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1. Fashion Front- Even the soccer moms in Salt Lake City are wearing boleros. However, none of them were wearing turbans (yet). Everyone is wearing stripes which is something I did not know when I bought three striped t-shirts at Zara for my summer wear. Now, not only do I fit in, I look as though I’m a part of a flash mob composed of members of the French navy. At any moment, someone will bring out a boom box and blast the Marseillaise, at which point we’ll all stop what we’re doing, whip baguettes out of our bags and use them as props in an impressive and unexpected  synchronized dance routine.

2. Television Front- The show Portlandia is awesome. Actually, it was my English friends Sophy and Dan (aka @mrcottonsox) who pointed this out to me on a visit to Bristol 2 months ago. (Because it turns out that Bristol is the Portland of England so they know about these things). The show Girls is also awesome. For those of you who don’t know, it’s about a bunch of girls in their early twenties who live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They hook up with gross boys, break up with nice ones, have crappy jobs, try to break away from parental support, express themselves creatively and go to cavernous loft parties. The reason I like this show so much is because I was once a girl in her early twenties who lived in Greenpoint and let me tell you, my life was EXACTLY the same. Except that I didn’t have a cell phone and also, their building is much nicer looking than any building I’ve ever seen in that neighborhood.  Ah, memories. But then the other day as I was watching it and busy relating, I was plummeted back to reality by the following exchange which went something like this:

Ex-boyfriend of gorgeous twenty-four year old girl: I’ve fallen in love with someone else. She’s a filmmaker and she’s 38.
Gorgeous twenty-four year old girl (in patronizing voice): Ohhhhh, she’s OLD! She’s a mom!

Crash.

As a 37-year-old mother (who is not even a filmmaker), this put a frown on my face. But then one of the characters accidentally smoked crack and ran through the streets of Bushwick wearing only her party top and a pair of nylons and  I was distracted out of my funk.

3. Food Front- I have finally been to Trader Joe’s and it is indeed fantastic. Although this does not mean I think it is fantastic enough to stand in a line that goes outside the front door and around the corner just to shop there. As for the cupcake, it has become completely over-exploited. I remember reading an interview with Ira Glass in Bust Magazine several years ago in which he complained about the new cupcake shop opening on his block in Brooklyn. The gist was the now that cupcakes were so popular, they were no longer cool. I have to admit that reading this soured my perception of Ira. Because who cares if they’re cool or not, as long as they’re yummy? Now the problem is that they are so widespread that they are not necessarily yummy anymore and that is a much more serious problem. If every greasy bodega and deli has cupcakes (not to mention every bakery), how do we then know which ones are good and which ones were baked in a factory in Yonkers 18 months ago?

There is no longer any cupcake quality control, no cupcake curation.  However, I just found this article in the Voice so I guess that problem is solved and I can stop complaining.

Okay well that’s all for now.  I am busy working on a new illustration that features Swiss cheese, a dangling light bulb and a butcher knife so I’d best be getting back to that.

Me: Oh really? So what kind of woman do you want to marry now?

Nico: Well, I want her to be sweet like my English teacher, pretty like my English teacher, fashionable like my English teacher, and wear tall boots like my English teacher… But I don’t want her to speak English like my English teacher because actually she really doesn’t speak English very well. I think if we got married, we’d probably just have to speak Spanish.

This is because on the opposite side of the table sat Luca, a kid whose idea of a filling Indian curry dinner consists of several cashew nuts dipped in mango chutney. Actually, I suppose you could say that Luca’s tastes are fairly exotic for a two-year old. He loves capers, olives and smoked salmon, and when we go out for sushi, he eats the pickled ginger off of everyone else’s plates. The problem is that he will usually refuse to eat anything else (i.e. pasta, rice, pizza, etc.) and as for vegetables, forget it.

I do like to think that I have something of an influence in my children’s behavior but in this case, I’ve come to realize that it’s completely out of my hands. I have one child who is a “good eater” and another who subsists almost entirely on condiments. So the next time I take Luca for lunch at a friend’s house, only to have her confess in an embarrassed tone that her child will only eat frozen chicken nuggets, I’ll just sigh and ask if they happen to have a jar of capers on hand.

Me- “But what’s wrong with it!?”
Sophy- “I came into the kitchen to find a cup of tea with a string thing hanging out of it and an American person pouring milk that she just got out of the microwave into it. Obviously I couldn’t drink that.”
Me- “But I thought I was spoiling you by heating up the milk first!”
Sophy- “Yes, spoiling is what you certainly did.”

I think you have to be an English person to understand her logic.

I love this photo that my brother took of Nico a few months ago. It is so him.

Nico: Oh no! They’re the most girlyishest girls in my class. You’ll see, they’re going to try and get me to pretend I’m either a cute little puppy or a unicorn.

*Names have been omitted in order to protect the girlyishest.

It may seem odd that I am saying this since for many years now. I have purposely chosen to live a very multicultural life. I love seeing how varying cultures experience the world differently and in general, I lament the process of globalization. The one glaring blue and yellow exception is Ikea and this is for purely personal and selfish reasons.

Basically it is just really nice to have one place to go where I know exactly what to expect. Nobody will come up and ask me questions I don’t understand (because an Ikea salesperson would be more likely to duck inside the nearest modular particle board closet than to come up and ask if you need anything), nobody will offer me food I don’t recognize, and the only surprises I get will be of the small pleasant variety rather than the large exciting but disconcerting kind. Perhaps a new line of vegetable peelers or an innovative way to store scarves. I’m not saying I’d want to hang out there every day but every so often (excluding Saturdays because that is truly a Swedish nightmare), I find it a relaxing escape from daily life in Spain.

One problem I do have with a trip to Ikea is that because we don’t have a car, it is a pain in the ass to get there. To top it off, invariably when I go, immediately afterwards I find out that someone I know with a car had just gone the day before or is planning to go the following day. This last trip was the worst though. As we headed out the door of our building, a mother from Luca’s nursery gave me a jaunty wave as she drove by in her car. Two trains, a funicular ride and a bus later (approximately 1.5 hrs), we walked into Ikea and guess who the first person we saw was? Just guess? I am thinking of getting myself a series of t-shirts printed to wear for pre, during and post-Ikea trips. One will say “I want to go to Ikea!”, The next will say “On my way to Ikea!” and the last will say “If you just went to Ikea, don’t tell me about it.”

Despite the transportational challenges, we managed to have a fun day although I was horrified to see that in about five more minutes, Nico is going to be too tall to enter the free childcare play center. This hardly seems fair since Luca is going to be old enough to enter in just a few more months. Why did no one mention this to me when I was planning the age spacing of my children? Nico enjoyed his lunch and declared that he was used to the food since he had once lived in Sweden. I’m sure the Swiss will be happy to hear that their country left such an impression.

The only thing I am not at all pleased with about the day was that Luca found an attachment object which he now insists on taking everywhere with him. Up until now, his two main sources of comfort have been his fingers (for sucking) and his hair (for patting and stroking while sucking). This meant that unless I shaved his head or signed him up for a toddler’s carpentry course, there would be no chance of any tragic losses. Now, however, we have “Daton” (Luca’s version of raton which means mouse in Spanish), a tiny brown mouse that has already been lost (over the course of about 72 hours) no less than 36 times. It’s gotten to the point where I think that hopping back on that funicular, two trains and a bus might just be worth it, if only to buy some more datones for insurance. So if ANYONE IS PLANNING A TRIP TO IKEA IN THE NEAR FUTURE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

Recently Reading:

-Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple

-Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee

-How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

-The Devil’s Knot by Mara Leveritt

-Palimpsest by Gore Vidal

-The Warden by Anthony Trollope

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL ILLUSTRATION!

“Patriotic Pancakes” Graphite pencils (hand drawn)

Nico- I can speak perfect Spanish except I can’t make the Rrrrr sound.

Me- Well, a lot of Americans have a problem making that sound.

Nico- Ohhhh, so it’s because I grew up in YOUR American stomach. That’s why I can’t do it.

As usual, it’s all my fault. By the way, I saw this morning that someone arrived at my blog by searching for “Dark-eyed rebel Johanna Bailey”. I am intrigued.