Argentina, captured

At long last . . . 170 moments have been scanned and dusted and posted and captioned, and now they're all yours: Argentina on Flickr.

Since I didn't write much on here about the trip, I tried to turn the photo sets into a mini narrative. If you'd like to read it, I recommend viewing the pics one by one, instead of in slideshow mode. (NB: Details are much easier to see in the slideshow.)

For those who prefer bite-size distraction, here are 10 of my favorites. But keep in mind you're only experiencing a seventeenth of the fun.

Passersby looked on in mild horror as I crouched to shoot this in Palermo, BA.

This shot in Congreso sums up BA's aesthetic for me:
gritty and colorful, with touches of elegance.

BA has exceptional graffiti. This curtsying girl is in San Telmo.

The spicy window display at El Gato Negro café, BA

Courtyard bench at my charming, musty hotel in Colón

Mi amigo poquito de Colón

Parroquia Santos Justo y Pastor, Colón

Mailbox on a side street, Colón

Bricklayer, construction site, Colón

I fell in love with these shoes in Colón on a Tuesday, brought them
back to BA on a Thursday for a photo shoot on Amy's terrace.

Rosewood, Cementerio de la Recoleta, BA

Claro que sí

I hoped to have all my pictures posted before I started telling you Argentina stories, but it turns out scanning and Photoshopping 10 rolls takes kind of a long time. How about that?

So we'll go bit by bit, starting with New England (full set here). It's a little-known fact that all great tales of South America begin with hot cider—all great tales of anything, really. Here's yours:


You should bring it along to keep warm at the Paradise City Arts Festival, especially in the sculpture garden.



Watch out for the dog on a hog. He takes no prisoners.


The leaves were just starting to do their magic thing. In Vermont, for instance:


Wait, what's that you said? You want to see my ride?


Yeah, baby. There ain't no party like a Delaware PT Cruiser party. That trunk is plenty big enough to hold a few of these:


But I didn't think they'd survive the trip from Boston to Argentina.

After a big pile of hours and a minor adventure with the prepaid cab company, I reached Amy's place (sans pumpkins) in Buenos Aires. Her new kitchen is stocked with all the necessities.


She lives in Villa Crespo, near the city center. This is the view from her very pretty, very sunny terrace.


Someday, I'd like to have a terrace. Or even a window box. But in the meantime, all I have is about a million more photos for you. Coming soon!

Sobriquettish

The so-called BCB has spent way too much time stateside lately. Not that I'd trade in any of the past year's jaunts to Orcas Island, New York, Seattle, Spirit Rock, SoCal—but my alter ego can't be fed on domestic travel alone.

So tomorrow seems like a fine day for Argentina, doesn't it? But I stopped at the homestead en route, to say hi to my family and the color wheel of leaves and the chill that seeps into your bones. There's nowhere prettier than here right now.

Saturday: Boston. My cousin Shira showed me around Brighton, a quiet little neighborhood with the best twin bartenders a girl could ever shack up with. During dinner at Brown Sugar, the lights suddenly went out (not romantic dimming, but total blackness) and a green strobe light started up. Then a pulsing beat, then a Thai man singing a husky rock version of "Happy Birthday" to someone we couldn't see. For a full five or six minutes. Nobody reacted. Then the lights came on, and it was business as usual. Who's free next July 10? I'll see you there.

Sunday & Monday: Northampton. Blew a kiss to the old gray dog and picked up my sweet rental car, a metallic blue PT Cruiser immediately christened Skymall. (If you're looking for me, I'm the one in the pimp hearse. You can thumb wrestle Chuck D for shotgun.) Mom and I checked out the Paradise City Arts Festival, followed by a double-header of gorgeous, relentless biopics: Bright Star and Becoming Jane. They neatly reconfirmed my belief that the critical ingredients for British literary genius are shackled love and early mortal illness. (American genius = epic road trips and really good drugs.)

Tuesday: Vermont & South Hadley. Google Maps sent me on a complicated backroads route through Bennington with a turn every few minutes, mostly unsignposted but all pristine. Lunch with the Rabbis Boettiger and the samba dog. Back through the rain to Dad and Ann's, tested out my memory and took the Holyoke route off 91. Only got almost lost once. Rewarded with corn risotto and Scrabble.

Today has been lazy and logistical, tomorrow back on the bus and then the plane, a speed-demon layover in Miami and 10 more hours and hey! Good morning, South America. I don't believe I've had the pleasure before.

Fall cleaning

In late August, it was beginning to look a lot like cleanse season. I'm taking a few weeks off from the gym so my friend the abdominal tear can actually heal, instead of just pretending to, and a new month is always a nice, clean time to start a project.

At first, I thought I'd go the basic route: no caffeine, alcohol, dairy, gluten, or processed foods for two weeks. Not much fun, but not torturous. Then I remembered how great I felt after each 24-hour juice fast I've done annually for the last few years, usually combined with an overnight at some hot springs. How long could I keep that up? And how about a Master Cleanse, would that be head-clearing or demented? It's meant to last 10 days, but that sounded more like starvation than health. So I cut it in half. I figured I could handle anything for five days.

The Master Cleanse people recommend two days of easing in before officially starting the program: one day of raw foods, then one of fruit and vegetable juices. The raw day was fine. I ate a lot of salad and got a little grumpy at work. But the juice day was rough, especially when I wound up at Papalote watching a group of friends get their burrito on. And my energy level was so low that I started to feel kind of loopy.

When I woke up on day three, I realized the Master route wasn't for me. There was no way I could function normally on a diet of spicy lemonade. So I decided to alternate raw days and juice days for the rest of the cleanse. This was over Labor Day weekend—the magazine gave us an extra day off, so the timing was right. It's much easier to follow strict food guidelines when you can make meals at home. The shopping and prep become part of the exercise. I spent quality time at Rainbow Grocery.

I don't have any hilarious anecdotes about the rest of the experience, but I survived. The evenings on juice days were the hardest and hungriest, so I went to bed early and slept longer and much more deeply than usual. In the mornings, I felt fantastic and had plenty of energy.

I broke the cleanse at Harbin Hot Springs with a peach-ginger muffin. To say it was the best muffin in the history of muffins doesn't do it justice. Let me tell you a story.

Seven or so years ago, I went on a first (and only) date with a short, tan man who decided we should go surfing. Note to guys: That's an extreme first date, especially if you don't tell the girl beforehand—you just show up and say, "Hey, I thought we'd go surfing in Bolinas"—and most especially if the girl has never surfed before and isn't all that interested in it.

But it was a beautiful day and I'm a trouper, so off we went. Another tip: Wetsuits should never be part of a first date. It took me 20 minutes to put the damn thing on, and I fell over at least three times. Local children pointed and laughed. Truly.

Eventually, we made it into the water, where I proceeded to spend two freezing, uncomfortable hours failing to stand up on the board. Mostly, I paddled around shivering while tan guy happily caught wave after wave.

When I couldn't stand it anymore, I chucked the wetsuit and took an epic nap on the beach in the sun. Being warm and dry, instead of clinging to a slippery board while encased in rubber, was like showering for the first time after a month in a mud pit. I slept so well that I felt like an entirely different person afterward. I forgave the mocking children; I even forgave tan guy his trespasses, although I don't remember his name. It was the most glorious nap of my life.

The muffin that broke the cleanse was the muffin equivalent of that nap. Food just doesn't get any better, especially if your head and belly know exactly what they've been missing.

Summer photo roundup

It's suddenly almost September, which makes me feel like I took a wrong turn and tripped over a hole in the space-time continuum or the Flux Capacitor or whatever.

But the point is, I've been remiss in posting photos. Sorry about that. First, we have my favorite brother's beautiful wedding out on Orcas Island. Full set on Flickr, and here are some highlights:





Then I drove down to Santa Monica in my trusty green steed to visit Ms. Erin Jourdan, who was hosting a fundraiser for her housemate's lymphoma treatment. The sun shone the whole time, with nary a forest fire in sight. Full set here, highlights here:





If I ever break up with Gibson, it'll be for this guy. I call him Zipper.

In like the lion

On my walk to work this morning, I was thinking about how healthcare reform—assuming some version of it eventually passes—will have Ted Kennedy's fingerprints all over it, regardless of his untimely shuffle off our mortal coil (RIP, sir).

If Kennedy and his wicked Mass accent were still around to raise hell in Washington, and I really wish they were, then he'd have continued to make the passage of this legislation his top priority. And it would have happened, and—all due respect to President Obama—it would have been so much better than it'll likely turn out to be sans Kennedy's policy acumen and bipartisan savvy.

But maybe, just maybe, our crotchety governmental bodies will stop bickering over pennies and votes long enough to honor their colleague's legacy. Not with yet another heartfelt speech or wreath or A&E Biography interview, but with comprehensive reform that gives every living, breathing person in our absurdly wealthy and oft mismanaged country the right to stay that way without going into unconscionable debt.

One basic human right in exchange for 46 years of backbreaking public service. Seems like a decent deal, doesn't it? Let's cross the aisle and shake on it.

Flash of genius

They don't happen often, and only when I'm driving. Today's commute epiphany:

I'm going to make my first million with my new line of "Have Grammar?" bumper stickers. They don't seem to exist yet anywhere on the Interweb, which is kind of miracle, and it's clearly within the best interest of my very narrow demographic to capitalize on that miracle immediately.

You heard it here first! Well . . . I also posted the idea on Facebook just now. So it's, like, a simultaneous first. (It will not be Twittered because I f$%&ing hate Twitter.)

But either way, ™, baby.

[Update: You thought I was kidding. But behold! The BCB store over at CafePress is now open to satisfy all your grammaring needs. Don't be fooled by the crappy onscreen resolution—that typeface is clear as a bell.]