thefutureisred

Now If You'll Excuse Me While I Freak Out

We arrived in Buenos Aires this morning, and I don't even know where I am.

A night of no sleep. We made our way to our new apartment (for the month). It's a small one bedroom in Recoleta, which is an incredible neighborhood. We're renting with some old friends from NYC. As our flight landed at 5am today, I made a point of looking out the window for a first glimpse of our new city. Usually, this moment excites me. This morning, my exact thought, "Oh shit! Now what?"

Lila has been a bit of a tragedy and a disaster all day. I have never seen her so obnoxious. And just recently, she learned to snap, so she punctuates all her rude little comments and evil looks with a little snap.

I know, I know, lots of moving around. We're all out of it and cranky. We're all completely off schedule. I'm trying to have patience now that it's after 11pm and she's popped out of bed complaining it's hot, or it's cold, or she's hungry, or not tired. We take her back to bed.

We went for a walk earlier and she literally fell asleep on Noah's shoulders. But now, she's not tired. "But Mommy, I'm not sleepy." Which I'd like to add is a direct quote from one of her books. Why do people write books that give kids tips on ways to procrastinate going to bed.

Then the corrollary question, why do we parents read these books to our kids?

For now, no answers. I'm just going to assume that a night of sleep will even things out for all of us. Then we begin the business of settling in, because I'll tell you, I am done with traveling. As far as I'm concerned, this morning, we arrived home.

The Page 56 Game

"It was hard to work so hard and not receive a single word of thanks -- in fact, to have their efforts invariably greeted with resentment.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Anne Fadiman

A friend of ours from Bocas, Henry Escudero posted this on Facebook. What a great game!

The Rules

• Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
• Turn to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post that sentence along with these instructions as a comment on the blog or as a Facebook note, whicheer you prefer.  Don't forget to include the title of book and author.

Henry, by the way, owns and runs the La Loma Jungle Lodge on Isla Bastiementos. We stayed there for a couple days just before leaving Bocas. It is a unique place. So many of the resorts in the area move in and take over. Henry and his wife Margaret work within the natural resources of the island. They've reclaimed the cocoa trees surrounding them and hired local people to process the cocoa and work with them to maintain the lodge and its land.