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Mountains beyond mountains

This morning the doorbell rang. It was Julien, tired and unshaven, but it was my Julien! I didn’t even know he had caught a flight back home. Miraculously, the sun is out as well and the temperatures have risen. It feels like summer again.

So I leave you with my favourite song from the newest Arcade Fire album:

Ah, the rewards after 2 months of torture!

Currently listening to:
Arcade Fire
The Suburbs

Ghost Town

Cheesus Crust, I pity the tourists in Paris this summer. We had about a week or two of real summer weather in July, and then it all went downhill from there. Last weekend it rained for two days straight, alternating between drenching rain and piss-rain. Lila was glued to the window, tapping it and shouting, wondering why she couldn’t go to the park for her daily pigeon-chasing and sand-eating activities. I lounged on the couch and pretended that it was a Manila thunderstorm outside. It was pretty believable.

So for mid-August, the weather has thrown us all out of the loop. But obviously it has pushed Parisians to flee the capital in search of warmer temps. Paris in summer, if you’re staying in Paris of course, can be calming and eerie at the same time. Walking along the streets, you see announcements taped to shop windows, declaring their reopening dates.  It’s a ghost town. Your favourite boulangerie is closed, as well as the drycleaners and the brasseries. Grocery stores are still open, but lines are shockingly nonexistent, so the tellers have time to shoot the breeze with you.

The usual suspects at our park are gone as well. Biscuit Benjamin, a kid who sprays you with biscuit he is eternally munching on as he engages you in not-so-witty conversation, has been missing in action for the past week, as well as Serious Sophie (who never laughs, obviously). The members of the Tricheur* Gang have dwindled down to two from the usual eight (their game of Touch Ball always end up with one of them bawling “Tricheur! T’es un tricheur! Waaaah!”) and I really miss Jackpot Joseph, who practises his breakdancing in the sandpit (not very clever, but the younger kids always stand around and watch him in awe).

Hopefully the temps rise in the coming days. This morning it was cold and windy but dry, so I got Lila dressed, plopped her into her pushcar and made a little tour of the park. It was shortlived as it was colder than I thought, but I could see that it made her happy, being outside again. In the coming weeks, Parisians will make their way back to the city, store windows will change their displays from summer to fall, and children will swarm the park once again to make the most of the remaining days of this year’s summer – the summer that never really was.

*Tricheur = Cheater

Currently listening to:
Deerhunter
Microcastle

Ninjas and Hipsters

Love, love, love these commericals of Honda Jazz!

Look At That Fucking Hipster…

Ninja

Massive (”I need to hydrate often” – LOL)

There’s a Rap version too, but I didn’t like it that much.

Currently listening to:
Broken Social Scene
Forgiveness Rock Record

Angry Stormy Suffocating

I am wrapped up in angry, stormy and negative thoughts these days. It’s been almost two months that I’ve been alone with the baby, in a city where I have no relatives to whom I can hand her over to for a few hours of rest. I know I should think about my husband who is having a rough time as well, but in my head I can’t help wishing that the situation be reversed. I am losing this psy-war battle of 24/7 babytime. I would love to be able to wake up knowing that someone else could change her diaper, or give her breakfast. I would love to be able to have a few hours to myself. I hate that people lie about visas to appease worries, I hate that people let things stretch until Ramadan, I hate that people don’t care about letting families stay apart, and I hate that we will not be able to celebrate our child’s first birthday together. So this is how it feels to suffocate. I have the utmost respect for single mothers, or single fathers. I don’t know how you do it.

(Sorry, I just need to let it out, and this blog is all I have. But seriously, isn’t it sad to not have the whole family together during your child’s first birthday?)

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But cripes, thank god we have some good news on the music front !!! Listen to Arcade Fire’s newest album The Suburbs here.

Currently listening to:
Arcade Fire
The Suburbs

Somewhere

Sofia Coppola’s latest film Somewhere comes out December 22, and watching the trailer, I don’t know how I’ll be able to wait that long.  I never liked Stephen Dorff but just being in a Sofia Coppola film has endeared him to me. The musical score is by Phoenix as well, so I cannot wait to see the film and get the soundtrack. Damn I’m so excited! I hope it doesn’t disappoint.

VexationsCurrently listening to:
Get Well Soon
Vexations

Good nights, bad nights

There are good nights, and there are bad nights. Just as there are good days and bad days. But the nights, the bad nights, are the worst. Tonight, for example, is a bad night. These days, Lila won’t sleep if she does not see me next to her crib. To achieve this, she forces herself to open her eyes every five damn seconds. She finally drifts off to sleep, and I stay by the crib for 20 minutes, 30, before allowing myself to slip out of the door. The slightest sound of bare feet on parquet is comparable to a landmine, and I stop in my tracks, wincing and praying to all the different gods – God, Buddha, Allah, any higher power that people believe in in this world – to please let her go back to sleep. She shifts, rubs her eye, and continues to sleep. I tiptoe to the kitchen, not allowing myself to breathe until the door closes quietly behind me. I breathe a sigh of relief.

She starts crying.

“I shouldn’t have sighed!” I reproach myself, although I know it wasn’t my sigh that woke her up, but her innate ability to piss people off.

I go back, try to tap her to sleep, and after 20 minutes I give in and rock her in my arms for 4 Beck songs, then put her down. She shifts again. I hold my breath.

She opens her eyes, smiles, sticks three fingers into her mouth, removes them, and says “Buh”.

I decide to leave the room. Let her cry, I think in anger. I don’t care. I have a life too. I have other things to do.

30 minutes have passed and she’s still at it, crying, half-standing half-kneeling while holding on to the crib railing, drowsy from sleep but hardheaded enough to keep on wailing. I surrender first. As always (”Pussy”, I can hear you saying contemptuously). I mentally flip a coin in my head. Heads, I remain calm. Tails, I may have to throw her off the balcony. The coin falls. Heads. I sit next to the crib, whisper against her ear, sing eensy-weensy spider, recite Dr Seuss books, until she drifts off to sleep.

There is a finality to her finally falling into a deep sleep. Her little body sags against you with all the weight in the world, you’d think she spent the day solving Calculus problems or running a marathon. I put her down and she obligingly turns over, accepts the pacifier and sleeps.

She sleeps.

She sleeps.

She’s ASLEEP!

Imaginary confetti fall from the ceiling as I pump my fist in victory and hop around in silent cheer. I can finally finish that film I’ve been trying to watch for 3 days! Finally finish that email sitting in my drafts folder! Finally go online and search for a return ticket from Issirac! Finally sit on the balcony, light those candles, nurse that bottle of Clairette de Die, and just soak in the warm summer night! Finally, finally, finally, I can put that box of Picard yakitori in the oven, make some rice, and savour a hot meal. Or I can do a combination to save time: sit on the balcony drinking alcohol and eating yakitori while watching dvd on a warm summer night!

Freedom!

I glance at the clock. It says 23h38. Involuntarily I yawn. Then, like a chain reaction, my body starts to complain, my back starts to ache, and my stomach tells me, in a tiny voice, “You know what, I didn’t really feel like having yakitori that much anyways…”

So I drink some orange juice while surveying the mess of the living room, swearing to myself, “I’ll fix all this tomorrow” (because I’m good at lying to myself), brush my teeth and turn off all the lights, drop into bed, roll the comforter around my body and admit defeat.

She starts to cry.

Lila = 8,573,292 ; Kala = 0

Like I said, there are good nights, and there are bad nights.

lila-alumCurrently listening to:
Lila
Crying, Wailing, Teething and being a general Pain in the Ass

The sun

summer

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summer2

summer3

I thought it would never come, but finally, summer showed up this week. And what a difference the sun makes. Everyone seems happier. Children play in the streets up until 9 pm. People have swapped coats for shorts, and the sunglasses are out again. It’s been a tough week for me, and I’m sure it won’t change any time soon, but the sun helps. So much.

Currently listening to:
Crystal Castles
II

The end is the beginning is the end

I’m packing to go back to Paris to pack.

Our Roma stint is coming to an end; here I am on my knees, packing again. The sky changes drastically from day to day. Yesterday I was downtown in shorts and a sandals, and today it’s raining and gray. There seems to be no consistency to this year’s weather; well, when has weather been consistent anyway?

I’m really looking forward to being back in Paris, never mind that the weather still isn’t anywhere near the 20s. I don’t care. I cannot wait to be back home, to smell that familiar smell of the entry hallway, to reread my books. I can finally hang out with Lila at the park next to our place and hopefully have a chat with some of the people in our neighborhood. I can’t wait to meet up with friends. And to eat a proper baguette again.

So, we’re going back to Paris, only to leave it again.

It’s always a funny thing, all this coming and going in life.

Currently listening to:
Beck
The Information

Genius

Julien : Lila, tell me what the capital of Ethiopia is. Addis… ?

Lila : Abababababa

Julien : I KNEW IT! She’s a genius!

Kala : Our baby’s going to Harvard!

Currently listening to:
Marie Antoinette Soundtrack
Various Artists

Fruit of our labors

laborday1
laborday2
laborday5

May 1st was spent with grilling seafood with new friends under a very cooperative blue sky. Our host, Fabio, told us that summers can be unbearably hot here in Rome. “The sky is so blue, and the sun beats down so hard. I prefer the humidity in Manila.” Thing is, high temperatures don’t faze me anymore. Two years in Qatar with temps ranging from 45-50 degrees at its peak makes European summers seem mild in comparison.

Our gracious hosts live next to the Fiumicino airport, so Julien held Lila in his arms and they had a great time looking up at the sky and watching the planes pass. The little monster was unfazed by the noise; after the initial shock of all the roaring, she’d raise her arms and wave them at the plane; she probably wanted to take it in her hands and chew on it.

laborday3

laborday4

Today is Sunday, and it has been rainy, cloudy and windy all day long. It’s still warm enough to leave the windows open, as is the case now. I can hear the cars from the highway, the raindrops on the terrace, and the neighbor’s TV through the wall. I can smell our clean laundry and freshly-cut grass under the rain. I feel the laziness of a Sunday taking over the websites that need updating, I feel summer arriving, I feel warmer just thinking about it. I know that new adventures are shaping up in the background, lurking behind weeks and months, waiting to pounce.

You Are ThereCurrently listening to:
Mono
You Are There