Neither Here nor There

The days are growing shorter, the weather took a sudden turn towards winter chilliness and there is not one cloud in the sky, the sky being that incredible blue that I admire every day.
I never get tired of the skies here, whether they are bright blue , full of amazing clouds  or glowing with fantastic sunsets.

It seems there are more people out , walking, shopping, on their way somewhere.
The parks were full this  afternoon, students with notebooks open, older folk sunning themselves in a warm spot at the base of a massive statue ..
We were expecting someone this morning who never arrived.
We had to stay in to do a few things then we took off for Nowhere in Particular.
One of my favorite destinations !
We ended up sitting on a park bench, watching the people, the dogs and admiring the massive statues and the skies.
The park is situated at the top of a hill so we can look out and over more parks and streets and homes.
It is a place where we spent hours each day with  Pup.
There is not a day that goes by that I don't miss him, it has been a test for me to be able to go to these parks and sit and not weep ... it seems that there are few places in the city that don't have his ghost sniffing about .. it is hard to go anywhere that does not remind me of our loss.
Today I managed okay.

I want someone to buy our home now.
The decision was made, the sign is on the balcony, our lives are in suspended animation now.
We must be available for viewers, we cannot pack yet, we are neither here nor there.
I know that someone will look, suddenly the call will come that they want it, that we must call the shippers, make flight arrangements and pack.
It all gives me butterflies in my stomach and yet, I want to hide in bed with the covers over my head.

So for now, we enjoy the people and the place, imagine what it will be like Somewhere else and try not to think of ourselves as being neither here nor there.

Monday .. Look at This Blog !

Home

Jacqueline at home .. 

This blog,  should win awards for  beauty alone.

Go look, tell me how good it made you feel.

You can thank me later~

Before and After

When we bought this place, it was not in the greatest condition.
The owner rented it out and the lady kept it clean but she was obviously not interested in decor or updates.
She was just saving money to buy her own apartment.

We saw it as an adventure, a blank slate in a way, there to do whatever we wanted.
Whatever we wanted within reason, after all the repairs that kept coming to our attention.
By way of mold on ceilings that were not caused by steam in the shower as we were told but by a persistent leak from the plumbing above.
None of these things waited long for us to discover them, they announced their presence by the sound of dripping  ... the sight of water running down a newly painted wall ... the rush of water from the ceilings ..
There were days where I walked into rooms and looked up first .. dread was probably the look on my face most days.

Fear of water dripping might be instilled in my poor psyche forever.

We felt , in the beginning, that we were up to it all.
We were.
Now, I wonder.

The most satisfying of homes to renew are the ones like this, neglected, old and sorry but with the most amazing "bones" and that air of stillness, waiting, knowing that we were just the ones that these rooms were waiting for.

And here they are, the sad but now happy rooms that we call home ..


                                                                  Sad Kitchen

Happy Kitchen

The Bath of Gloom

Beautiful Bath

Sad Bedroom

Dreamy Bedroom

Things Are Changing

Five years ago, we arrived in Buenos Aires.
We = Husband , Me , Tate the dog.

We did not speak Spanish, we had no home, our belongings were on a ship somewhere, hopefully headed in the right direction .. South .. to the Bottom of the World.

Our first 3 months in Buenos Aires, we lived in a rental apartment and learned our way around ... a tiny bit.
We learned how to order coffee, where  to find  the coffee less likely to make me grimace and grab a glass of water, how to order dinner to go and who delivered pizza.
We found that there was one place in the city that made coffee that we loved.
We have remained faithful to them for 5 years.

We had to move to a new apartment while still Home hunting.
In the meantime, we had to go to the Police to get some papers stamped, proving we were honest and really did plan on living in Argentina.

We had to go to the Immigrations place ( aka Hell) and sit for hours and try to understand what they were telling us .. it always was the same, your papers aren't here yet, Stamp! Stamp! , come back in 3 months.
This continued off and on for 4 years.
By the time we got the final stamps and were considered Permanent Residents, we mostly understood what everyone was saying, we knew some of them well enough to say hello, get a kiss  and joke a bit and when we got that final stamp, we were hugged, kissed  and sent off like children who had finally passed an exam.

Tate remained our Good Will Ambassador .
Wherever we went with him, people smiled.
Old ladies stopped and had serious whispered conversations with him, ending with kisses .
He knew what they said, he stood still as stone, gentle and quiet and then allowed the kiss with a gentle nuzzle of his own.
Babies got the same treatment .. he allowed the pulling , pinching, squealing, giggling babies to come close, touch and sometimes, he even lay down so they could get closer easier.
If a toddler came running, he would just  lie down, so as not to knock over any unsteady little ones.

He was appreciated by all.

Not long ago, a Porter told us how he missed the sight of him.
His jaunty walk down the street, he was such a "persona" ... yes, my Pup was a person.
The best sort of person.

Now the two of us are thinking of children who are missed, children who are probably thinking of having their own children .. and we are here at the Bottom of the World.

Times have changed while we have been here.

The old Argentine  Presidents Wife has become President.
The old president died.
The presidents wife was re-elected.
Things are changing ..  .

We are starting to admire homes in magazines that are located in woodsy settings.
We talk about a house with no neighbors.
We walk about another dog, a home with trees and room for visitors.
We talk about  Home.

Things are changing.

A City Girl

Funny how life happens.

I used to dream of living in a city.

I dreamt of being a City Girl, after being a Girl from the South, a "country girl".

I was a California Girl .. then I finally got to live in New York City.

So the next thing I knew, I wanted to live in a house with a yard for the children and to have a dog.

We went at that all backwards !

We were still in the city and bought a Borzoi .. yes, a Russian Wolfhound.

There was never a sweeter , prettier girl.

She loved my husband and he loved her.

But then I got pregnant and had a baby. And it was more than I could do to take care of babies and dogs the size of horses and have a husband who worked an hour away.

So the sweet dog went to live on a farm with a man who would keep her in bones for life ( he was a butcher) and we went on to live in a variety of apartments until we bought a house in a small town where we had a yard, big trees, a private garden and there was room once again for a pup to come live with us.

Of course by then, it was just the husband and I , the kids had flown the coop .

So we got Pup.

He became my baby, my companion and my heart.

Then my dreams turned to more far off locations.

Wouldn't it be fun if we lived in London? I would dream aloud.

Having grown up on stories about my great -grandmothers family coming to the United States from England, my great- grandfather being Scottish, which was supposedly why my mom had dark dark hair and blue blue eyes and I was white blonde with blue eyes.

England and Scotland.

I imagined living in London, in a flat , near a park.

Or better yet, thanks to multiple Miss Marple seasons, I started to dream about a village, picket fences, thatched roofs ..

I wanted to live in a town with a name like Chipping Norton or St Marys Meade or High Wycombe.

Then one year, we were in London , it was my birthday.

My husband took me to Paris for the weekend ... taking the Eurostar through the "Chunnel" and spending the hours walking... from the hotel on the Isle St Louis, past Notre Dame, over the River Seine, up and down Blvd St Germaine and on and on .. for 2 days.

I developed a raving migraine and finally sputtered to a stop and had to sleep.

But that tiny taste was all it took, that fall we went to Paris for a couple of weeks, celebrating our anniversary. .. and every year after that for quite a long time.

Eventually , after the years went by and we took our yearly and sometimes twice yearly trips to Europe, we decided to sell our house and leave the Northeast.

We moved to Florida . . we moved away from there one and a half years later... to Portland, Oregon.

Then .... we decided to celebrate our anniversary one November by flying to Buenos Aires for a couple of weeks.

And the rest is history.

I got my French home. I got my French views.

I got the City life, I am once again a City Girl.

I am struggling to become bi-lingual .

Although there are days that I think Pup understands more than I do and some days I think Pup is easier to understand than I am.

My husband and I are great as a team, we supply each other with words.. " blah blah blah, what is the word for stove ? blah blah blah, what did he say? " and so we manage .

If I feel bad about not being in Paris, I console myself with the thought that we might eventually be able to spend months at a time in France, or Italy or the US or wherever..

Until then, I must remember to just look out the window at that view and remember , I am home now.

And Pup is content and my husband is happy, therefore, so am I.