Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I went to the cultural center with Hernan to photograph.his work for him for his portfolio. Hernan is my neighbor and an artist. His work fits into the "Naive " or "Outsider Art" category. He has a show up at the center and knows nothing about photography so I offered to shoot it for him as best I could. There were a couple of other shows by Colombian artists in nearby salons that where also interesting. One, painted in flat, brilliant colors Warhol style was a series depicting various male figures, well known politicos, with a gorgeous woman. The woman in each painting represents Colombia. The other show reminding me of my friend's naïve style employed thick glitter paint and brilliant colors depicting abstracted images of butterflies. Hernan tells me Colombia has the greatest variety of species in South America though I imagine that's not counting Brazil. Now that I think of it I'd like to go back and try out my new digital camera on those shows. I'm only just beginning to get the knack of it.

When we emerged from the center it was raining heavily so we caught a cab instead of walking to a bus stop. When we got to the Avenida Sexta area all the streets had a foot or more of water. There were stalled out motorbikes everywhere and traffic was at a standstill, every vehicle seeking higher ground. I'd never seen it like that before but the sewer system just isn't capable of moving that quantity of water. An hour and a half later (instead of the usual ten minutes) we made it to our homes. My wife was in near panic because every room in the house had serious leaks and she had been moving furniture around like crazy to keep it from getting wet.

In the evening I met her outside her English institute and we went directly to the office of "Pico De Loro" (parrot's beak), a hiking group in Cali. It was a meeting to explain their next outing to take place the week of Semana Santa. They plan to spend several days camping and hiking at the Tatacoa desert in the department of Huila. I'd love to go and see that part of Colombia but my wife has never camped before and also it's ten hours away by bus. She wants to go but I'm not sure I want to risk the marriage. I'm still deciding.

To my utter amazement the bank reimbursed me $180 that I lost in an ATM machine scam.

As always, newsy and interesting writing.

Yes, KP .. A terrific thread!:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6092&highlight=

~~

Another thread about the BBQ and more:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6092&highlight=

Thanks for those, msolga and Diane!

From what little I've seen, it looks great.

KP

Thank you Maple.

Dear Diary

I have a lot of reading to catch up on. As always, the diary posts are very interesting.

And of course a lot happened during the last two weeks. We had a great time in Florida. We met so many people - I enjoyed that immensely.

It started out with meeting my brother and his daughter as well as our old friend Rob at the airport in Atlanta. Unfortunately, it took us one and a half hours to get through immigration, customes and security checks so we only had one hour to spend with my brother. But still lots of fun!

We met Rae and Misti and found that we are old friends already.

We went to Daytona to visit my company's plant there and to meet the lady I had contact with by e-mail and phone.

We met Letty, Diane, Mapleleaf, Roger, Phoenix - more old friends!

We went to Palm Beach and met Sam, BigDice's friend who comes to our town at least once a year. I wonder why - I'd stay in Florida if I were him.

Oh, I almost forgot - we met Paddy and Lacey, two very adorable cats.

We saw dolphins, alligators, manatees and many, many birds. The wildlife in Florida is absolutely fascinating. And the plants! They have orange trees, mango trees, palm trees. We have - apple trees. And snow...

As always on vacation, I very much enjoyed spending so much time with my husband. He is a special person and I wish you could all meet him.

Now we are back home and I am happy with our cats. My friend just visited me to see the pictures from Florida. And tomorrow it's back to work. But with a suntan!

Dear Diary,

I survived three days of work! And went rollerblading tonight. Life is good!

One more day to go and we have the long easter weekend - four days off! Poor BigDice has to work for 13 days in a row, though. What a shame!

Now I have log out, get the vacuum cleaner and try to get rid of at least some of the cat hair decorating our sofas and the rest of place...

Dear Diary,
Some days the postings on A2K are few. I find myself popping in a couple of times an hour...just bored, I guess.

This past weekend the 30ish adults and the grandchild came over from Alpharetta, GA. We enjoy entertaining them in our home. My wife is so excited. We went the Friday night game of our new ROME BRAVES, part of the Atlanta Braves Organization. Loved it. I sat on a grassy slope, watched the sunset, the crowd of 5000, the kids snagging foul balls...sort of a FIELD OF DREAMS experience. We invited her sister and husband over for Saturday lunch. Sometimes family is better than anything you can buy... Bye, you'all.

Dear Diary,

I had a very nice evening yesterday at my sister's house with her, her husband, her three sons and one girlfriend. We had pizza and talked lot. And she had to give the two cats some medication. To do this, she grabbed Hexe, the mother cat, wrapped her up in a towel and held her tight. Susanne, Hardy's girlfriend, squeezed the stuff into Hexe's mouth. Then the same with Hexe's son Tiger. They were fighting! But Susanne and Barbara were good! No scratches at all!

Today I finally cleaned the appartment more thoroughly. Ugh, I don't really enjoy that. Then we watched the Formula 1 race and Michael Schumacher won. The Schumacher brothers' mother died this morning. It must have been terribly hard to drive a race.

When BigDice left for work I decided to go rollerblading - only to be home 20 minutes later because it was raining. Unfair! Well, maybe tomorrow morning the weather will be nice and I'll try again.

And for dinner tonight I will be having green aspargus, potatoes and Spanish Serano ham. And some nice white wine. Hmmm - a real springtime meal.

Urs, I think about you sometimes...you and BigDice appeared to enjoy your time together in Florida...with both of your work schedules, it has to be tough.

Yes, Mapleleaf, it is, sometimes. And we really enjoy being together on a vacation. We try to make the most of our time we have together. You know, the situation was like that when we met so it didn't come as a surprise to either of us. I need quite a lot of time for myself - compared to most of my friends. But a weekend together now and then would be great. When BigDice worked as a sales person at a furniture store, we had a more 'normal' life. But he did not like the work and was very unhappy after a while. So it's better for him to do the work he likes and be happy when he's home - even if we have less time together.

Basically, I agree. I tend to be a loner, even in my own home. After 22 years, my wife has grown accustomed to my sense of independence. However, we work at staying attuned to one another. With her as my partner, Life is much richer .

DD
Well I'm feeling like I fell of the face of the earth, hacker\cracker invasion on my server, losing client or two and reseller. Having a little trouble
with the contractor on the Church that we're constructing. Someone in the office asked if everything was ok, seems that I have a little edge in my voice and behavior. Checking in here today - I'm like 1,300 some messages stacked up. Wondering if I took a wrong turn.

Dear Diary,

Things are finally beginning to fall into place.

We moved into our new apartment a little over a week ago, but only just got the internet hooked up today. We're in the Arboretum area of Austin. Beautiful. Looking forward to heading out to the Lake to see the bats!

Washer and dryer came yesterday, so we finally have clean clothes and towels. Thank goodness.

Hopefully, we will be picking up a car this afternoon. More about the car after it comes home... In the meantime, we've been borrowing our friend's ancient jalopy of a pickup. It's a fun truck.

Brian starts training and orientation on a new job tomorrow. Opening a bar/restaurant. The restaurant actually opens around the end of the month, so it's a lot of meetings and so forth for a week. I hope he gets at least one night of cash work before then, so we can pay our rent...

I do not have a job yet. Making widening circles around our neighborhood, dropping resumes and interviewing. I had a retail interview yesterday, I have another this afternoon, and another is coming up on Friday morning. I chased a bakery job for a while that turned out not to have existed in the first place, but I'm sure I'll find another one somewhere sooner or later.

So. We have a place to live. We have clean towels. We have internet. Brian has a job. We should be about to have a car. And I'll be working pretty soon too. Exciting stuff.

Husker, sorry to hear about all that stuff! Hope it settles down soon.

Urs, I'm glad to hear your trip was so much fun!

Dear Diary,

I'm doing well, except that I'm stuck at work awaiting the end of a conference call after which I may have to do more work.

Meanwhile, I'll just say that I had a busy(ish) weekend of shifting things, seeing old friends, catching up with family and enjoying the sun that we had, here in London.

I got a message from Gautam, saying that he's not feeling well - a tooth infection has him laid up in bed. So that's why he's not here today (we Brits had a holiday yesterday) - he usually logs on from work.

Take care, fellow a2kers, KP

Marycat, that sounds exciting. I keep my fingers crossed for your job hunt.

Dear Diary,

Met my parents today who are in Germany for the week. They came to Balingen with my nephew and we went for some ice cream. Man, it is exhausting to tiptoe around any topics that might get my dad mad - which could be anything. We were together for a bit more than an hour and I feel relieved that I did my duty. Very strange. After that I went rollerblading with Susan. Now my ears are cold and I'm hungry. I'll make myself some nice soup and read my Swedish crime novel. Sounds like a very good plan!

Dear Diary
Dear Diary,

Last week was "Semana Santa". Like Thanksgiving in the US it is the most travelled holiday of the year in Colombia. Beach destinations like Juanchaco on the Pacific coast and Santa Marta on the north coast and San Andres Island in the caribbean are jam-packed. The streets of Cali were deserted. We had planned to go to the Tatacoa Desert in Huila department with an eco-group. But the trip was cancelled at the last minute for lack of sign-ups. Too bad I'd have loved to see it but maybe my marriage will last longer as a result of not going. We would have slept in a tent and spent the days hiking in desert. My wife is a city girl who has never done anything like that in her life but thinks she'd like to try. I may have avoided days of endless complaints.

Well instead we had an "asado" (barbque) at home for most of her aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, sisters, mother and so on. The menu was simple: charcoal broiled beef, "maduro" (mature plantain) and potatos together with free flowing rum and "cervza". It was the fist time we've had a "fiesta" in the house and it went very well I thought. Although my wife hates the house I rented it turned out to be ideal for the party. Small children played soccer in the basement garage, the teenagers hung out in the living room where they could maintain control of the CD player, most of the adults sat at plastic tables in the middle patio and those who took charge of the cooking were in the back patio with the "asador". The front foyer without furniture provided the dance floor for two couples. I describe this because at all of the partys I've been to in their homes there are plastic chairs lined up against two walls in the living room where people just sit and sort of look at each other across the room. You can make conversation with your two neighbors but going over and standing in front of someone else to talk to them is pretty awkward. I guess the idea is to get up and dance in the open space in between. I enjoyed the fact that people could move freely from space to space at our fiesta, more like the partys I'm used to.

Oh hey, cool picture! Is that you in red, Pitter?