Shampoo For Two, A Sec

Yesterday Sweetpea took me to her favorite Mom and Pop “beauty” salon, the other end of the spectrum from the tony hair studio of Tuesday, for a shampoo and blow out. The attendants seated us side by side in chairs and proceeded to squish a liquid from a clear plastic condiment bottle into our [...]

I Don’t Have a Personal Chef

But Princess Ai Lin does ….
I am trying to wean myself from live-in help and man, does it bite. It is taking me a long time to find my way around an obstacle course of grocery stores and boutique import food stores. How I miss that daily fresh pineapple [...]

Quite Contrary

After a weekend of snarking and sulking, I was ready for a change of mood this morning. Saturday I made the mistake of opening a box and found shattered Mexican ceramics, the expensive and lovely kind. I was already in a crapulous mood, several of my beloved Mexican catrinas having bit the dust. [...]

Happy Anniversary, Mr. Understanding

Mr. Understanding and I are well into our second decade of marital bliss, sliding towards two decades, as of today. He is in another foreign country, whilst I am in mine, and comes home tomorrow. He is formulating budgets for Asia and I am unpacking a 40ft. container. It is a toss-up [...]

How Many Chinese Does It Take ….

… to unpack an American/Mexican/Brazilian household?
The answer is: 10 movers, 2 drivers standing around doing nothing, one “ayi” to walk the dog, and Mr. Understanding’s secretary to translate.

Purse Chair - Not

One of the things I miss most about Latin America is the institution of the “purse chair”, a specially designated chair at restaurants just for customers’ purses.
In Mexico, so it was explained to me, leaving a purse on the floor meant that all of one’s money would leak out onto the floor, leaving [...]

Chinese Fire Drill

According to www.word-detective.com, there are two common meanings for the phrase Chinese Fire Drill. One means “extreme confusion”. The phrase apparently originated shortly during/after WWI and was used in a derogatory sense. The other describes a prank involving rotating human bodies, red stop lights, and motor vehicles; if one does not find [...]

Please Take Advice

For the last two mornings, I have tried to obtain an ATM card with my husband’s assistants. The first morning I failed to bring my passport; the appointment was actually scheduled for Friday but someone, who shall remain nameless, strongly suggested I come into the office and get it over with since he had [...]

Check Your Civil Liberties at the Door

First off, let me state that an incontinent server has swiped all of my morning’s comments to my readers. I apologize. I will respond in due time. However, before I forget all of today’s events, I must gush forth, spewing random thoughts on civil liberties, humiliation, and the continuing saga of household [...]

Rain Rain

Go away.
I am almost too tired to write. Last night a monsoon rain hit our compound flooding all of the backyards on my street. During the storm Thing 1 drained her bathtub, on the ground floor, and a geyser erupted in her bathroom, the flow from the drain spilling out of the bathroom [...]

Ribbitt, Ribbitt

You can imagine my and Mr. Understanding’s surprise when the doorbell rang at 2:15 a.m. We thought someone had died or they had come to kick us out of the country. The Cry Baby (Blackberry) rang 45 minutes earlier but Mr. U blew it off, since no number he knew popped up. [...]

Pork, No Crab

Last night we went out with our kids for our first real Chinese meal, home of the Stewed Frog’s Ovaries in Paw Paw Cup, if you’ll kindly remember from my May posting. Seated in our own private room, we had two full time waitresses attending us. One gave me a menu [...]

Sweetpea and the Splendid Slippers

The sky has been blue for three days straight, something to celebrate; the black cloud I woke up under yesterday finally dissipated, flushed away with the tadpoles, my toilets finally in working order. That is the thing about new houses - the plumbing can be dicey in the beginning. My heavy duty plunger [...]

Tadpoles

We seem to have moved past all the sniping and angst of the the past 48 hours. Perhaps it is the promise of life in Shangri-la in a cookie cutter Tudor manse? To be honest, I had a fleeting moment of doubt as we drove by the other faux French, Spanish, and British [...]

Loaded For Bear

Dateline: Somewhere off the coast of Russia, 8:20 p.m. West Coast time, August 2.
Where the hell is Mrs. O’Leary when you need her? I needed her this morning. When I left Brazil, she came to my hotel room and provided the invaluable service of making decisions for me. “How can I [...]