let me tell you about my pop

*to the sound of let me tell you about my boat.*

bebitino popochón, as we like to call him around here, is the newest and squishiest member of our family. for blogging purposes i will call him pop, which, as you may already know, also means octopus in catalán. now that i think of it, he kind of resembles one when he scoots around the house on his bottom, stretching out his arms and one leg (he hasn't learned to crawl because being on his belly makes him feel like a beached whale).

anyway, my little pisces was born almost a year ago, a year that seemed either excruciatingly slow or lighting-fast, with moments where time stood still sprinkled here and there, all covered by a haze of sleeplessness.

pop himself is mostly restless, yet sometimes peaceful. he loves tickles and hugs, but will suddenly pull your hair or bite you, or both simultaneously. he's always so charming around people that no one believes he also has a tremendous temper.

he will wash over you like a wave, giving you a little tumble, and you will come out of it feeling refreshed, but probably missing a shoe, which he will of course be chewing on.

triple tiny tragedy (reconstructed)

fafa the fish died yet again. now that coco is three-and-a-half, i believe she could handle the truth and learn an important life lesson. after all, i was about the same age when my pet turtle died, one of those little ones that are smaller than a soap bar, and we buried it the pot of a huge interior plant (we lived in an apartment at the time). that prepared me somewhat for the subsequent deaths of future pets: michael jackson, janet jackson and madonna the fish (mildly tragic), natasha the poodle (somewhat tragic), zico the airdale terrier (terribly tragic), uma the great dane (heartbreakingly tragic), coco lee the poodle (untragic, due to old age) and now, the fafas (slightly tragic).

the point is we would have told her, had it not been for the sudden absence of her preschool class pet guinea pigs, tom and jerry. once the pride and joy of room 1, they eventually became a burden for the teacher, who grew tired of carrying their big cage to and from her house on weekends (and, i have now learned, was unable to care for them during the summer). i thought this issue had been resolved by a weekend custody calendar she started for the furry fellas. so imagine my surprise when i saw item #371 on the school's fundraising silent auction catalogue: adopt tom and jerry guinea pigs, starting bid $20, value priceless.

when she asked me about it, i explained to the curious coconut that they had found a better home. why? weren't they happy in room 1, where pudgy little fingers would lovingly pet (i.e. push, pull & poke) and feed (i.e. shove pieces of fruit and veggies down their throats) them? yes, WHY? why were they taken away with only a few weeks left until summer vacation?

this changed coco's entire preschool ecology and we weren't about to do the same at home. so we welcome fafa number three, a smaller and shyer version of fafa number two, and hopefully healthier than fafa number one.

new broad in town

come winter 2012/2013 there'll be a new building in downtown LA: the broad art foundation(left image), a museum of contemporary art designed by new york architects Diller, Scofidio + Renfro. the broad will be blatantly flirting with frank gehry's walt disney concert hall and arata isozaki's museum of contemporary art (moca), hoping to arouse attention and add urban tension to the bland grand avenue hilltop. you can read more about it here: new york times architecture review.

as contemporary as this extravagant design may seem, the porous skin enveloping the building is actually something that can be found in older modern buildings around the world. take the nearby the american cement building (right image), designed in 1960, with its permeable precast concrete exterior. although i personally prefer the unpretentious simplicity of modern architecture, maybe what this town really needs is a lady who's a tramp.

the return of the bucket

this holiday, a small christmas miracle happened at our home. the bucket that we "lost" at the park last summer came back to us. it appeared underneath our tree on christmas morning, bearing a delightful book, our california, in spanish. apparently during its half year absence, it developed eyes and tentacles and morphed into an octopus (flex, the octopus, to be exact). i wonder if santa, realizing that we don't have a chimney, squeezed the octopod through our door's mail slot and instructed it to wriggle its way to the tree and take a bite out of the dreidel-shaped sugar cookie coco decorated and left out with a cup of milk.

the real mystery is how santa deciphered the hieroglyphic letter coco left in our mailbox to be sent to the north pole, in which she specifically asked for a bucket and a book, no more, no less.

curious george saves the day!

holidays are complex. simply going on an family outing during this season can be challenging. especially when you have a somewhat large three-generational group of people with different needs, tastes and ideas of fun. splitting up can be a practical solution, but sometimes sticking together is the only option.

such a situation arose this past thanksgiving, which panzón, coco and i spent in san francisco at my sister's, with her husband and toddler, her in-laws and our parents. what were we to do that saturday, when the turkey had been eaten hot, surrounded by yummy trimmings, and cold the next day, between mini baguettes? we had to get out and do something. but what? and then i remembered: curious george saves the day at the contemporary jewish museum! something for the museum-lovers, the architecture enthusiasts, the young children, and of course for all curious george admirers, which most of us already were.

the building, an architectural gem designed by polish-born daniel libeskind, is a reuse project in which a contemporary program is adapted to the historic pacific gas & electric power substation, built in 1907. libeskind also designed the jewish museum berlin, a striking work of architecture of larger scale and force.

so what was curious george doing in such a place? it turns out his creators, margret and h.a. rey, a married couple of german jews, had quite an interesting story of love and adventure and narrow escape from nazi-torn europe in 1940.

that saturday, we all walked out of the museum inspired and pleasantly surprised that we had found something we all had enjoyed together. and that's how curious george saved the day!

trick or treating cancer

halloween is the time of year we not only face our fears, but open our doors to monsters, demons and ghouls and offer them something sweet, hoping to make them go away. october is also breast cancer month. cancer is truly terrifying. unlike trick-or-treaters, it doesn't go back home, take off its mask and eat candy until its tummy hurts. it silently slips into our bodies and makes itself at home, helping itself to whatever it can get its greedy hands on, making us sick. well, life played a little trick on me this month and gave me my own cancer scare. very clever indeed, life!

i knew it would come knocking on my door sooner or later, ever since we lost my maternal grandmother to breast cancer when i was eight years old (it's known to skip a generation, you see), but now? can't it see the belly-shaped no vacancy sign? my body is already occupied by a beautiful and wanted guest. there is absolutely no room for a deathly parasite. or is there? after a session of my specialized surgeon softly kneading my breast, maybe. after no coffee, (almost) no chocolate and vitamin E, maybe. after an ultrasound, maybe. after a needle poking me seven times and waiting for three days for the biopsy result, apparently not.

so bring it on, halloween. i was already scared shitless this month, so send me all of your witches and zombies and goblins. i will welcome them with open arms and lots and lots of chocolate.

where's my belly?

i'm four months into my second pregnancy, but my belly has not yet popped. meanwhile, my calendar looks like it's going to burst at the seams, at least for my relaxed standards. my days are filling up with preschool, playdates, ballet lessons (coco rocks in her black tutu), my etsy shop, volunteering for cicLAvia (which is this sunday, by the way!), and planning coco's third birthday party. oh, and i signed up to be room parent at the preschool, completely overlooking the fact that my due date is a couple of weeks before the school's biggest fundraising event. you know you've got pregnancy brain when you keep forgetting you're pregnant!

anyway, the other morning, coco and i were distributing some cicLAvia posters around our area and came upon a brand new yoga studio. unfortunately, they did not have a bulletin board, but before i could even open my mouth to say "thanks anyway", the male receptionist over-enthusiastically said, "wow! are those real? *pause* fruit loops?". i followed his stare to the fruit loop necklace snugly nestled between my breasts. i blushed and answered, "yes, yes they are". clearly, other parts of my body are popping.