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Um… It’s muy, not moi.

On my Facebook status the other day, I described the Spanish wine we’ve been getting as “moi barato,” which is French for “me barato” and Spanish for “moi cheap.”  I realize now, through the miracle of a little internet research, that what I meant to say was, “muy barato,” which is very inexpensive.

But it’s okay.  I can’t be blamed for these things because I took German in college and no one corrected me.

My friends are too polite.

Anyway.

Here are some things I like about Europe (and I’ve been to this continent all of twice now, so I feel it’s fair to generalize):

1.  Language.  No matter the country, I’m always surrounded by foreign languages.  Often several.  And while this is frequently the cause for discomfort and/or mild irritation, I find that when I sit down with a glass of wine and bowl of olives at an outdoor cafe, hide behind my sunglasses on a plaza bench, or type here at my computer in my sister-in-law’s basement apartment and just listen as strangers converse while they pass by (and it’s not eavesdropping if you can’t understand a word they’re saying), it really is quite intoxicating.

Bar snacks in Malaga.

2.  Food.  What can I say?  There’s nothing I don’t like about food.  Even food I don’t like.  Whether I’m sitting down in front of a tiny bowl of seasoned olives with wine at a swanky cafe, a steady stream of tapas and beer at a pub, an empanada or falafel procured from a street vendor, fried churros served at a tiny alleyway table with chocolate dipping sauce and a very strong café con leche (ie. couple shots of espresso with steamed milk), or a giant pan of paella cooked right out of the chef’s childhood home, I’m pretty sure I’m the happiest woman in the world.

Paella on Ibiza.

3.  Exercise.  When we want to go somewhere, we walk.  When we want to go farther, we walk to the public transportation, take a train, then walk again.  When we’re on the island of Formentera and have no car, we bike.  When we’re on the island of Formentera and decide we want to see the one thing that requires getting to the top of a very large hill (*cough*mountain*cough*), we ride our bikes, walk our bikes, and ride our bikes again — over 13 km, both ways, up hill, in the snow just to get there.

(All of that’s true.  Except for the snow.)

Formentera Lighthouse

Southeastern lighthouse on Formentera.

Oh, and sometimes these old cities have stairs.  Lots, and lots of stairs.

But whether you bike it or hike it, it’s always worth it when you get to the top.

Ibiza City

Ibiza City.

4.  There are like a billion ways to flush the toilets.

Need I say more?

See more Spain photos here, here, here, and here.

Mañana Mentality

I´m back on the island of Ibiza (in a different city, but the same island from where I last posted), and this computer also will not read my memory card.

Bummer.

Because I seriously have many, many photos I wish to share.

Hopefully I´ll have a chance when we get back to Malaga tomorrow night.  If not, the day after for sure.  Or definitely the day after that.  Mañana, mañana, mañana.

I am in Spain, after all.

I´m doing my best to adopt to their culture.

Which, as far as I can tell so far, basically means working all morning, taking a 2-3 hour siesta involving lots of food and alcoholic beverages in the afternoon, working a bit more, and then eating and drinking again.  And since I´m unemployed in this country, we´re basically cutting out the superfluous “working” part and pretty much sticking to the eating and drinking.

The only thing making me not feel like a complete blimp is the fact that we just returned from 3 days on the island of Formentera, around which our only (chosen) way of transport was bicycle.  It was relatively flat, for the most part, except for that day we decided to ride up a frickin´mountain (at least by Formenteran — and Nebraskan — standards) to see a lighthouse.

I´d like to say it was worth it.

And I will tell you, it was.

So, so worth it.

The pictures will be forthcoming.

The only down-side is that my thighs seem to be en fuego.

That´s on fire.

Permanently.

Anyway, I´d love to catch you up more, but the lack of photo sharing ability is kind of getting on my nerves, and my last night on Ibiza is waiting outside this cafe, so I will have to say adios for now.  It´s 9:30 p.m., which means it´s time for dinner.

My favorite part of the day.

Aside from… you know… breakfast, lunch, and siesta.

Life is rough, my friends.

Very, very rough.

Internet, How I´ve Missed You

Right now I´m the most stressed I´ve been in 4 days.  I´m sitting in an internet cafe on the island of Ibiza and I know I only have so much time left on the computer) but no clue how much, and the keyboard is so jacked up with strange symbols and keys in the wrong places, that it´s probably taken me about 20 minutes to type this sentence.

Okay, I´m exaggerating.

Mostly.

Also, this thing doesn´t seem to want to read my memory card, so the AMAZING photos (not from a photography standpoint, but from a subject/scenery standpoint) will just have to wait until we get back to Malaga.  Unless there´s a decent internet cafe on Formentera, which I´m kind of doubting.

The reason I say this is the most stressed I´ve been is because I haven´t been stressed.  Like, at all.

It´s pretty phenomenal.

From authentic paella (cooked by a man out of his restaurant/home where he´s been living his entire life), to a falafel made by a world-traveler who was born in Israel, to wine.  Lots and lots of wine.  We´ve been pretty fortunate.  The less fortunate are those who have to look at me on the beach, since I´ve probably gained about 30 pounds.

Okay, I have lots more to share.  Tons.  But I´m kind of worried this thing is going to crap out on me mid-sentence and I feel like these stories would be much better with photos anyway, so I guess we´re going to have to wait just a little longer.

Which is awful because I miss you.

The withdrawals are palpable.

But the wine helps.

And the beach.

And the company.

And the fact that I´m, you know… in Spain.

If you forgot to look on Tuesday, check out my guest post on Simply Solo!

P.S.  I have no idea what day it is.

P.P.S. ñ ç ¿ € ¡

I’m Packin’… Or not.

Okay.

So I am fairly notorious for never being properly prepared for a trip.  But this time?  This time it’s like… extra bad.

Let’s just say we’re T-minus 3 hours from leaving our house, and we still have not packed, I haven’t sufficiently broken in my plane ridin’ jeans (since I failed to buy a decent pair of plane pants), my camera battery isn’t charged, I barely speak any Spanish, and I still don’t know the exchange rate from U.S. dollars to Euros.

Assuming Spain jumped on that whole European Union bandwagon.

The problem is that it never really feels like a trip is actually going to happen until the plane is burning rubber on the tarmac and I kiss the ground goodbye.  (Although let’s hope the plane doesn’t actually burn rubber on the tarmac.  I can’t imagine that would be good.)  This mentality makes it awfully difficult to actually remove items I might need from my bathroom and closet and place them in various bags for transport.

Add to that the fact that only a day or two after we arrive in Malaga, we’ll be heading off on Ryan Air with only strictly size-regulated carry-on bags to spend the majority of our trip on the islands of Ibiza and Formentera.  In fact, the only reason we’re bringing a checked bag (or two) at all is so that we have plenty of room to bring home the maximum allotment of bottles of Spanish wine and other food souvenirs.  This means that we basically need to fit everything — including my DSLR and 2 lenses — into two small backpacks.

In case you’re new here, this is what I packed for 2 months in Costa Rica:

Travel Bags

See that nice, green bag on the left?  That won’t be coming.  It’s too big.

See that black bag on the right?  That’s the bag that’s supposed to fit all of my camera gear, my swimsuits, probably underwear, possibly toiletries, and anything else we can manage to stuff inside.  Then, the rest of our clothes, shoes, and my purse will have to fit inside a second, similarly sized backpack.

Two bags.  Period.  No exceptions.

And I’m actually mildly concerned that backpack might be on the large-side.  I’ll have to measure.

So you can see why someone who normally procrastinates on packing anyway might be particularly intimidated in this scenario.

Oh, well.  I suppose if space gets really tight, we can throw out some of Justin’s clothes, because it’s not like I’d ever leave the camera behind.

Speaking of leaving things behind, I’m bringing my Netbook for use on the plane and maybe a bit in Malaga, but it’s very unlikely that I’ll be taking it to the islands.  This means that I might be sparse on blog posts for a bit, but I promise I’ll make up for it upon our return to reliable internet connections.

That said, I wrote a guest post that will be featured on the blog Simply Solo this Tuesday (5/31), so I really, really hope you go over there and check it out.

Muchas Grassy-ass!

I Have People Pods.

Not pod people.

But people pods.

You know — different groups of people with whom you identify in different parts of your life.

Except for me, it’s like… extreme.

There’s the “home” people — My husband, current neighbors, and basically anyone who knows me in my nightmarishly perfect suburban ‘hood.  I make dinners and attend cookouts and swap garage codes and recipes and repair man referrals.

There’s the work people — that eclectic group of bar coworkers whom I can’t help but love for their individual quirks, stories, and there-IS-no-such-thing-as-sexual-harassment-when-you-work-in-a-restaurant attitudes.  And that last part is true.  Except when it’s not.  And unless you’ve never worked in a bar/restaurant, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

There’s the old work people — you know, that “real” job I had back before I flipped my sh*t and decided that a 2 month trip to Costa Rica and a savory bar stint were far better alternatives to a gray cubicle and a steady paycheck.  My old work people are awesome, too.  (I’m nothing if not consistently fortunate in finding fantastic people with whom to bitch about work.)

And also a plethora or other old, old work people.  It’s kind of ridiculous how many jobs I’ve held.

My family — immediate, extended, and those through marriage. With divorces and marriages and relocations, I’d say my family makes up several different pods.  Even the members of my immediate family — mom, dad, sister, brother — each live in a different state.  But those are the people who, while they’re less familiar than my current coworkers with the person I am today, will always remember who I was back when I had braces and wore scrunchies and bought my first training bra.  They knew me before I was… me.

And my college friends, from 2 different colleges.  I still keep in touch with many.  The first set knew me when I was trying to “find myself” and was full of hope, ambition, and Everclear.  The second set knew me as the non-traditional older student — the studious one who preferred wine over Everclear and was there for the degree, more than anything else.

My Costa Rica people.  Only for a little while, they were mine.  I won’t forget them.

Military friends.

Online friends.

High school friends.

High school job friends.

Friends of friends.

And each set — each pod — sees me a little differently.  I’m still me — always me.  But the context changes from person to person, place to place.

I can’t decide which view of myself — from various pod perspectives — I like best.

Do you have all these pods, or am I alone here?  Do yours blend together or stay fairly separate?  I’ll admit it weirds me out when people from polar pods overlap — work with family, past with present.  I worry that they’ll catch on to the fact that I’m not always the same, and I might have to choose which person I want to be.

And that just seems so… permanent.

It’s 4:16 a.m. and I can’t remember why I started writing this post.  Anyway.  I hope I made a point.

It’s Almost Like Going Back In Time

We did something crazy yesterday.

Outlandish.

Wild.

(No, we already went skydiving last year.)

(And I already quit my great-paying job to make hot sauce and rappel water falls in Costa Rica.)

So what could possibly be next?

Bungee jumping?  Bull riding?  Hang Gliding?

While I’d love to try all those things (except maybe the bull riding), what we did yesterday was much, much scarier.

We cancelled our satellite t.v. service.

GASP!

I know!

That’s so… un-American of us.

Fortunately, since Justin is in the Air Force, that negates any other seemingly un-American things we do.

We’ve been talking about quitting t.v. for years — even before our income was cut in half.  And I’ll admit that while the decrease in funds played a role in cancelling the service, the real fact of the matter is that when we took a good hard look at our lifestyle, we realized that television was one huge distraction preventing us from doing things we either need to get done or truly enjoy.

Like house projects.

And reading.

And… you know… talking to each other.

Television had become the symbol of lethargy in our house — the reason to not take the dogs for a walk on a lovely evening, or the reason to not quite start building that desk for the office.

So.

Before you completely panic on our behalf, it’s important for you to know that we won’t be cut off completely from the world of sitcoms and movies and… what was that last thing?  Oh yeah, world news.  We haven’t chucked the plasma into the dumpster, we haven’t cancelled our Netflix subscription, and we haven’t traded our tennis shoes for moccasins or started growing out our body hair.  It’s just that from now on, we’re going to have to work a little harder for the distractions, concentrating our efforts on the things we really want to see — downloading the latest Dexter episodes from illegal sites and watching marathons of My So Called Life from Netflix on the weekends.

We might cave and get an antenna so I can still watch the news in the morning.

Honestly?  The thing I think I’ll miss the most is cranking up a mood-dependent satellite music station while I cook or paint a room or clean the house.  Sure, I can still use the free online radio stations, but there’s something about surround sound that makes work seem just a little more… vibrant.

But no longer sitting down to a smorgasbord of commercial-free DVR’d movies and sitcoms for hours on end?

I think I’ll get used to it.

After all, not one person laying on his deathbed ever said,

“Man… I wish I’d watched more t.v.”

P.S.  I think I’m addicted to Pinterest.  In case you missed it yesterday, I’m sending (what seems to be limitless) invites to anyone who wants to join up.  Just go to yesterday’s post and leave a comment telling me you want an invitation.  It’s seriously organizing all of the clutter IN MY HEAD and I’m pretty sure it could finally be the answer to either multiple orgasms or world peace. I’ll let you know.

Life Just Got a Little Easier

**UPDATED**  Good news! It looks like my “invitations” to Pinterest regenerate each time I send one, which means I’m thinking there might not be a limit for how many I can send. So if you want one, let me know in the comments and I’ll keep sending ’em until it doesn’t let me send ’em anymore.

You seriously have no idea how exhausting it is living inside my head.

Unless you’re like me, in which case I feel for you.

I do.

It’s like this crazy, tangled mass of dreamy ideas, creative projects, and bucket list items juxtaposed with practical to-do lists, books to read, and inquiries to write.  It’s like Jackson Pollock has set up studio inside my mind and is redecorating the whole thing by tossing over neatly organized file cabinets and scattering the contents of card catalogues and painting over all of the sterile, whitewashed walls with this:

Except with more orange and less black.

If you do know what this is like, or you have no clue what I’m talking about but you love being really organized, I have found the answer, my friends.

And it most certainly is not blowing in the wind.

I realize I’m way behind the times on this discovery, but hey — I’m one of those people who stubbornly refuses to sign up for the newest “it” thing for as long as I can justify waiting ’till they work out the kinks or ’till my friends and readers start pestering me day and night and their urging voices creep into my dreams and haunt my thoughts and I finally, finally succumb to the peer pressure and add yet another user name and log-in password to my mental database of access codes because of course I’ve waited so long to sign up for the latest gimmick that the user name I’m trying to standardize for myself is already taken and the password I’m trying to standardize for myself isn’t long enough or doesn’t have a special character or has too many sequential letters and WHY DO YOU HAVE TO MAKE EVERYTHING SO DAMN DIFFICULT?!

See that paragraph above?  I don’t blame you if you didn’t read it.  That is what it’s like inside my head all. the. time.

Exhausting.

So.  Enter the latest craze (at least in my mind) in social media and “cloud” networking:  Pinterest.

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that I finally decided to give this a try.  Right now, I have tons of web browser bookmarks, saved file images on my hard drive, actual printouts in folders, and excel spreadsheets with links to various home improvement ideas, rooms I like, vacations I want to take, art projects I want to try, etc.

They are everywhere.

The fantastic news is that these ideas — these things I stumble across online that I like but can’t process right this second so I bookmark it to revisit at a later date that doesn’t EVER arrive — can now all be easily accessed via Pinterest.

For example, Kelly from Tearing Up Houses posted this beautiful kitchen on her site.  I love so  many things about this kitchen, that I know I’d like to save this photo for one day — in the far, far future — when Justin and I might stay put in one place long enough to build our dream home.

Rather than right-click the photo and save it to some random file somewhere on my computer (which will inevitably get lost when I buy a new computer or another hard drive crashes), I click the little “Pin It” button that’s now on my bookmark bar, and BAM!  The photo is saved on my Pinterest page to whatever “Pin Board” I designated (in this case, Inspiration Rooms), along with the link to where I originally found the photo!

So assuming Kelly’s page is still there in 50 years when we build our house, I can go back and find the source of the photo and see whether there’s any more information about it.  I can also type my own notes on each photo, so even if the original source no longer exists, I still have whatever information I bothered to note.

Also, whenever I browse my “Inspiration Rooms” pin board, I can easily delete any photos I no longer like.  Pinterest also lets me browse other people’s pin boards for a virtual slurry of inspirational goodness.

It can be a time waster,  yes.  But it also turns my Pollock’s into tranquil beach scenes complete with calming breezes and sweating bottles of Red Stripe.

And that, my friends, is priceless.

The one annoying thing I’ve found about the site so far is that you need an “invitation” to sign up.  That required me requesting one from the main page, and it took a little less than a week to receive my invitation in the mail.  I have no clue why they do this.

The good news is that it appears Pinterest has given me 6 of my own invitations to send to friends, so they can sign up immediately.  So, if any of you are interested and haven’t already joined, leave a comment below telling me so (hey, I rhyme!) and I will email the invitation to the first 6 people who ask.  Just make sure you actually want it so that it doesn’t go to waste!

**UPDATED**  Good news! It looks like my “invitations” to Pinterest regenerate each time I send one, which means I’m thinking there might not be a limit for how many I can send. So if you want one, let me know in the comments and I’ll keep sending ’em until it doesn’t let me send ’em anymore.

OMG it’s DIY BZM – BFD!

1,000 points to the first person who can translate the title.

I always get a little nutty before I leave for a trip.

You’d think I’d be doing real preparations, like diligently laying  clothes on my bed and testing their fit in various suitcases and carry-ons, performing a pageant of mini-toiletries on the bathroom vanity stage while judging which ones to tuck inside my bi-fold sundry travel pouch, and scheduling various rub-downs and polishes and waxages to prepare myself (and the world at large) for superfluous amounts of exposed skin.

But no.

I never pack more than half a day ahead of time.  Even for that 2 month trip to Costa Rica.  See, I don’t know what kind of money the rest of you people are made of, but I actually need the stuff I pack.  My closet isn’t divided into a “vacation stuff” section and a “regular stuff” section.  (Though wouldn’t that be nice?)

To me, that would be a waste — like dumping out half a pot of stale coffee and buying towels solely for decoration.

In true procrastinator style, I pack everything in my head weeks in advance, and then I pretty much just dump everything into my bag the night before we leave, toss in a few extras before we hop in the car, and assume that a) I can most likely buy anything pertinent I forget, and b) I most likely won’t die if I forget anything I can’t buy, because nothing is really that pertinent, when you think about it.

Unfortunately, my particular brand of stinginess now has vacation prep spillover into the arena of professional pedicures and BZM (Bikini Zone Management).

Did every guy who reads Domestiphobia just get uncomfortable?  Are there any of you left??

That’s right.  Now that I no longer have a steady paycheck and some nights leave the bar with only $11.80 in my pocket (no, I don’t want to talk about it), certain extravagances like trips to the spa are few and far between.

This kills me for 2 reasons:

1)  Until fairly recently, I had never really been a “spa girl.”  I felt uncomfortable with the idea of strangers touching my feet and picking at my toenails and judging my body hair.  But then, once a co-worker broke me in to the wonderful world of soothing aromatherapies and trickling fountains and music with flutes and complimentary wine, there was no turning back.

2)  Until very recently, pedicures were something I bought for fun — a relaxing day with a girlfriend.  Plus, when my feet look pretty, I feel pretty.  Happy feet equal a happy Katie.  I didn’t actually crave pedicures until I could no longer afford them — until I quit my cubicle job and started waiting tables, running around a restaurant without sitting down for 5-9 hours at a time.

Oh, the irony.

But it’s not a total loss.  Between small tubs of soapy water, $1 mini bottles of toenail polish, pumice stones and drugstore supplies of Nair, I’ll get something worked out before we leave.

See?  DIY applies to pedicures and BZM — not just home improvements.

So if I’m not busy packing or primping, what, exactly, makes me so nutty before a trip?

House cleaning.

Yep, I’m that girl.

When I can see a departure date fast approaching, I start looking around my house — at the small layer of dust coating the bookshelves, the un-vacuumed carpets, the spotty mirrors — and my eye starts to twitch.

(Okay, not really, but my friends know I like to do this fake eye twitch thing when I get irritated.  Yes, I’m weird.  This shouldn’t be news to you.)

How can we leave the house in such disarray? my frantic mind wonders.

What kind of mold might grow on those leftovers if we don’t eat them or throw them out?

What if someone breaks in while we’re gone and sees what filthy pigs we are??

But mostly, I just don’t want to come home from a long vacation knowing one of the first things I’ll have to do (besides laundry) is clean.

Yuck.

So that’s why I’ve been slightly MIA lately.  That, and the fact that I’m trying to plan a not-so-typical baby shower for Alaina (more on that later — it will involve alcohol), edit some photos I took for my neighbor, beta read my friend’s novel, start/finish a few other writing obligations, and complete a slurry of other tasks/projects to which I’ve committed myself before we leave.

WHAT was I thinking?

The only thing keeping me motivated at this point is knowing that soon, sweet soon, I will be here:

And if anything can numb an overwhelming sense of unfinished obligations, it’s sun, sand, and Spanish wine.

dolce far niente.

Which is Italian, not Spanish, but it doesn’t really matter because pretty much all of those Europeans have it figured out.

Flibbety Jibbitz

Truth time.

How many of you are just working whatever job you happened to fall into in order to pay the bills, but you’re still secretly holding out hope that you’re about to stumble across your multi-million dollar idea that initially seems kind of lame but everyone else loves for some reason, like post-it notes and drink umbrellas and those fugly decorative things designed to bedazzle the swiss cheese holes of even fuglier Crocs (seriously — that stay-at-home mom sold her idea for $10 million to the Croc people).

And, once that happens, you’ll be able to retire and your life will finally — finally — start?

**Imagine me sheepishly raising my hand right now**

Some of these ideas were slowly cultivated, researched, and marketed, while others were lightning strike strokes of random luck — the exact opposite of stepping out your front door, tripping on a crack in the sidewalk, and knocking out your two front teeth.  All because you wanted to get your mail.

But for the most part, they all have one thing in common:  they are all products or services that are playful, interesting, and have a broad range of appeal.

However, there are certain niche businesses who undoubtedly generate respectable sums of money while providing goods or services that are… shall we say… less than respectable.

(Or are they actually incredibly respectable because they’re so mind-bogglingly disrespectable — unrespectable? — repugnant?? — that it almost makes them look genius?  Almost.)

The idea:  A couple of days ago I read about a man named Bart Centre, who started a company in 2009 called Eternal Earth-bound Pets, which offers a pet rescue and fostering service to Christians who might be whisked up to Heaven in the event of a Rapture.

The genius:  Centre has built a network of 44 pre-screened atheist animal lovers who have the means and desire to rescue pets from the abandoned homes of the Saved.  In guaranteeing that his caretakers are atheists, true-believing Christians can rest easy, knowing their beloved pets will be well cared for in the hands of those who are destined for Hell.

The twist:  Following the website’s compelling tag-line (“The next best thing to pet salvation in a Post Rapture World“), is an intro paragraph that reads… well… more than a little patronizing:

You’ve committed your life to Jesus. You know you’re saved.  But when the Rapture comes what’s to become of your loving pets who are left behind?   Eternal Earth-Bound Pets takes that burden off your mind.

Then there’s all the businessy stuff, followed by the terms.  Centre charges a whopping $135 for the first pet ($20 for all subsequent pets), guaranteeing rescue for up to 10 years from the date of payment.  The article states that Centre is now servicing 259 clients, and at $135 a pop, that comes to almost $35,000!!  (*Note:  Until the recent May 21st Rapture estimation, the business had been charging $110, so he hasn’t made quite that much.  Yet.)

The question:  Is this okay?  Regardless of what you believe, is it ethically responsible for a man to blatantly poke fun at another person’s religion and then make money off of the very beliefs he mocks?

In my opinion, the answer is a surprising, yes.

Because in the end, whether he’s mocking or not, he really is providing a service — peace of mind to those who believe, and a little humor to those who don’t.

And just like a Jibbitzed Croc hole, how could it be wrong when it feels so right?