations to come, all of us. so i am going to add ”not engaging so completely in the (particularly american) habit of screwing the world over for generations to come” to my new list of “things that have consistently kicked my butt,” right there along with paperwork and running. always keeping a canvas shopping bag in my car and always having a re-usable bottle of water so i will NOT buy bottled water again are where i shall start, i think. i talk big but it kicks my butt all the time, sooo… it’s a start.

after the past four days i have a million ideas yet-to-be-hashed-out just up there, spinning, but it is way past bedtime and this is enough.

politics aside, this made my day.

obama picked carolina to win the ncaa tournament.

duke didn’t even make it into his final four.

i love it.