This coming week. Just 3 days, Moominworld, Salo, and the Summer markets of Helsinki in the way back home. We look very much forward to it, specially Emil who will stay on his very own for the most part, for the first time. Now, the days before that trip it is the time to collect the blackcurrants and the cherries of our garden.
Pero incapaz de comprarlos en Tallinn por 9 EUR la media libra! En ocasiones como esta se me antoja estar en Espana...La paleta de crema sinembargo cuesta 10 centavos de EUR... Compramos una caja de 36 para los ninos, claro esta.
But again, not on purpose. I lack the time. We also lived the Christmas events and survived. JF and C have not seen beyond our back yard. Today is the first sunny day in 2 weeks that we experience, but this is a matter of fact statement, not a complaint. Illustrative images of the season:
LONG GONE DAYS. My father and my son; Emil was 10 months old. Medellin, Colombia. Mother and son. I was twenty something, he was 1 month old. Tallinn, Estonia.
We will leave Madrid for good on the 31st of this month.
I am in a friendly relationship with my own flaws. I can´t post as much as I wish these weeks because life is busy before a journey across Europe. I can´t forget for a minute that I will be leaving Madrid in about 2 months time neither. We have a million things to do before we leave, precisely those things that we always delayed because we were in no rush such as going out and visiting the monuments.
In the past days we have entertained guests:
Joonas turned 3, and became a well behaved big boy out of the sudden:
Tengo para decir, MUY POCO; mucho más para leer y oír. Introspección, ocupación, visitas y los siguientes URLs que recomiendo categóricamente por que o son muy entretenidos o tienen enlaces con contenido aprovechable, algunos son simplemente creativos y muy hermosos. Hay simplicidad, belleza, economía, conceptualización y dedicación en ellos.
Por que hay dias en que es necesario contemplar. Por que me gustaría coser mas y pensar menos, tener una vida simple y con propósito, sin abuso ni desperdicio de recurso alguno (nisiquiera la memoria), por que hecho por la mamá es mas significativo que hecho por maquileros en Bangladesh (aunque sean productos Oillily y no me pueda resistir a seguir comprandolos!), por que en Escandinavia hay menos intervencionismo (extranjero), consumismo y colonización por lo que se vive mejor, en paz, en conexión permanente con la naturaleza, por que me hubiera gustado ser ilustradora de libros, entre otras muchas cosas. Por que Emil cocina muy bien y colecciona recetas para el libro de la historia familiar. Por que hay que tener una mente ágil, y por lo tanto de pensamientos SIMPLES producto de la claridad conceptual. Por todo eso me gustaron esos blogs y otros 62 que tengo anotados en un papel, a mi lado, encabezados por AMAZON, mi debilidad. Este sitio es mi mayor obstáculo a la hora de implementar mi plan general de disminución de gastos superflúos. "AKA" consumo conspícuo.
Hoy mi papá hubiera cumplido 71 años; estoy pensando en el con música de Jean Sablon. Alguien dijo que mi papá quería morir en París...asumo que Lucienne Delyle, parisína, también sería de su gusto, o el mismo Charles Trénet (La-mer, no Lamér, en este caso una inapropiada "liason" no suena muy bien) si hubiera entendido el idioma (ella era, casualmente, farmacista!).
Unas fotos para documentar los últimos días de Marzo, esta es de la caza de huevos de pascua que organizaron los Sarabia. Damnificado por su propia incapacidad para competir (todavía es un ser puro y silvestre): Joonas, que se dedicó a recolectar los huevos de gallina cocinados y los decorados sin sorpresas ni chocolate.
TENGO GRIPA, HASTA QUE ME SIENTA UN POCO MEJOR!.../I WILL UPDATE THE ENTRY WHEN I FEEL A BIT BETTER. I`VE GOT THE FLU.
Para donde vamos
De donde venimos:
XKCD me encanta sobretodo por que manifiestan nociones de copyright que comparto. Es de libre uso y distribución. Preparo la pequeña explicación sobre high and low context culture para esta tarde o mañana y completo la entrada entonces, con avances del mosaico -si, mi tema recurrente-
Brainstorm in their most memorable moments: the videos of "My star," and "maybe." I could not find the song they play in "Lotte" but sooner or later I will. For those from the other side of the Atlantic: They are the signature band of Latvian pop music, although probably they would rather be in the rock, more traditional side...or would have, it has seemed to me. In any case, Emil likes them and the rest of us sort of enjoy their music also...but the very best ones are more recent such as the two at the end of this post: "a thunder without rain" and "a day before tomorrow." Enjoy!
I have no idea what I should be starting with today, I am not a reliable narrator. Thoughts cling in between lines, and the events get lost in badly choosen expressions. I have a terrible English day! But my mind is imploding and I will give it a try given that we have not been very communicative lately; Without any special introduction let´s say that it was Saturday, very late in the evening when my deepest thoughts then immersed in a festive decorating mood, a real wave of creativity and daydreaming collided with real life concerns. First of them (chronologically speaking, for it was not the most important matter of the past week) a coughing attack; A late indication of the respiratory condition of Joonas...The three children, in mathematical sequence, got ill and incorporated their cranky beings to my daily (on duty 24 hours) routine. They are afflicted by bronchitis. The second, more compelling and thought provoking, a terrible case of domestic abuse. I was swimming in a pool of illustrations, prints and drawings, surfing the internet and bookmarking inspiring sites, reading decorating dramas on the web and touched by remodelling experiences for less than 500EUR (A self induced nirvana for the kind, my kind), when a woman who was in down town Madrid, with a one year old baby in her arms, trying to escape her abusive partner, with no more than 2EUR in her pocket called to J. She was sore and bruised all over her body and had just arrived in a train from a different province of the country. She wanted to go back to Estonia and feared that the man, like he had done before in 2 occasions, would find them and bring them back home by the hair only to recruit her back as his personal slave. There are too many details to the story but surely not needed to reflect on what that meant to us. This entry is not about her story but about the moral dilemma that situations like these pose to people who´s lives are disrupted only by heavy traffic, a rude neighbour, or a dish too salty. How to define social responsibility, or else, whatever it is that a person who lives a comfortable, if not a perfect life has to assume when there is a call from someone in need? It does not have to be a telephone call, as we received, it could very well be a realization of the ridicule one could perform if letting small constrains and negligible mishaps disturb us. People suffer, really suffer very much and about most of that suffering we cannot do much. Sudan is too far, the Bosnian victims unreachable, we have no call to go on missions or to participate in charitable events. Some of us do not march against terrorism, but we could do something else. It is not about morals alone, but about practical living. The world would be better if we cared a bit more for the happiness (satisfaction?) of those around us. Why we afford depriving close relatives and friends from the minimum care and affection? Why we get busy with crap (most TV programming for example, gossiping, being mean and resentful, etc.) instead of sharing more of our time and efforts in constructive deeds? What a boring living room, an old sofa or an unsymmetrical wall mean when people suffer such tragedies? Can one be absent from the world miseries and concentrate in those small, superfluous details? Should one not be at least, if not engaged with projects or charity directly, be more concious, kinder, solidary, generous and at least less frivolous when choosing how to spend our worrying energy about? This case completely removed me from the decoration emergency I was experiencing, and up to now I have been unable to get into cool design or wonderful cuisine blogs again. The woman and the child stayed with us a couple of days (It was not only shocking but also very educational to Emil, Juulia and even Joonas who showed excess attention withdrawal symptoms) and finally was escorted to the plane by J. this morning. Her tragedy is far from over. A woman who enters and stays years in an abusive relationship thinks very little about her self and has plenty of self esteem issues to deal with before she recovers her dignity and can manage to establish healthy relationships. Now, even more than before, stripped from self worth she is vulnerable to fall into another abusive cycle. People like her are struggling a lifetime with these problems, often with very little help/support. Others spend (waste?) years of their lives worrying about things: clothes, furniture, ornaments, cosmetics, wall paper, etc... and get sponsored, endorsed, and admired. I like objects as well, beautiful ones. I tend to like them too much, and I feel sorry to concentrate on that exclusively, sometimes. It really happens only sometimes. I am taking pictures of the letter E to use later in print, maybe even to include them in the book that one day I hope to publish with Emil´s recipes. I had taken many, but they are lost with the laptop´s hard drive. I was left with only with these 3:
As announced, Brainstorm again. More "mature" and consolidated 1. Thunder without rain and 2. A day before tomorrow:
I am unable to explain the Asian phenomenon that is taking place in this house. My cultural heritage overridden by countless tea ceremonies orchestrated by the 9 year old in charge and our decoration choices overlapped by SHODO compositions and oriental paraphernalia.
We have been living the oriental craze during the last two years; Ever since Juulia discovered the Japanese culture (well in fact it is about anything Asiatic). It all started with an avalanche of questions that I could no longer answer: Could I read and/or recite the Chinese alphabet?, How to say mother and/or happiness in Japanese?, How many languages are spoken in Asia?, Can I also become a Maiko (implied: even though I am half Estonian and half Colombian)?, Could we purchase a Kimono and an Ao-dai and would I let her go to school dressed like that?, Could we drink green tea every evening with dinner? and eventually and more importantly: Can you please register me for Shodo (!!!!!!??? WHAT IS THAAAAAAAAAAT I thought!) in this number (Telephone number, website, email address and name of the teacher all written down in a piece of paper)? Emil, more modestly and much less imposing had been making a good deal of origami on his own. Being the background more or less explained already, lets go onto the BENTO issue.
Today, we learned that (like everything in Japan) Bento is almost an art. The definition found in Wikipedia sufices so far: "single-portion takeout meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware"
And this is the point of contact with me, the missing link, a good explanation on where her interest comes from (a little bit stretching the reasoning is harmless now, is not it?). The picture above shows a bento of those I had from childhood. I received plenty of these little boxes and never knew what they were about but still I collected several of Little Twin Stars, (the characters are shown above on top of the chopsticks container) from age 9, purchased in the same shop (an only one probably) where you could get them back then, that is in the 70s and 80s, in the 10th street of Medellin: "Lanas." On occasions a nice color Lacoste T-shirt could also be found there. Later, in Oviedo Shopping Center we had a small supply of Sanrio imports and "cool stuff" but nothing compared with the current stock. The shop then was called Mattel . Nowadays one can find everything imaginable, everywhere; Hello kitty, My Melody and other much newer "others" are flooding commerce all over the place in Colombia. One can find them even in el Exito, who would have imagined 27 years ago? My favorites as for today are Chococat and Badtz-maru.
Children of my age, all with the same collection, could also procured them in Miami, and they were a sign of disctintion for it also revealed the fact that one could also travel abroad in a time of closed economies and very little international exchange. Anything Sanrio and bento (described already) constituted the best type of gifts of all, followed by stickers and stationary as I received from La Tia Pata when I was around 11 or 12 and collected for many years to come. I still keep the stickers, my old bentos and even one that my brother J.F. had in white and red of Hello Kitty. The one possession I use up to now is his swimming bag, as appears below:
These below, are very sophisticated bento arrangements by declared B. serial producer Sakurako Kitsa, an American lady who evidently has a lot of talent and patience. Joonas loves them, but I am afraid to get inspired by this and create him yet another routine, one of sophisticated food compositions to pledge to forever and suffer every day with!
