Helloooooo...

So, I suppose November 4th isn’t exactly the right day to make an appearance on my blog shouting, Woo-hoo! NaBloPoMo! I’m totally doing it! Because really, I’ve failed before I’ve begun. Also, I have not been successful when trying to do NaBloPoMo in the past. But hey, that’s not the right attitude. If anything, that means the pressure’s off. So I shall dust the cobwebs off the blog and post a little more regularly this November.

On that note, I’ve just come back home after a week away and two little boys who are very happy to see me have started crawling into bed with us in the wee hours of the morning, which is a first for them. And on one hand, awww. So flattered. On the other hand: Dude. I need my sleep.

Good night. (When I say "wee hours of the morning, I mean 3:15 a.m. Yawn.)

Things That Are Long Overdue

So, I was sick a couple of weeks ago. So sick that I had to cancel work, which I'd only done once before in nine years. I only canceled because I was physically unable to interpret--if I'd had a desk job that didn't require that I talk nonstop for half an hour every hour, I probably would have toughed it out. And on the day I stayed home, I started having trouble breathing, but I decided to wait and see if things got better the next day. I used to have allergic wheezing fits as a teenager that put me in the ER every so often, so this didn't seem that bad.

Things weren't better the next day, so I called my PCP and made a same-day appointment for later in the morning. I only did it because this time work had canceled on me, and the boys' nanny was at the house, so there was nothing standing in my way. And even then, I wheezed and coughed my way through Primo's parent-teacher conference before my appointment. (His teachers didn't seem to notice. As P said the other day, they don't exactly give me the warm fuzzies.) The short walk there and back had me gasping at my front door.

I made it to my physician's office, and after the nurse took my blood pressure three times because she thought her reading must be wrong, people in the office dropped everything and came running. A nebulizer treatment brought it way down. I was given a breathing test, an inhaler, antibiotics, and a chest x-ray. In the end, it was bronchitis, not pneumonia. My doctor patted me on the shoulder and gave me a little pep talk as I was about to leave. "I can't believe that not coming today was an option," I told her.

Not exactly a near-death experience, but it kind of shocked me into action. When I went back the next week for follow-up, I scheduled a physical. My last one was about six years ago, even though I've had a couple of issues I should have had checked out. I've packed on weight, which at this point can no longer be attributed to the twins. It was easy to think I was too busy, that I had no time. But we're all busy. Who has time? I realized I've been an idiot, and completely negligent. So my physical is tomorrow, and even though I could stand to get in shape, take better care of myself, I'm feeling better than I have in a long time.

I'd Suspected This for a Long Time

Now I know for sure that I’m too lowbrow for the New Yorker, because I just cannot see how this is sophisticated political satire. I'm not even feeling deeply offended or indignant, just confused. Because...why?

I’ll be in the corner reading the Family Circus or something.

A thank-you of sorts

P and I have lived in the Washington, DC area for about five years now. We moved here from Boston, where we met, and where we lived as newlyweds. He was offered a job here, and I was ready for a change. Even if I had not met him, I’m sure I would have moved here sooner or later, because I traveled here for work enough that it would have made sense for me professionally. When we did move here I was very excited about it because I already had several friends here. Imagine, moving to a new place and not having to worry about making friends. And then I made new friends anyway, friends I’m lucky enough to work with, friends who are excellent colleagues, who have bought me sangria when I was down and who threw me a baby shower in my happiest time.

And then there’s the area itself. Boston it is definitely not. I do miss Boston, the history, the beauty of the city, the fact that I have traded living in a quaint neighborhood for living near a strip mall, which is just as convenient but nowhere near as charming. I miss my friends, Copley Square, afternoons spent reading out in front of the public library, the North End, burgers and martinis at The Harvest, sandwiches at Chacarero and shopping at Filene’s Basement, where I bought my wedding dress for $99. Dating and falling in love. But when I miss Boston, I miss it knowing that what I miss is the past, which I can’t have back.

What I have is this place, my present. And on the surface, to me, Washington seems to have more warts than Boston ever did. Let’s talk local politics. Or crime. Or traffic. Or schools. People usually spit out the word Washington with disdain, or disgust. You never hear the phrase inside the Beltway is never spoken in a positive context. So many neighborhoods seem generic and artificial.

And yet. I somehow can’t believe how much I love it here. I love the opportunities it’s afforded me professionally, which have been all I ever could have hoped for. I love the colleagues it’s been my privilege to work with. I love the majesty of the monuments, the fact I that my commute routinely takes me down Pennsylvania Avenue or across the Mall and I get to gaze in awe at the Capitol, which I always do. I love the museums, and the fact that so many of them are free. I love Tai Shan, who was born just before my boys were and who will always be Butterstick to me. I love the fact that my sons were born here and that we bought our first home here. I love the Washington Post much, much more than I ever loved the Boston Globe, even though I have to admit I always crack open Style before looking at the main section. (The recent imagined Clinton/Obama VP text messages? Funny.) I love that for all its (many) problems, the Metro is so damned clean, and it pissed me off anytime I see anyone eating on the train. I love that we got a National League baseball team just after we moved here, especially because it means I can go watch the Chicago Cubs play when they come to town. I love the feeling that barring anything unexpected, I plan to make this my home for the foreseeable future. And I love feeling like I’m a part of it all.

I love catching a glimpse of our local celebrities. Look! There’s James Carville at a Nats game. Look! There’s Newt Gingrich at the Pentagon. Look! There’s Sandra Day O’Connor at the Supreme Court. Look! There’s John Kerry, just a couple of blocks away from my house. Look! It’s Adrian Fenty, looking cool and chatting people up in front of a sidewalk café.

Only once, though, have I ever been so star-struck and overcome with excitement that I had to go up to someone and ask for an autograph. It was the first time I’d done that, ever, and only because I was so excited about it in the office that my colleagues needled me and practically pushed me out into the hallway, where I walked up to Tim Russert and asked him for his autograph. I sputtered and hemmed and hawed and said something really lame in the end, and he was classy and nice and wrote P a personalized autograph for me, whereupon I turned beet-red, turned tail and ran back into the office.

What I wish I’d said was this:

Thank you. Your show will always remind me of lazy Sunday mornings when I had nothing more pressing to do than lounge around on the crappy little futon on the floor in our first apartment with my coffee and French toast and sections of the paper strewn all around the living room. Then we had twins, and there was no more TV for us on Sunday mornings, and we were at a loss until we discovered Meet the Press was rebroadcast on the radio in the afternoons, and again very late at night. Then we listened to the show over a glass of wine, not coffee. And even later, I started to download the podcast. Last week’s show is still on my iPod, unwatched.

Thank you for making me enjoy politics, for making it interesting and fun, the way my Political Science professor never did.

Thank you for being one of the best things about my new hometown.

Such a sad, sad comment

The U.S. invaded Iraq on my sister-in-law's birthday. I called her that night and we joked about it. Ha, ha, now I'll always remember your birthday!

This year, I did forget all about her birthday. Until I heard about the anti-war protests that will be going on to mark the 5-year anniversary of the war, and then I turned to my mother and said, "Hey, we have to call SIL tomorrow."

It's not so funny anymore.

New Things

I’m not really into New Year’s resolutions. Last year, I had all kinds of good intentions, and as it turned out, I had my hands full just dealing with my family and work. There were visits from friends and family, and we went on a few trips, but there wasn’t much room for anything extra.

This year, though, I do have a couple of things I’d like to work into my life. For one thing, P and I are going on a budget. We’ve only been on it a week so far, so it’s too soon to know how that will go, but I like the idea of a little self-imposed discipline. I’m hoping it will reinforce some of my positive money-management skills and curb some of my unhealthier impulses.

The second thing I want to do is read The Economist on a somewhat regular basis. Oh, I’ve been down this road before. We were strongly encouraged to read it when I was in graduate school, to keep up on current events. I subscribed for a while, but it was hard to get through and I didn’t read it often enough, what with having twins and all, so I canceled my subscription. I’m not sure I would have paid to re-subscribe, because it’s not cheap, but then I found out I could use my extra frequent-flier miles. So this week’s issue is now in my purse. Along with my issue of, um, Entertainment Weekly. Right. But once I get through that, I really will read The Economist.

The Evils of Free Trade (Or: Why I Have No Internet Access)

So, I really have no interest in writing a manifesto on the pros and cons of free trade. This isn’t that kind of blog. And God knows, I’m certainly no expert, and I know it’s a complicated issue. But this is more of a personal anecdote. It’s 9:00 p.m. and the boys are in bed. I’m at my brother’s house. P just arrived, on no sleep for the last 24 hours, so he’s in bed. My brother has been working early morning shifts, so he’s in bed. My SIL is at the beach on a work retreat for a couple of nights. My mom’s reading the paper. So it’s just me and my computer--no Internet--in a very quiet house. It’s lovely, actually, and though I’d normally probably be online, I’m just sitting here writing this, which I will post later, and drinking my rum and Coke. I have no translations to do, so I’ll read for a little while and go to bed early.

In Costa Rica, there is one large state-owned company (read: monopoly) that provides all telephone, cell phone and DSL service. You need it, they’re it. They’re also the power company. Since my brother lives in a remote enough area that he can’t get cable, DSL is his only choice for Internet service, which means going through them. No choice. He’s called and been told he’s not close enough to one of their sites. He’s pointed out that his next-door neighbors have DSL. They’ve told him they’ll look into it. Repeat those last three sentences on an endless loop for a couple of years.

So if you Google CAFTA, you’ll get much better information than I could give you. My simplified version is, Costa Rica was the last holdout in the region, and a couple of months ago the country held a referendum on free trade. This was an incredibly contentious issue and it was all people could talk about for a long time. You were either really, really for it, or really, really against it. According to my family, it was the kind of thing you couldn’t bring up at dinner with your friends if they held the opposite view and you wanted to remain friends. Opening up the telecommunications market is a big part of the deal, and although the phone/power company is a dinosaur and hideously inefficient, they’ve managed to convince a good segment of the population that the company is our “national heritage.” Don’t let the foreigners in, or sell off the country. Patrimonio nacional. I first learned that phrase in that context, which kind of cracks me up. Anyway, the referendum passed, by a very narrow margin. Both my brother and SIL voted for it.

My SIL works at a local hospital, and after the referendum, one of her patients—who also has an important position in the phone/power company—brought it up with her. He couldn’t believe she had voted for it and started joking with her. “How could you vote for that? I can’t believe you would do that. Bad for the country.” After a little while, she’d had enough and told him, “Do you really, really know why I voted for it? Because I’m not sure that you do.” So she told him about the years of calling and calling and trying to get DSL, and apparently, he was contrite and kind of mortified. He told her to bring in the paperwork and give it to him. She said, no, really, you don’t have to do that. He insisted that he would personally take care of things and promised her they would have DSL the following week. Finally, she agreed and took him all the paperwork.

I laughed when I heard that story. But that was a couple of months ago, and obviously, my brother and SIL still don’t have DSL. So last night I asked my SIL to tell me the rest of the story.

Nothing ever came of it, she said. She heard him complaining in the hall one day recently about how all people ever do is ask him for favors. She snarked back something about how maybe people shouldn’t make promises they don’t intend to keep. Now he avoids her like the plague.

Next up: No, Really, You’re Next On the Waiting List
(Or: Trying to Get a Cell Phone—A Two-Year Adventure. My mother’s story. But hey, she has DSL, so maybe she should just shut up already.)

ETA: Obviously, I'm now online. And I do have to admit that those four days without access to the Internet or my cell phone were pure bliss. I took a quick break and ran to an Internet cafe for a quick look at my e-mail, and it was back to reality, which I didn't really want.

Here goes

So. I've been thinking about doing this for a while now. If I really think about it, one of the things that's stopped me is the fact that there are some really good blogs out there, and when I read them I think: Oh, if I can't be that good, then no. I can't put another bad blog out there. I just can't.

But really, who cares? This is for me. Maybe people will find it. Maybe they won't. Maybe it'll be interesting, maybe not. But if I keep obsessing over all that, or try to get every single word right, I'm never going to do it. Plus, I've read several blogs faithfully for a few years, and really, though I do love reading them, why not spend some of my time writing my own? I'd like to create something for myself.

About me: I'm in my mid-thirties and married to P, a scientific/academic type who is the only person I know who can be more scatterbrained than I am. We have twin boys who will soon turn two. We live in a place we can afford in a big city, which means the four of us (plus approximately one kajillion plastic toys) share about 900 square feet of living space. I'm a Spanish translator and interpreter and love, love, love what I do. I'm a freelancer, which makes me my own boss but also sometimes makes me feel like less of my own boss than you would think.

I'm trying to figure out how I feel about the blogosphere and being a part of it. Do I want to be found? Do I want to leave comments? How much personal information do I want to reveal? Is blogging even for me? Don't know. But I do know about National Blog Posting Month, which I thought just might be the motivation I needed to get myself to write. So, here goes.

That wasn't so hard.