he DaVinci Code, Sushi, New Orleans, El Silbedor, and Lorena

So here's what I know:
The big 24 comes in three days...yikes.
I miss my family and the IRS. We always have smashing birthday festivities.

On Sunday I wasn't really with the program...kind of caught up in myself and all my junk. Then a teenager named Lorena walked into church for the first time and sat next to me.
With that, I remembered what we really exist for.

I haven't read a newspaper in maybe over a month. I am ignorant as to what's going on out there. Except I know Spain finally decided to get involved in Lebanon. And that they are dancing on the streets of New Orleans again.

I kind of wish summer would just end already.
Madrid and Barcelona in just two weeks baby! To bad I have so many life decisions to make, no?

About two years after everybody, I am reading The DaVinci Code. He's not all that great of a writer, really. But it's entertaining, despite his use of ridiculous metaphors and redundant words and large words that I know he found in the thesaurus and are not part of anyone's vocabulary. (that was a huge run-on...I never said I was that great of a writer)

Anyone want to send me some new books?

Made some sushi yesterday. Thank God for delicious Japanese cuisine.

I hope you guys aren't suffering from the incessant annoyance of a whistler.
He's lucky we don't have a pistol en nuestra casa.

All in all, life has been, to quote my friend and accomplice Rebecca, "very silly lately..."

Went sailing with the Germans. Yes I did.

And when I say "sailing" I really mean IN A TALL SHIP! Not unlike a pirate ship, actually. But they were not German pirates (that would have been cool though)

So, I went down to meet my friend Veronica for a coffee and to catch up because we haven't seen each other all summer, and somehow I wind up sailing around La Coruna in the hugest (yes, HUGEST is the word) boat I have ever sailed on. It was sooo incredible.
I love when you are just living life and all of a sudden find yourself with the wind against your face and the crisp sea water gently misting you and Germans yelling out sailing commands all around you. I really do.

I am still feeling a little sway, hours later.

(Oh, and to explain a little: All these tall ships from all over Europe are in my beautiful port City of La Coruna for a Tall Ship Regatta. They are sailed by teenagers who do this six week program to learn teamwork and sailing. They race in like six or seven cities that they sail between. Veronica (my friend) has connections with one of the German ones.)


Best day of the week, maybe the month. Hands down.
Do you know those moments when you feel so alive?

November Table Game

I am doing better. I am doing great, really, when I think about it. So I decided to take from Colleen and Thanksgiving tradition (I know it's only August, but I won't have Thanksgiving here in Spain, so I'll play today)
Here are 10 good things:

1. I walk everywhere.

2. I live on the Atlantic coast for the first time in almost 9 years.

3. I have an amazing, beautiful, quirky family...and I love them a ton.

4. I am learning the words to Spanish music on the radio...I have songs that I know (though they are stupid, awful pop songs, this is an exercise in bettering my spanish)

5. Milca lent me her bicycle while she is in Venezuela

6. I am staying in Rob and Nancy's apartment while they are gone, and today I am baking scones.

7. Last night I made balloon animals (something I have only ever done in European countries...) and I learned how to say clown in spanish (payaso...)

8. It's the Festivo Maria Pita, and there are all these free shows...Flamenco this weekend!

9. I am going to Madrid and Barcelona "on business" next month with Rebecca

10. I spend each monday at the beach alone with my thoughts, some good music and a bottle of sunscreen.

The long hot walk.

So, I am laughing at two things. First of all, my friend Nate gave me two seasons of Lost, which I have never watched before and am now completely sucked into. Pathetic. Okay, so funny in how pathetic it is. I knew that would happen.

Also, I am feeling so strangely guilty these days. ¨False guilt¨ is what it´s called when it´s guilt over things besides sin. I mean, not that I don´t sin. But what I am feeling guilty about all the time is stupid. And yet I continue to feel like this. So I´m laughing in a sort of nervous concern for my state of being.

What the heck is wrong with me? You know when you are walking a long way outside and lugging heavy stuff and it´s like a thousand degrees with no wind and you are dripping sweat and all of a sudden you look up to see how far to your front door, realize it´s ridiculously far and then trip and fall down, dropping all your stuff and scraping up your legs?

I am not saying this has happened (well, it probably has...) but that sometimes lately, life has felt like this.

But not always. Just sometimes. Sticky, and painful and overheated and exhauting. Irritating.

Be that as it may, I truly am trying to be content here.

I have several big decisions to make...and soon. And I hate making decisions. In the past, God has just kind of let everything fall into place and I just keep walking and find myself in these places.

I really am trying to hope that that happens this time too. Because I suck at making decisions.

Like right now, I have to decide whether to give into the exhaustion and go watch a couple episodes of Lost, or go work on some projects for work.

We´ll see what happens.

I miss Hot Tamales. Spain doesn´t have very good candy, I must tell you the truth.