thanksgiving.

thanksgiving isn't the same here.

more often than not there is not turkey. and when there is, it turns into a late-night, post-work light supper. so far today i haven't even talked to my family and i have no idea what their plans are.

before i knew. there was a set date for dinner at my grandparents in jersey. but grandmom died and things change.

when i was in college i never really missed thanksgiving. my mom's sisters lived close enough to school, and there were always plenty of invites for dinner with families that lived in chicago. senior year, we made our own thanksgiving dinner. and it was delightful until i found out that a dear, dear friend of mine had been killed in a car accident thanksgiving night.

you never miss the holiday stuff until it's really gone.

so, today. i've been teaching, but most of my bilingual school students have off today so it's been a light load. our friends are baking a turkey but it's a crapshoot if we'll go or not.

have a happy thanksgiving. be thankful for traditions and family.

the most wonderful time...

i kind of have a hard time getting into the christmas spirit here. i mean, i know i'm still one day early, but it just... i don't know.

here in santiago there are a lot of christmas lights, decorations. but it's warm in the day. no smell of snow in the air, the music at the stores is just mixed with some (little) christmas music. i'm not a big fan of the christmas music, but you get used to that when you're christmas shopping.

and the decorations. well... they're weird. i was equating them yesterday to what you might see in a wealthy, new england neighborhood. big, fancy. themed. immense trees covered with ribbon. i don't know. maybe it's just not my style, but it seems a little out of place in the carribean.

today we're baking cookies. cookies that it took me four supermarkets just to find chocolate chips for. not to mention real brown sugar and not just organic cane. (and by real i mean, probably realy really overprocessed domino sugar). i'm hoping they come out - or that the cookie sheet i had to buy fits in our mini stove because i haven't tried it out yet.

and i'm really hoping we don't run out of gas before we finish.

please.

renee.

send me your email. melanie512ATgmailDOTcom
i appreciate your comment, and you've got a hyperlink on your name, but it takes me nowhere.

and ps. i know the girl you are thinking of. but the one i posted about lives in nagua. they have similar situations. except that her boyfriend (i'm not sure they're really married or just juntados) was an animator in a resort and has even pulled the " i need a thousand bucks for my mom's kidney operation" scam that i never really believed existed til i met this couple. but the girl in santiago (i know who it is because a number of people mentioned me not knowing their situation) is really nice and i wish her all of the luck in the world back home. from what i understand they're going to get their master's or something.

gettin' ready.

last night i pulled out the flannel sheets and our one, lone afghan. they've been hidden away in a rubbermaid tub since last december, so they really should have been washed, but it's been raining for days here. and it's cold.

since they were washed before we put them away last year, we just sprayed some room freshener and hoped for the best. samil got his flannel sheet and fleece blankets out, too. they were in a pile on the floor and he just kept laying down and rolling around in them. i've been pretty surprised that the blankets actually stay put until he wakes up.

it's months like december when i miss carpeting. cold ceramic is even less forgiving than cool ceramic. i also miss a heater, but it's really only cold for about 40 days - and really only during the night, unless it's raining so it might be a little excessive to have even a space heater.

the up and down of the weather is what is bad. it can be 90 during the day and drop to 40 at night. i know, i know. you all are living with sub-zeroes. but really. 90 to 40? that's a pretty big deal. and a big shock to the system.

my toes are cold and i've finished my morning chores, so i'll be crawling into bed to take advantage of samil's longer napping this morning. who doesn't like to sleep when it's chilly?

this week looks less busy than others - just my regular classes and getting ready for our trip to philadelphia. no crazy errands to run, no vaccinations, no bizarro shopping trips... hopefully i'll be able to take advantage and organize some closets and get things moved into school that have been sitting in samil's room for 3 months now! wish me luck.

the in-laws.

i've got this problem where i tend to attract the kind of crazies that in my ideal life, i would never be friends with. like recently i've met a ton of young american girls married to or dating dominican men.

not that there is anything inherently wrong with that. i mean, really, who am i to talk about marrying a dominican?

i just think, in my limited experience, that there are things that just shouldn't happen. or things that wouldn't happen if you were married to an american. limits. boundaries. things that just would be taboo.

it's not the relationships that are so much the problem as the extended relationships that result from the marriage. you know, the friends you'd have or the family you acquire. and again, i'm biased. it's kind of a darkjoke that i only married amalio because i'd get no mother-in-law in the deal. (joke's on me, his stepmother is worse than any mil... ever). but i'm not sure that even with a huge language barrier i'd ever take my mil to the gyno with me. like in the exam area. especially not if my husband is already there. i understand the translation necessity, but what's the mom's deal? moral support?

or, if you move to a country where english isn't the language you should probably make an effort to not be completely dependent on your significant other. or... work your butt off to support a husband who isn't working, or studying or who conveniently lost a job right before you moved down.

i don't know why or how i get involved with people whose lifestyles i don't really understand... or that i don't really have anything in common with except a marriage to a dominican. i wish there was a between. a midway. not the gullible, naive, i'm-so-in-love and in nine months i'll be back at home because this just didn't work and not the country-club, expensive gym, international privateschool type either.

addiction?

here's my ridiculous confession of the week.

sometimes i lie awake at night, unable to sleep because i don't know what i'll write about on my blog. really.

will i write how i have been having really, really weird dreams - like the one where my childhood friend flew me to the cayman islands in his private jet to deposit a large sum of money in a mutual friends get out jail bank account... or the one where i am living in mexico selling dominican rum to tourists.

or should i write about samil's newest trick. you know all the minutia that us parents (and grandparents) love to hear about but everyone else in the world couldn't really care less about.

the list goes on. and on.
and really, i've got nothing. i baked some brownies this morning and i'm boiling some red beans to make rice and beans for lunch, waiting for samil to wake up from his morning nap. that's life right now.

nothing super exciting to write about.
check back soon to see if that's changed.

sometimes i wish i was 13 again...

i've been tutoring these korean kids for about two months now. i like them, and i kind of feel bad for them. it must be difficult to live in a country away from their family and their language and culture, study in english and function in spanish.

i mean these kids have a deck stacked against them. the two girls i have are living with an aunt. barely speak english and their spanish is non-existant. they're in the only all english school in santiago and they can't even get in a taxi without help. at least the aunt speaks spanish. because the boy, his family doesn't speak english or spanish. they're missionaries, just arrived from korea and it's been a struggle for them - with everything from getting an electricity contract to picking up their kid from school.

all in all, they're good kids. disciplined in their studies - mostly - and just trying to be their best. sometimes they're so formal. well, most of the time they're formal. they bow when i answer the door, remove their shoes and it's just now they're beginning to speak before being spoken to and asking questions about things that confuse them.

whoa.

and sometimes i forgot that they're just really young adoloscents. so when i heard them all giggling like crazy on saturday afternoon, i had to check it out.

there they were. remote control in hand, replaying a butt scene in TombRaider over and over again.