Winter thoughts

It is Winter.
I have not been warm since ... oh ... February.
It is bleak and dreary and even when the sky is blue, it is cold and windy.
No matter what I wear or how many blankets I put on the bed or how many pairs of fleece clothing and socks I wear, I am still cold.

And we are going to move to the NorthEast USA when we sell this apartment.
Upstate New York or possibly Connecticut.
Are we crazy or what ??

The difference :
A house in the US has "central heat" .. with a thermostat. Fireplaces and insulation. Windows that usually fit tight.
You drive in a car to the market if it is cold, raining, miserable. Cars have heat.

We walk everywhere here. If we take a taxi, we still have to stand out on the street and flag one down.
Sometimes they have heat, sometimes not.
Worse... in the summer when they don't have A/C.
Oh the traffic jams we have sat through in a taxi with no air conditioning on a hot summer afternoon.
(actually, I am remembering them fondly right now)


Walking fast for miles is easier when it is cold.
Today we walked but no one felt that energised .
A bench in the sunshine called to us, but after a while, the cold from the stone bench started to work its way to my brain and we walked a bit more.
Coming home meant warm blankets to wrap myself in, hot tea, scones ... I am eating too many scones these days... and being cozy.
The thing I will remember most about this winter is the Coziness.

We stay snug. We have blankets and chenille throws all over the house. Wherever you go, you can throw a blanket across your lap, roll yourself in it and watch television.
I haven't tried cooking while wrapped in a blanket, the stove and oven manage to keep me comfy.

This morning I sorta wished I could get in the shower with my warm pyjamas on though .. did I tell you about our bathroom ?
The ceilings are the same as the rest of the apartment, 15 feet high.
The floors are marble, the tiles are porcelain, one wall is all mirror and the other is a huge bathtub .
Except for the towels and little rug, it is a cold and shiny place.
Perfect in the summer.
Not so warm in the winter.
The towel warmers can only do so much.
I have considered draping myself over the towel warmer but so far have managed to just dry off and get dressed in record time.
I would win a race if they ever have one ...
Although I don't know who would agree to be in a race of getting out of the shower wet and naked and getting dry and dressed before judges. Not my best idea, is it ?

Pup used to be the best Warmer.
At night when watching television or reading, somehow without anyone noticing ... he just ended up next to me.
On the bed , wherever I was .. we would both end up snuggled warm and cozy with his blanket and I usually had a hard time staying awake. I miss that.

If we sell the apartment soon, we will be going back to the US as Autumn and Winter begin.
This will mean that we will live through a year long winter.
I have to think about this some more.

What is Buenos Aires to Me ?

Taking a note from Paris Breakfast who asks what Paris is to her, I thought I would see if I could tell you in photos, the answer to the question, what is Buenos Aires to me ..

The Monuments

The Architecture

The Skies

the Parks

the Doors

the "Frenchness"

the Dogs

the Memories

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.

Frenchness , Harry Potter and Time

Over the past year or so, my husband and I have played with the idea of living somewhere else. I imagine from past trips , from my love of museums, music and old places, that Paris would suit me fine. Not to mention the food, fashion and how much the French like their dogs .. the Frenchness of life in Paris is so appealing ~

Frenchness summing up everything that I like about France .. not the bad stuff .. like high taxes, cost of living and ridiculous cost of housing.

Frenchness like this street, rue de Grenelle,where we rented an apartment one year and pretended that we lived there.

This was our neighborhood, Cafe Roussillon was "our" corner cafe, the fromagerie on rue Cler was "our cheese shop" .. after dinner at night, we would walk two blocks over and watch the Eiffel Tower twinkle ..until we scurried back to the warm apartment where we could continue to watch the twinkling from our bed.
But things have changed, I think.

I am unable to imagine only two of us on this adventure, when it should be three.

I have started wondering about living here forever, perhaps in another building but then, why ? this one is so nice.

Maybe I can change all the windows and block out the noise better, then I think it would be close to perfect.

Would a Paris apartment be that perfect ?

I like this street in the photo.

The three of us walk here and shop in our favorite Boulangerie, buying fresh buttery croissants, loaves of yeasty soft bread for the week, something sweet for tea.

I might not mind living in this area.

But then, Pup likes it just fine where we are .

So here we stay.

We went to see Harry Potter today.

We loved it.

I was sad , it was the last one.

It was great.

I saw that the vet had called twice while we were away ..

I thought there is no more bad news possible, it can wait until I get home.

I called when we got home and she was telling me something but so quickly that I thought I did not hear correctly ( and she was speaking English!) so I repeated it back to her.

More blood test results?

His red blood cells are regenerating ?

Yes, his bone marrow is active and he is rejuvenating red blood cells . . so in her words..

"We have more time with Pup " ...

On a Day like Today ....

It was a busy day today, starting at 6 am.
Anyone who knows me, knows that this is close to being considered torture or at least inhumane treatment of Me.
But for some reason, I woke up and while my sweet husband was being quiet and letting me sleep a little longer, I was awake and ready to get up and face the day/bureaucrats/silliness known as the Argentine Immigrations Office.
We got there bright and early, lovely taxi ride in very little traffic. ( this means so much ).
We walked past all sorts of lines and people standing and went to the man we saw last time, who told us to SEET.
So we sat.
A while later he got our papers, passports and we continued to seet.
We noticed that there were many Chinese people waiting with us .. Have I told you how much I like Chinese babies? My favorite was today, a wee little boy .. wobbly and fuzzy haired and intent on escaping, by way of around me and of course, this gave me all sorts of opportunities to feel his fuzzy head and make him smile at me.
I am pathetic... give me a baby, I am content.
Finally after much time and meeting a lovely lady from Taiwan who now lives here and speaks fluent Spanish and English ( how to feel like a moron in 1 easy step) .. she asked the man when he gave us our papers, freshly stamped but not actually giving us The Stamp ... why ? why no stamp?

Apparently, when the two huge buildings and offices of Argentina Immigration merged, there were a gazillion files.
And ours are missing. So they have the paper, that we have .. that says we are permanent, so every 3 months they just stamp that and our passport and we stay legally , permanently but not officially stamped.

So we go back in February. I will bring coffee and pastries and we will all have a nice breakfast together, since we are all such friends now, you know, seeing as we visit them every 3 months for the past 4 years.

So we came home ... and .... what do you do when you want to cheer up ?

We went shopping. Patio Bullrich .. I was very controlled, I got a fabulous top that I will wear when we go out on our anniversary and a pair of really great shoes... from my favorite shoe store .. Sybil Vane ( don't you just adore that name?)

Then we came home and took Pup for his walk.
Of course, no walk with Pup can be just a calm nice walk in the park. Not here.
We were cutting across the big parks, headed to a cafe on the corner where we could sit in the shade and have a cool drink, when I heard someone call ... saw a man ... saw his huge black Giant Schnauzer running ahead ... thing looked like a locomotive speeding towards us ... Pup, totally clueless to what was coming was sniffing along beside me .. as I stepped toward him to grab his collar, the locomotive hit him .. tried to mount him, I was pulling Pups collar, Pup turned to attack back and the man that owned the dog arrived, thank God, and grabbed his dog by the ears !!
Cooled that dog off fast .. but Pup's leg had collapsed under him and he was limping now.

We walked to the end of the park, to our cafe, where the sweet sweet waiter brought Pup copious amounts of cold water and we all sat and cooled off and calmed down.

The walk back was slow and easy and mom and dad were on the look-out for anything resembling another dog, there were none.
And now we are home and resting and happy that with all the excitment, no one is showing lasting effects.

As I said to my husband, walking through the park, cool breeze blowing, palm trees fanning, birds very noisy in their new nests, that on a day like today, I am happy to be here.


The Shoes