naïveté

coco's back and she's more potty trained than ever! ready for summer and (hopefully) ready for preschool, which is only a month away.

meanwhile, i'm filling out forms that make me realize two things: 1. that my hands start aching after two minutes of writing with a pen, and 2. that things might happen while coco is at school. i'm not talking about her being lost in translation or getting her feelings hurt by another kid. those are little things that i expect to happen. i'm talking about big things like THE BIG ONE. it freaks me out that i have to prepare an earthquake bag with an extra set of clothing and a meaningful item from home and pay $10 for an emergency kit containing food and other supplies.

this reminds me of the time panzón and i went to get my second or third ultrasound when i was pregnant. we were so excited to find out the sex of our baby that it hit us like a ton of bricks when the technician said quite indifferently, "the fetus shows no signs of malformation". and then, very causally, "so, do you want to know the sex?". holy crap. there could have been something wrong with the baby. that, it suddenly dawned on me, is why when asked what sex mothers want their unborn child to be, they answer with a (now-i-don't-think-it's-so-)corny, "i don't care, as long as it's healthy".

i guess i'm just naïve sometimes. which will probably come in handy when coco decides she wants to give scuba diving a shot or turns seventeen and wants to go to france for a semester. i'm just thankful that other people (people in schools and hospitals) give these things more thought.

el sarcófago

this is our car. oh, how it glistens under the california sun! see how it takes flight like a magnificent bird! it can also, if you have good arranging skills, fit a large amount of ikea furniture in the back. did i mention it has a sun roof? it's such an awesome car that i've even learned to live with its maroon interior, which is leather, by the way.

however, lately there had been sightings of oil on our driveway. i immediately pointed out the spots, which had been growing larger and larger, to panzón. i also pointed out several bird droppings that decorated the hood. he checked the oil and said that everything looked ok. everything, except the poop, of course, which he didn't clean. but neither did i, so i couldn't really complain.

anyway, weeks went by and alas! the car *almost* broke down yesterday. in all probability the transmission was to blame and repairing it would cost more than the car itself! el sarcófago is priceless. we couldn't possibly afford more than that!

this morning i was already thinking about ways to survive temporarily without our only car: panzón rides his new foldable bike to work anyway, coco's new school and the park are both at walking distances and trader joe's is only a couple of blocks away, as is whole foods... when panzón called to tell me it was not the transmission after all! from my somewhat limited understanding of the subject of mechanics, it was something a lot cheaper. who cares what it was!

after this scare, i vow to keep el sarco poop-free, even if it means doing more than pointing it out to panzón, like handing him a bucket and a sponge, and maybe even getting my t-shirt a little wet for motivational purposes only.

hair

this may be obvious for people who have known me since childhood, but i'm going to set the record straight for all of the newcomers: coco has my hair. my light brown, curly, unruly, truly adorable hair. i somehow lost it along the way. puberty? bleaching? pregnancy? negligence? it's a mystery.

i think i sensed the change and tried to do something about it sometime around my tenth birthday because i spent the $100 i got from a family member and spent it all on a brush. one mason pearson hair brush. ñaña, my childhood friend, swore by it and she had nice hair. plus, it came from england. i probably used it twice. i never brushed again. seriously, i don't even own a brush.

come to think of it, my hair has only looked good in three stages of my life: 1. early childhood, when it looked exactly like coco's; 2. late adolescence, when i was a hair model and got my hair colored (platinum blond) and cut (boy short) every month, in front of an eager-to-learn group of hairstyling students; 3. that planchado express era during my early twenties, when i got my long hair straightened for only 40 mexican pesos at least once a week.

other than that my hair has been either just okay or an absolute disaster, as was the case in barcelona, where i did not get a decent cut in two years. these days my hair gets the same treatment as my teeth, except for the brushing: once a year in mexico.