The girl from Oklahoma .. is in Oklahoma.

People keep asking me what I do.
"So Camille what are you doing?"
"What now Camille? What do you do?"
"You're back, so what are you up to now?"


.......

Excuse me. Was I supposed to plan something? What do I do? What kind of question is that? Uh a whole lot you know. I do a lot. What do I do. What do I dooooo. I get up. Kind of early. Not because I'm energetic about the arrival of a new day, more just because my bedroom is downstairs and my roommates have no problem making lots of noise in the morning. So what do I do after I get up? I read the scrawny Muskogee Phoenix newspaper. I have Multi-grain Chex, my dad makes a blend of Cheerios. I gripe that not enough coffee was made. Can someone PLEASE remember that I drink coffee too?? I then read CNN and NPR on my phone because unbeknownst to the Muskogee paper things happen outside of Braggs and Wagoner. I pet our cats. That's plural. I untangle necklaces that I obtained cerca 2001 and have been in a draw since a month after obtainment. I check my email. I remember that I can check the real mail. I think about sending some mail so I can get mail. I drive my car. I go to Wal-mart because that's where people with cars go. No, that's not why. I go because my Amy's Indian meals are cheaper there. I find out they stopped selling the ones I like because people don't buy enough organic frozen meals here. I grump about this. I make chicken salad. And I even add weird ingredients because I'm spontaneous like that. I try not to think that spontaneous used to mean weekend trips, now spontaneous is carrots in chicken salad. I go "junking" with my mom. We note that area junk stores are getting too nice. We hate when they try to be cute. Don't stencil your old bread box. Feathers never belong on lamp shades. Let the junk be junk. Ugh. I ride my bike. I almost lose my life to a white Ford Taurus. How depressing to lose your life to a Ford Taurus, I think. I play scrabble. I play words with friends. I prefer scrabble but my roommates always quibble and take too long on each turn. So I play words with friends while I play scrabble. I eat dinner with the roomies. We intensely discuss my mother's hatred for the grasshoppers eating her garden. We despise them. Jim says he caught one and bottled it in a coke bottle. You wouldn't believe their jumping power! Fran still hates them. She says she would feed them to the fish at Sixshooter if she could capture them. I hate them too. Horrible awful grasshoppers. 


Oh yeah! and after Chex and Cheerios I have a conversation with Jim like this. 


Me - Hey what's that vocabulary word that like means a name for something else? It's like monotony or misdemeaner or nomenclature or something. None of these but maybe with the letters. You know?
Jim- I know I know! Let me think about it. It's right there.... I'll get back to you on this. You had to ask!


(Later I'm browsing vegetables at the farmer's market....)


Mundane, meager, misdemeaner-no stop thinking misdemeaner, not misdemeaner! Normandy, hominy, mockery, monarchy, monocle, moniker. MONIKER! MONIKER MONIKER MONIKER. MONIKER! Hell Yes! I am amazing! I am word champion. Moniker. Moniker. How much are these tomatoes? Is it shameful to barter at a farmers market? Will hippies come out and chastise me for trying to swindle a poor local farmer? Oh wait I'm in Muskogee. Hippie free. Ha. Oxymoron. I'll tell her 50 cents. 






Anyway back to those questions, what in the hell do they mean what do I do?

The PP Gets a Headache

Today I have been thinking my eyes hurt. Oh shit my nystagmus is making my eyes hurt! Wait no, its my eyeballs. My eyeballs hurt. And my head is hurting quite alot too. Right behind my hurting eyeballs. And then it hits me. I realize what is happening to my body. I am having a legitimate headache. The kind that people always say hurts behind there eyes and then they touch there temples really dramatically. I never knew what this meant until today. And I found out 26 1st graders yelling at you isn't the right medicine. Anyway this realization has been a shocker for starters.

The problem is that I am an extremely healthy person. Healthy, ha, well, that's not the right word. I mean to say, that I have avoided corporal harm for 25 years. I have lived a pretty pain free life so far and going strong. My concept of pain is a pre-zit, a stubbed toe, an indian burn, retainers worn once every year, touching the "hot plate" at the mexican restaurant, and chapped lips. I don't think I have experienced anything truly painful. I mean I know what emotional pain is like when you lose the Mad Men episode you just downloaded or when your kindle dies but physical pain is not something I encounter often. However I've gotten pretty good at pretending it.  I even remember doing it as a child. Which side is my appendix on? Well yes it is hurting quite a lot! And even as an adult I may have sometimes been a bit dramatic and embellished some "headaches" so I could use the excuse like everyone else. ("Its behind my eyes, and these temples! Oh its the temples!). Now as I find out that there really is a way for my brain to cause pain right behind my eyes, and I am vulnerable to this heinous torture, I repent. Dear baby cheeses, I repent.

I am nervous for when I have to encounter something actually painful. I have never broken a bone, had surgery (except for wisdom teeth removal and even then I was given pain killers that might have been used longer than necessary for especially "painful" days). What if I break a bone now? I can´t even imagine. 

In Spain, pretty much everything is blamed on the weather. I said my head hurt and I got a "Es el tiempo Camille." Same with a cold I had in February. The flu? Weather. Seriously, we should just say this damn economic crisis is the weather's fault. But anyway, when I look for sympathy I find it's just a phone call away. I recommend everyone to move to a foreign country. The distance really elicits your mom's affection and sympathy. I called my mom when I had said flu this winter and she didn't say one thing about the weather, just "Oh my poor precious princess." And I thought, that's right, the poor precious princess! I may call her right now about this headache business.

A side story about "pain" in Spain (yes, sPAIN)... Last year at 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning I remember crying to a doctor at the emergency room pleading for some kind of pain medication. I had a bad ear infection. She just gave me high milligram IB Profen and a smirk. At the time I thought "Estas de cono!?" (Are you of the vagina?) Now that I think back on this, I would say this was a quite painful experience but then again I am comparing it to chapped lips and hangnails. So I'm not really sure if pain meds were really needed. Apparently my sobbing didn't convince her that they were. I might have even pulled the card, this isn't even my country and I would really appreciate if you would adhere to what I'm used to.... (Shame, I know). She obviously didn't realize she was talking to someone's precious princess. She did give me the common courtesy to not blame it on the weather though. To prove just how courteous this woman is, I saw her like 9 months later when I went to a family Christmas dinner and found out she was related to the family I am good friends with. She didn't even bring up my bawl fest. What a woman. 

Anyway, I think I should be talking about Spain and the fact that I am leaving in less than two weeks. But I tend to focus on the right now. And it's headache. Which actually is receding now that I am away from hoopla. I hope my eyeballs and back of eyeballs never go through this again. I just don't think I could take it. I'm an epidural kind of girl. 


Next post, will be the final farewell to Metropolitan Vigo, the best gym there ever was. 

What is an SUV?

When you have friends visit you in Europe, you start to see things again from the American viewpoint. Being over here I tend to forget about the way Americans see things until I have an American next to me pointing out every difference, and then I remember very clearly.

Yes, Europe is rather grimy. No, that man probably shouldn't be smoking in our elevator. Are we almost getting hit by every moped? Yes, that's true it is rather inefficient to go to the fruitera, bakery and grocery store. Have I kissed 14 peoples' cheeks today? Yes that is quite a lot of kisses. Is 11:00 pm late for dinner? But I ate lunch at 3:00 pm. Oh, that's late too isn't it. Take this food to-go? Like not eat it at the restaurant we came to? Right, I remember. Two euros for a wine, I suppose that is pretty cheap...

The last one is the one that takes the cake for me. Because now my view is that anything over 3 euros a glass (at a restaurant) is crazy expensive. I am going to just fucking lose it when the american restaurants try to charge me their ludicrous prices. The bottles I buy at the supermarket are always under 5 euros and fantastic. Can someone do some research on this issue? Why the hell are the prices of wine so drastically different? Do we just need more vineyards in the states? Pues, empezamos ya! Sometimes the spanish sentence just comes out first. But seriously, you Americans are really good at getting shit done, and getting shit solved so listen to me. Stop fussing over birth control and gay marriage and fuss over something important. I will return thirsty and broke, so you guys have about t minus one month to give me an answer.

Cono! Only one month until I leave. No, no, no......

(These are just random thoughts they have nothing to do with friends who have visited or friend that is coming TODAY.) I need to go americanize myself. Carlita will be arriving in two hours. And I hope she is bringing her mexican accent. I honestly don't think she will be able to use her travel Spanish without the mexican accent. She is so damn good at it. Oh my god I can't wait to see the spanairds' faces, they will be so offended!

Wednesday Science

I finally weighed the water collected from the dehumidifier! You will not believe how long it has been on my list of things to do. Yes, it made the list. The thing is, the dehumidifier's container fills every few days and when its full an obnoxious "beep beep" noise ensues until you empty the water container. So of course the beep beep drives me rabid. I always rush to dump out the water just to pacify the beeping gods, and then think, "Cono! I wanted to weigh that water first!" Too late. Too beeping late.

Drives me rabid? That may be exaggeration. It annoys me a touch.

So why would I want to weigh water? Good question. It is a small accomplishable task. And I tend to have a habit of adding extremely trivial tasks like this one to my to-do list. I do this so that when the more important (always more mundane) things don't get done, I can feel better seeing the other lines boldly crossed out and think, "Well thank God someone q-tip cleaned the keyboard!" These tasks make you feel good when they are marked off. They are a confidence safety net.

The other reason I wanted to weigh the water is because it is like a mini science experiment. (Weighing water is science right? What if I call it H2O? And if I ask myself "Wanna hypothesis how much it weighs?") Because I do those things. And I call it science. And I won at a science fair in 6th grade so I know.*

If you are still reading, I am so very grateful!! Was reading my blog a trivial task on your to-do list?! I hope so. Tell those other boring things they can wait for some Monday or whatever. Now back to my meanigful, scientific task.

Those reasons before were hogwash. The real one is that I weighed the water to justify my complaints about the humidity in Galicia. Oh the humidity. Its been raining for the past month. Month. That is a lot of rain. The biggest problem for me and the humid weather is trying to dry my clothes. I hang them up to dry, but they take days and days. I then end up re-washing clothes to take out the incumbent mildewy smell but it still lurks. Finally I just resort to wearing weird clothes that are clean and dry. Purple jeans + arkansas t-shirt, yes, done, beautiful, outfit destroyer. Its just too humid to dry clothes. Even with the dehumidifier. This has been the first time in my life to use one of these apparati. That means it takes out the water. (The dehumidifier, not the word apparati. That's just apparatus plural.) I didn't even know dehumidifiers existed to be honest. In Oklahoma we fill the air with water. And on top of that dryers exist there. Like they are even necessary, clothes would dry in less than 24 hours with that dry, crusty climate! What fucking paradise those Oklahomans have.


So that's the reason why I weighed the water. It's now time to hypothesis how many kilos of water my apparatus collected! Go ahead, just hypothesis!
............
6.4 KILOS!!!!!  Oh what's a kilo you ask? It took me a while to figure out how much exactly but it's a bit more than double a pound. So yes, this is like 14 lbs. Of water. Sucked from the air. And collected in my apparatus. For me to weigh. On my kilo scale.

And I know what you're thinking. My dehumidifier is a bad ass. And it's true. It magically steals water from the air desperately trying to give me my normal jeans in a dry, clean state. I appreciate that little machine. That's why I decided to rename it to "the humidity-defy-er."
I sure hope a child with dyslexia didn't already beat me to this wordplay. (Aka Camille's worst fear).

And here's the humidity-defy-er, defying humidity:

And that's all. Time for bed.
XOXO COCO



*Winning a science experiment in 6th grade deludes one into thinking they have a proclivity for science. It should probably be noted though that in my case, I went to a tiny, Catholic elementary school with a class size of 12 and I entered two experiments that year because I couldn't decide how I wanted to decorate my board. I would say I had pretty good odds of winning. But I'm not a mathmetician. I'm a scientist.

Full bellies and cold showers

I just finished eating the most gastronomically orgasmic meal. It was obscene. And I loved it. I love food so much!!!!! It's totally in my top 3 favorite things in life. I don't know whats going to happen when I have a child or dog that wants to encroach on my list. There are only three spots! But this is mas adelante.

(Just reminded myself I am getting a dog this year! Ok maybe he can have one of the spots.)

Anyway I rolled myself home in an ultra food coma state, happy as a lard lark. During dessert (white chocolate mousse with strawberries and chocolate syrup) my friend offered a post-dinner movie night at her house. She described the movie as I contemplated the offer. Not for the movie night or girl time of course but because her house was downhill from the restaurant and I like going with gravity. Stuffed Camille's don't care about whether it's a comedy or a drama, they just need a comfortable sitting device and yoga pants p to the pronto. After much internal deliberation I finally decided to walk myself to my home. (The movie did sound pretty painful.) I think it was this. The first few steps though I did lots of exasperated sighing about this "uphill" walk I had to do. I decided to time myself. It took 5 minutes. It's not even that uphill. Your mind just tells you it is when you think you have added 10 kilos to your caboose.

So now, sitting here in my maternity yoga pants (that's not redundancy, they are in fact stretch maternity pants and they are incredible) I just realized that we finished dinner at about the same time people are eating in the states. With the time difference. I am going to flip when I get back.
Just flip.

I was also thinking of how great it will be to have constant hot water in the states. Oh yes, this is something to be thankful for. This morning the propane tank ran out while I was in the shower. I of course had just put shampoo in my hair. So I grabbed the shower hose, closed my eyes and started a pattern of spraying myself with ice cold water, spazzing out and stifling profanities. I tried to get the important parts but honestly it was just too unbearable. I think I looked worse after the shower. Its weird to think that this hell-like rejuvenating experience doesn't happen in the states. You guys are missing out on exciting showers! And after the wild shower I ended up boiling some water and having a proper facewash, that scorched my skin and felt sooooo good. It made me feel rustic survivally for thinking up such a brilliant idea and seeing it work so well. (Despite bright red face). 


The girl from Oklahoma shows Spain!


Also central heating will be nice. This pioneer girl doesn't like the cold.

From my terrace

I just watched something incredible take place.

I live on a fairly long one way street in Vigo. I like to go out to my 2 ft. by 4 ft. terrace and watch the people move about in the street. I say Hi to my bartender friend at the bar next to my house and then I just take a long pleasant gander. Tonight there weren't many people out but I saw some cars. Which brings me to the "big event" of tonight's gandering. At around 11:05 p.m. a smartcar came happily cruising down my street. Suddenly it decided it was going the wrong way (ruh roh!) and wanted to start back at the beginning of the street. I don't know if you all know how one way streets work, but you can only go one way. This smartcar however thought it could outsmart this accepted norm by going in reverse. But behind the baby smartcar was a large trash truck performing nightly trash collection. So what happens? The smartcar simply extended an arm and motioned backwards and forced a the trash truck up my entire street! The two of them reversed the entire length of the street until the tiny smartcar made its way in a new direction and beeped a friendly gracias. I watched flabbergasted at the entire situation. Here are the points I came up with for why this is all backwards (literally).

1.) The trash truck is a mammoth! It could easily have squashed the smartcar which is about 5 times bigger than the barbie car I wanted when I was five. (No I never got this).

2.) Can't smartcars like turn around in a doorway? It could of just turned around and squeezed past the trash truck without being so petulant, right? Or just zipped around the block!

3.) Did I mention the audacious smartcar was yellow? Of course it was. For me I can't even take smartcars seriously, and on top of that it was a goofy yellow color. Because don't we all already imagine the dashboard of a smartcar to be like a life size Boppit? There are just knobs and buttons and gadgets. And when you it runs out of gas it just chimes, "Game Over!" So, going back to point number 1, the trash truck totally should have stood up for itself.

My mom always told me she liked driving her big suburban because small cars moved out of the way for her. I would have liked her to be here tonight instead of the friendly trash truck. The smartcar would have said "Oh you didn't hear me, I said 'beep beep!'" And my mom's suburban would have said "Yes, and I replied 'honk honk... No'".

You see, in America big cars win! They say "No to going reverse on one way streets!" No time to reverse for you! Rush rush! Time, stress, one-hour lunch!! Big cars intimidate the little cars. And to keep little cars in their place we even host televised events where big bad trucks crush 10 of them at a time. But...... I am in Europe, where little cars are just as important as big ones and the people are nice. They have all the time in the world and no one cares about time efficiency or say, reversing up a street for a poor disoriented toy-car.

What does this ludicrous blogpost mean? It just goes to say that the logic I was raised with of big car vs. small car doesn't apply in Spain. Big cars coexist with small cars in the most Marxist automobile utopia you can imagine.

And also that my Tuesday nights are very uneventful.

That is all. Goodnight.

Miscommunication

Spanish people are direct. I truly admire this quality. Or maybe I am just jealous. Combo emocciones.

They are also a very loud people. I remember my first few weeks when I would enter the staff room (mind you I didn't really speak Spanish then) and I always thought a huge brawl was happening. There was shouting, big hand gestures and incessant interrupting and I would think "Oh snaaaaaap!!" So I would stop staring at the newspaper I didn't understand and instead stare at the screaming I didn't understand. But the arguments always just stopped when the bell rang and everyone quickly dissipated and I was left bewildered as hell. Then as I gradually progressed with my Spanish I realized there had never been close call brawls. I started to understand we had just been discussing, vociferously, who is the best dentist and which is the best means of transit to get to Madrid and who should pick up the baby gift for Lorena etc. I was astounded to find out that their normal conversations have a very very high intensity level. Added to the fact that spaces, (rooms, offices, elevators, apartments, european cars etc) are considerably smaller. So in a confined space with people yelling and flailing their arms, its normal that a confused American felt apprehensive and edgy. I was used to 3 feet of personal space and saying "excuse me" if you just got close to someone. Now I realize grazing cows are more dynamic than Americans. (Unless you happen to be Bill O'Reily or Patrick Risch).

Crossing the point to understanding espanol was a big relief with my one on one conversations with as well because I finally understood that the people actually weren't reprimanding me. They were just telling me they liked movies from my country really, really loudly and really in my face. After two years, I've noticed that I get much closer to people now too. I shout and interrupt when I have something to say. I grab people's arms so that they listen to me and I point my finger and yell that "I think peanut butter is good source of protein even though its high in fats." It will be funny to go back to the states and start a conversation and realize the other person's face is actually saying "Why are you so close to me!?  Why are you touching me?! 3 feet!! 3 feet!! 3 feet damnit!!"

When my parents were here we had an interesting situation. Actually many but one that relates to this subject. One evening, me, being the tired old woman in a young person's body that I am, said I had to go get in bed and my parents decided to keep on partying it up like the young people in older people's bodies that they are. They went to the bar next to my house. (In Spain there are more cafeterias and bars than mopeds. Are there many mopeds? Ha. Yes almost as many as bars and cafeterias. They must have ran out of names though because many are called things like "Cafeteria Juan", "Cafeteria Cuba 2" Cafeteria Hot and Cold" etc) Anyway they decided to go to Cafeteria Next to Camille's House. They ordered some canas. In Spain you just say, beer and they bring you beer. You don't say a kind, just a size. Cana means small draft beer. Pitchers don't exist. Don't ask.

(To continue with the story I have to add that Jim Risch is not timid. He loves finding a new stranger he hasn't met yet. They make like to think of themselves as strangers, but Jim Risch sees them as soon to be friends. I admire this quality. The problem though with him and Spain, is that my dad had a hard time befriending people without speaking their language.)

The bartender/owner was a man in his late sixties. I'm not sure exactly how it played out but after several rounds of beer, someone tried to start a conversation with the other person. Lets not name names. Nothing was being understood between the two but both were adamant to get their point across. And the man, being Spanish, begin to yell his words at the foreigner and gesture like mad. So the once befriending foreigner begin to yell back his words. And basically it ended with two men, from two different countries, shouting at each other in two different languages.

My parents came home and told me what happened and I couldn't imagine what they could have been arguing about. How can you argue about something if you don't speak a common language I though. Ha! So the next morning we go downstairs to see the bartender/owner and figure out what the scuff was about. As it turns out, the man had just been asking my dad how much a beer cost in his country.

Moral of the story is, if a Spanish person yells at you and is gesturing frantically in your face, do not rear up for a fight! They are probably just trying to start a conversation. Here's what you do: Get in real close, grab their arm and yell a little bit right back. They'll smile and understand. And you'll know you done real good. 

Sickness apparently brings out my American pride

A few weekends ago I was sick as a dog. I was literally horizontal for three days sleeping, drinking water in that awkward position where you end up pouring it on yourself, watching online TV, replaying the song "the dog days are over" and filling trashcans with kleenex. I had a 103 temperature and no Fran Risch to bring me crushed ice and soup. Good news is, I am completely fine now. (I now take my vitamins religiously and drink like 3 cups of tea a day and if there is any kid with the flu at school, I turn and run). But while cleaning yesterday I found something that brought me back to this terrible weekend. It was a list I had made while I was on my deathbed. (I literally found it under said deathbed's mattress!). The list was titled: "You Ain't Amurica."

It's a list of all things American that don't exist here. As a side note I should add that I typically don't do this. I am not really a mopey homesick study abroad student that walks into the grocery store and pouts because there are no pop tarts. But it was totally necessary this weekend. It was my first true case of homesickness. No, it was my first true case of momsickness. And I was wanting some Amurica. So here goes:

Happy hours, kickball, garage sales, barbecues, NPR, big coffee mugs filled with lots of coffee, 12 different asian food restaraunts in a town that probably only needs two, tireswings, floattrips, cubscouts, girl scout cookies, baby marshmallows, marshmallows, puppy chow, large sized dogs, Whole Foods, college ruled paper (I can't adjust after 20 years of the same sized lines), automatic cars, cars that don't try to run you over, cars bigger than a breadbox, fountain diet coke, Pandora radio (this one is gold), chai tea lattes, leftovers, food divided into 100 calorie bags, baby carrots, self-checkouts, businesses open on Sundays, DRYERS, garbage disposals, sale sections in stores, variety of zip lock bags, Target, people who wear pajamas/sweats as clothes, people who say ya'll, razorbacks, Arkansas, Tenkiller Lake, blow logs, my parents, my siblings, my siblings' children, my siblings' dogs, my best friends. At the end the list got kind of biased as it became  just a I miss... list. That's the problem when you're sick. You get sappy.

However if I were to say that I'm not a generally sappy person that would be a total lie. I am a sap tree. I have actually been on an Enya binge this past week. Yes, Enya. And my ears and heart have been melting. And it's been awesome!

Back to the comparisons that I shouldn't be doing though there is a mega list of what Spain has got and America doesn't. America is no Spain. For example, interesting vending machines. (They are sporadically placed around the city and you just see them squeezed between really old buildings). Anyway  I passed by this vending machine en route to my language school yesterday and it had all of the typical snacks on the first few rows (chips, M&Ms, Jamon flavored pringles, dried ham etc). And then it went: rolling papers, mayonnaise, condoms, yogurt. You just don't get that variety in America!


Two blog posts in two days. Bam. Blog master.

Mala Cara

Yes hello hi. I will write something. Jot something down. Just so you know I am alive. I do remember my password to this thing. Unimportant tidbits are still happening around me. I am just not very consistent about recording my tidbits. But here's to trying!

Ready steady go!

(Oh yes, that's right. Another example how I have been british-brainwashed. I stay "steady" insteady of "set". Even my childhood game announcement has been affected by the perfect Queen's English. I speak a really weird dialect. Its american english with british influence peppered with Spanish words when I have forgotten the english translation. (Today I had to ask my sister what that game was called where the children go under the bar without touching it. Limbo. Yes correct. Also the current life phase I am in.) 

So turning to.....

I am feeling quite manic today. Why? Because I become schitzo when I have too much caffeine and don't have my kindle on long bus rides. I life think. And I life think hard. The topic always comes back to the flashing expiration date of my time here and the realization that I have nothing planned after that. Bahhhh where is that damn sorting hat! Lifethink can be such a grano en el culo! (pain in the ass. Although literal translation is, pimple on the butt). Perfect time to blog it out of my memory. (Harharhar). 

I will pack up this computer and take it to a cafe so I can get some work down. This is my standard line. I typically add that I never get anything done at home. And then que pasa? (what happens). I lug this wretched thing there, prowl around for an outlet, scare them with my monster electrical converter, get shit set up, order my coffee, and then open facebook. Five minutes later I declare the FB Boycott. And I begin my "work". First a neat to-do list. I look super studious from the outside by the way. The work though never seems to fully get done. Probably because the screen is either on a website describing menus from the world's top restaurants or one on how to craft old mittens into minature stuffed animals. 

And then two hours later, after the waiter has silently declared me a pimple on his butt for ordering three coffees, american sized with fat free milk, I decide to abandon the life-search and go back home. And by go back home I mean, run into friends in the street and go for wine and tapas. 

Rewind. Repeat Cycle. Title it: Camille Plans Her Life.

Maybe I'm making it sound as if my life isn't stressful at all. As if it's only filled with excursions and tapas. But I want to let you know, that like Patrick Risch in the Hospital World, I have chaos too. Today at school I re-taught prepositions because the children had forgotten them!! Then... laminated seaweed bookmarks we had made, revised pen pal letters, taught first graders how animal sounds, played limbo with 8 three year olds in a private class (and called it English) and finally came home to some past subjunctive Spanish homework and galletas. Let's be honest, it would be nice if once in a while I could be surrounded with hot colleague surgeons and be involved in scandalous affairs and sensational gossip to escape my demanding routine. (I ignore when this reference is repeatedly refuted. I really want to believe it is Greys. I just can't not imagine a hospital with out bombs embedded in patients, sex in closets, and surgeons fighting for never before done surgeries.)

So that is that. I think I have successfully updated once again about nothing much worth updating about. Spain is still great. The Spanish are still great. Still direct. In fact here's the funny tidbit for today: One of the first teachers I saw today asked me if I was OK and told me I had "mala cara." In English this would be asking if someone was sick by saying "Oh you don't look so good.". But it directly translates to "You have a bad face." I'm not even sick today! But apparently I came to school with a bad face. 

Tragedy Strikes Girl Trying to Make Lunch

Without being too dramatic, (OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD)

an egg just exploded in my face!!!!!!

Here's how it happened.

Recently when I've been boiling eggs (I eat alot of boiled eggs, egg salad, deviled eggs, etc) the shells have been refusing to come off. It is a meticulous task to peel an egg millimeter by millimeter and I have been going just straight up nuts. I get frustrated and then rip the shells off and realize I have lost have the egg white. I've tried lots of tricks, adding vinegar to the water when they're boiling, cracking the eggs immediately after draining the boiling water etc. So today I was not in the mood for this stupid shell business so I underboiled my eggs.... on purpose. Then they peeled like a charm and I was as happy as a clam but I knew the yolk wasn't fully cooked so I did what any logical technology dependant person would do, I put them in the microwave.

Then they started making a weird noise.

So I open the door....

Peer in at my three precious eggs....

And I touch one of them.

and POP!

Egg in my face. Eyes burning. I thought I was going blind. We always think this when something unexpected gets in our eyes. It's probably true that we do much more damage by sprinting to the bathroom and drowning our eyes in water until they are red and puffy and egg free. Anyway this is definitely my scariest egg tragedy yet. Yes, even more traumatic then the feather incident. As a result I have skiddishly devoured a bag of cashews. 

This is where I should stop. But now I can't. Apparently if you type into google image search "nervous squirrel eating nut" this will be one of the photos:



And this one too.



Could it really be squirrels have an affinity for wheeled citizens??
I leave you with this inspirational thought.

This was written at around 7 a.m.

 It's Saturday morning. I can't sleep in when I drink too much the night before. So I am going to tell about a typical yet strange situation that happens to me. It is that when I open Facebook at this hour and I read people's posts about going out for their Friday night in America, I feel like I. am. the. future. Immediately I want to tell them, No, don't check in at Brewskies Bar. Take back that picture of your fancy cocktail. Don't tag your friends. Stop with the exclamation marks about it being Friday night. Stop stop stop. I am feeling your bad decisions you are making right now. I am regret. I am future.

It could be the obvious fog I am in right now, but I think I am getting tripped out by time difference. Is this happening? It's just so damn bizarre that the sun is rising in one place and people are sleeping in another. The world is spinning? My mind is spinnin! Such mind has never super apt at grasping sciency things. Or mathy things. Or square dancy things. To be completely honest, if I had been around when they were claiming the world wasn't flat, I would have totally laughed in their face. You idiot look at the ocean! The horizon is that line there and once you reach it you will fall off!

I think Future Camille needs some more sleep. I am sharing way too much. Everyone is going to figure out that I really have no idea how the world works. The moon pulls the waves??? There is a fireball in the center of the earth?? Where do you people get these sensational ideas!? That's why you guys are my friends. I like all your crazy thoughts. I like you weirdos.



My topics should be a little more pre-meditated. I just realized I blogged about looking at Facebook with a side of Science skepticism. I am 100% sure I will look back on this and be like Que coño estaba pensando!" (What the fuck was I thinking? Actually "coño" is vagina. So that's "what the vagina was I thinking". Spanish is way more creative with cuss words).

To make the blog better I will add a couple pictures from Dia de la Paz. Peace day. At ma' school.

At this point you have to be thinking... Coño! Can it get any cuter? Three children hugging beneath a parachute??! And it does.

We released a dove as the grand finale.

Ta-da. Now go in.....

xoxo-coco

You know when there's not much in your kitchen to make dinner with but you scratch together a meal anyway?

I make blog today.


It's basically about nothing. But if you are already reading this you might as well continue. Facebook won't miss you. I've been quite homesick for some good ol' amurican food lately. My mouth waters when I think about beef fajitas or the grilled chicken salad from Mahylons in Muskogee. And if someone were to say the word "bacon crumbles" to me right now, I would book the next flight home. 


On to my current crisis though. I left my water bottle at school today. This may seem like something on firstworldpains but this is quite dire. I don't know if I can make it until tomorrow without water. What? No, I only drink from this one water bottle. It squeezes perfectly into my mouth and water tastes better when it comes from it. Don't call me a little girl. I am a niña. Y quiero mi botella damnit. 


The good news about today was that I had three packages waiting for me at the post office. Also good news was that I had asked my mom for socks and she sent me 13 pairs. Sock on that, cold spanish winter. I was only able to pick up two of the boxes though because the third one I had to pay a tarifa on and believe it or not, the Spanish postal service only accepts cash. What year are we in Spain? Did the conquistadors bring this parcel on horseback all the way from the Americas? I swear. I pay for 50 cent gum in the States with my credit card and it is not a mortal sin. But Spain is not America. Thank god. 


I do love Spain. I love it alot. I love politely waiting in the post office line to be cut off by three people who only have "preguntitas". Well I only have a little question too. And that is, what is the point of taking numbers again? It's because they were all better dressed than me. My friend has a theory that is inconsequentially true, it is that better dressed people have the upperhand. Yes we already know this, but for example if you are on a narrow Spanish sidewalk coming home from the gym and a woman in her fur coat is walking towards you and there is obviously no room for both of you to fit, who steps aside? You better believe you're sweaty little nike self is the one to scoot.


Watch out when they come in threes too. 





I must note that on the day that I am the shnauzier one I notice that the people step aside for me. So it isn't ethnicity selective. Just quality of clothing. Business suits will always bulldoze you. Fact. I've had a few near encounters with almost being run over that still give me nightmares.


Other fact, older Spanish people love to wear their coats on their shoulders. Me hacen mucha gracia. I don't know why. I always think, aren't you worried it will fall? Why not just wear a blanket? Target has great micro-fleece blankets! 







Off to spin class. Then to study for a spanish exam that's going to kick my culo to cuba. I'm going to try and write more and something a little more riveting next time. Os prometo. Love. Coco.

Ok! I will address this SOPA business

I always know there's something brewing in the States when everyone stops posting about OU football and cold weather to post about the same subject. (I will not confirm that Facebook is my news source). (I swear I read the news, but I've been busy! It's sales season in Spain and I started Spanish classes!) Anyway, the point I want to make is that  you know its big news when Jim Risch updates his facebook status to write about it. So I thought, ooook USA what the fuck is this soup thing about? Sopa in espanol means soup. Since I live in Spanglish, I can't read that word and not think soup. So I am just going to refer to this as "the soup thing."  So without furtherer do, I give my thoughts.

Facebook My current news source, was providing extremely limited information on what the soup thing actually IS.. (You've told me a million times that there IS soup, but please tell me what kind of soup it is!) So I had to change outlets..... to Wikipedia, my internet best friend. You know when you are embarrassed to ask someone a question because they could shout out "Oh my god guys guess what Camille just asked me!!" Wikipedia would never betray my trust. He's like your humble intelligent friend. I search sea urchins, I search tabbouleh, I search meercat. So right, I like Wikipedia. I am actually becoming stupider in person because I can't stop a conversation to look something up. (I am one of the few people without an iphone). But no, I'm not resentful that I have to make flashcards at home with random info before going to the bar and hope that is the trivia to be touched upon. Iphones are so overrated.

Anyway.................................

You can only imagine my stupefaction when my best friend tells me that the a Republican senator from Texas is trying to kill him. Well I may have been persuaded over at first by the cute name, but hell to the no, will any soup kill my internet friend. Sopa de mierda is what it sounds like to me.

That's kind of all I have to say on this.

You may think that I have just hoola-hooped around this issue and not actually said anything at all except that I found out that it exists. And then you may be right. But I like to feel that I am addressing political issues sometimes. I don't want anyone to get the idea that I live over here and just drink vino and explain the food pyramid in English. That would be quite the misconception, my friends. Soup thing - done. Give me another topic.

Fortune cookies don't get me anymore

I wore heels today. And while sitting at my computer drooling over Anthropologie shoes reading thought provoking articles about healthcare and Republicans and caucuses (SUCH A FUNNY WORD!!), I realized my foot had fallen asleep. So what did I do? I stood up to revive the damn thing. And then...... I fell down. Well well well, I took those cussing heels off and put them where they belong! In the back of my closet. With some hat I thought I could pull off but couldn't. (People with small hair can't wear hats). (If you have small hair or friends with small hair, please don't fall victim to the temptation of a cute fedora).

 I sometimes wonder what my life is going to be like when I have a real job. Will straightening my hair and then straightening the shirt I'm wearing still be allowed as ironing? Ironically, while I have no "time" to iron, I do have time to chase the cat around the house and lecture it about how rude it is to steal someone's barbque chicken leg off their plate. (Although Spanish cats have no idea that barbeque sauce is a rare comodity here,  this cat is super bitch.) Point being, my life probably isn't too strenuous right now. I am busy, but there's always time to chastize cats and accidentally lose a cork and then finish the bottle. And thennnn blog!

(If you didn't notice already, I also could have combined "ironing" and the following word "ironically" to be more time efficient but I decided to take the time to write both out. Realistically no one would understand me if I were to write in true Camillism. Hardly anyone speaks it these days.)

I am accepting any ideas that you may have about what I should do next year. I opened a fortune cookie the other day and it told me I was going to blossom in my social life. Maybe a girl in China accidentally got the cookie I was supposed to get. Something about finally getting to work rather than socializing. I swear fortune cookies just don't get me anymore. (Now that my dad doesn't read them aloud to me. "You're good friend Hailey will go to Big Splash with you tomorrow and you will thank your parents by being calm on the ride to and from Tulsa.")

Other news.... hm..... I recently had a cooking failure. Turns out ground beef is a crucial ingredient to your typical stuffed eggplant recipe. Since I didn't have this and had a feeling it was pretty important, I started getting wild with the creativity. I threw in all kinds of things, ginger, garlic, tomato sauce, chorizo. I was for sure that as unhealthy as I had made these babies they had to turn out good. Wrong. They were horrendous and I'm pretty sure the eggplant was offended I stuffed it with such garbage. So I had milk and cookies and contempled the ratio of calories burned at spin class to eating lots of mediocre weird food. I think I lose.

"When do you win? When you spin!" (And not gorge yourself on trashfood). That's my mantra for this year.

And that is that. I think I have nothing more to say right now. 

This morning I found an egg with feathers on it.

I couldn't do it. I just couldn't crack it. Do you realize how fragile of an American consumer I am? If I were to know that my egg scrambler is actually created with embryos of baby chicks I may crack. Oh god. I'm thinking about it now. Why did I have to see those feathers? Can you sue for this in America? I think so. Im pretty sure you can sue for anything now. Your honor, "fluffy eggs" has a completely different conotation for me now. I am ruined.

Do you remember on The Truman Show when Jim Carey's boat hits the wall of the sky and he realizes his world is nothing like it seemed? Ok, good. Now imagine how Camille felt when she found out what pigskins were. I thought that was just a cute name. No one told me!!

However as I noted in a previous post (which I know everyone of you read) I am now a bad ass sea food eater. Living in Spain has been enlightening for a little foodie like myself. And by that I mean, I have started to be click in to the truman show world that American eaters live in. Don't worry I am not referencing any of those radical documentaries about Bigmacs and what not. (I haven't even see them!) I explain in short lines below because I lazy.

American: Pork

Spainard: Cerdo (Pig)

American: Beef

Spainard: Vaca (Cow)

This is especially humorous to me when a waiter wants to practice their English  and I am asked "You want cow or pig?"

It is definately not uncommon to see this here: (He looks to happy for what's about to happen to him...)

*Manitos literally translates to "little hands". How would you like your little pig hands cooked?

But I just don't understand. Why do we like to live in oblivion? Why is de-boning fish so bad? Although it was weird to aclimate myself, I think its much healthier to be cognizant like the Spainards. They know what they are eating. They know what pig skins are. They know what eggs are. They don't know what twinkies are. But neither do we.

How much do we love NPR? So much right? Well here is a cool article they recently aired about food trends in 2012 and not only are we going back more organic of course, but we will use every part of the animals we eat! (Don't doubt NPR).  

I've been invited to several "matazas" (pig killings). Apparently it's like a celebration for the whole pueblo and afterwards there's a big feast. (Cover your vegetarian friends' ears). I have politely declined the invitations claining I don't know if I have the stomach for it (which is totally true). Now here's the clencher. I could go. But the result will either be  a) I am exposed to too much real life (and macabre) that I dive into a vegan cult or b) I eat chorizo and have a great story.

Side note:

After copying and pasting this picture, I switched my music to a rap mix without thinking about it. (Bitches n' Rims). Then I realized, I never really see black people here. I miss  my diverse America. We are so damn colorful. And they dominate the rap world. White people just look stupid rapping. Stupid eminen.

Yum m&ms..... no, swimsuit, bridesmaid dresses, gym.... no m&ms.....

Those are my thoughts for Tuesday. De nada.