My dear aunt Maria, a.k.a Marujita in some of the posts in this blog, has completed her time on this earth, and has trascended to her energetic form. Or whichever form we go after leaving behind the shell of our terrenal bodies.
She was such a beautiful being, so loving, so generous, so giving towards others. You could count on her for almost everything, at least everything she was capable of doing. If you talked to her, she was the kind of person to give you advice, to give you words of reassurance and comfort, she would share as much as she could with everyone, she would always try to help someone in need. Her home was also a place where people could stay when they needed a place in Pereira, or wherever she lived. I have friends who stayed with her in Medellin for a couple of nights. They didn’t know her but she was so welcoming, she would open her home to lots of people!
Mari was dealing with a type of cancer in her blood, it was similar to leucemia but not quite it. I am not sure of the name, but slowly, slowly, the illness made her feel tired and more tired. Little cuts would take a log time to heal, her defenses were very low and she had to get blood transfusions time and time again, to increase her white cells. Per her doctors advice she decided to start a chemo treatment towards the end of last year, she managed to do about 8 rounds, and since late December she started getting weaker and weaker after each round. However she did not complain, she was not in pain, she would just get tired, but also, she would find burst of energy after each blood transfusion. During the moments of energy, she would squeeze each second and would get active as she usually was, seeing her family, friends, doing her trips and activities, living life to the fullest and with her best attitude, which she held up to the very end.
On Thursday night, April 18 2024, at 8:10 pm Colombia time my dear aunt transcended into her new realm. She was finally released from her sick body, which was exhausted and couldn’t carry her any longer. Now, in her new freedom I thank the universe for liberating her of the pains of our human existence. We are all grieving her, of course. She was such a lively member of our family, an innate leader, always trying to keep us connected and to get people together, which was not an easy feat considering our family is quite big, and there are many branches and personalities in play. She managed to get us together during Christmas time, probably her favorite time of the year, she loved getting her place decorated and planning the holidays together as a family with the help of my other aunts.
The last few days my eyes have been teary on and off, grieve shows up in many different ways. When I talk to my family over the phone I am usually very composed and calm. When I told my boss my aunt had passed away I struggled with emotion and I couldn’t help to cry a few tears, and after hanging up, I was in full ugly cry mode! It felt good and it’s such a great release, sometimes I think it would help me if I cry a little more, but it’s only in certain moments, when I hear certain words, and more often than not in unexpected situations. Regardless of how you express it, grief is the ultimate demonstration of love for the person that is not here physically, and is also the way to express all the sadness for those of us who are still here and will miss their presence dearly!
Even though I am far away, my cousins were able to share the link to the funeral home and to the mass. It was a bit odd but so comforting to be able to see my family all together over the weekend. There was no sound during the wake, I think that is what is call in English, but there was sound during the mass, the songs were so beautiful. I felt a little closer to all of them, and I thank technology for this features, and for how the pandemic changed how things work.
My dear aunt, you had a beautiful life and the world was better because of you! I know you are in a happy place on the other side of the river and the rainbow, on the other realm, free from the aches and enjoying the company of the others that have crossed before you. Thank you for everything! I will hold you in my heart and memories until we meet again! Meanwhile, I will embrace the ebb and flow of my tears and all the beautiful moments we shared along with all my cousins and especially your sons, who are proof of all the good you did on this earth! I love you, always!
El metro de Medellín comenzó a funcionar el 30 de noviembre de 1995 a las 11 de la mañana. El primer tramo que entró en funcionamiento fue el que une las estaciones Niquía y Poblado, en la Línea A. Posteriormente, la red se amplió hasta Itagüí, con cuatro estaciones más al sur y al oeste, y seis estaciones en la Línea B.
Cuando tenía 18 años se inauguró el primer y único metro en Colombia. Medellín ha sido la única ciudad en lograr esto. Tomó muchos años y mucho dinero, planificación y esfuerzo, pero lo lograron. Fue y sigue siendo todo un logro. No teníamos nada parecido en todo el país, y yo nunca había viajado al extranjero a esa edad, así que, por supuesto, era otra colombiano emocionada por montar en Metro!
Mi memoria está un poco borrosa, pero creo que después de un par de meses finalmente fui a Medellín con amigos, y fuimos a la estación cerca de El Poblado. Estaba con mi amiga P y algunos de sus hermanos y primos. Algunos de ellos ya habían tenido la experiencia, pero mi amiga y yo no, y estábamos súper emocionadas por montarnos en el metro. ¡Montañeras, por supuesto!
Cuando el tren venía a la estación, empezamos a correr de un lado a otro para intentar ser las primeras en la puerta cuando se abrieran, pero como había tantas puertas no podíamos saber dónde se detendría por completo, así que se pueden imaginar la escena de estas adolescentes corriendo frenéticamente.
Además, se suponía que no debíamos cruzar la línea amarilla en ningún momento hasta que hubiera una parada completa, pero mi amiga bromeando empezó a poner la punta del pie sobre la línea, luego la quitaba, luego la volvía a poner, y así sucesivamente. Tan inmadura, pero me da mucha risa recordar algo tan divertido y tonto, osea inmaduras las dos.
Esta memoria me llego a la cabeza por que he estado viendo la novela de RIGO, y ademas de hacerme reir mucho, me hace recordar estas memorias que son tesoritos guardados en archivos de hace mucho tiempo, y me da felicidad poder recordarlos y revivirlos en mi memoria!
ENGLISH VERSION
When I was 18 the first and only metro in Colombia was inaugurated. Medellín has been the only city to pull this off. It took years and a lot of money, planning, and effort but they made it happened. It was and still is quite the accomplishment. We had nothing like it in the whole contry, and I had never traveled abroad at that age, so of course, I was another colombian excited about riding the Metro!
My memory is a bit blurry, but what I remember is that after a couple of months I finally had the opportunity of visiting Medellín with friends, and we went to the station near El Poblado. I was with my friend P and some of her siblings and cousins. Some of them had already had the experience, but my friend and I hadn’t and we were super excited to ride the metro. Montañeras of course!
When the train was stopping, we kept running back and forth to try to be on the first ones at the door when it opened, but because there were so many doors we couldn’t know where it was going to stop completely, so you can imagine the scene of this teenagers running frantically. Also, we were not supposed to cross the yellow line at any time until there was a full stop, but my friend kept joking and putting a bit of her foot over the line, then remove it, then put it back, and like that back and forth. So juvenile, but I can’t help to chuckle remembering such a funny and silly thing.
This memory came to mind because I’ve been watching the RIGO soap opera, and besides making me laugh a lot, it reminds me of these memories that are little treasures stored in files from a long time ago. It gives me joy to be able to remember and relive them in my memory!
I have never been a runner. I liked to play some volleyball and basketball when I was in High School, go on bicycle rides, play ponchado, which I am not sure of the name in English, but is the game where there are 2 groups on each side of the court, and you avoid getting hit by the ball because you get eliminated if it hits you. I am sure there is a name for it in English but it scapes my mind.
As an adult, I have been practicing yoga, and have taken several classes at the gym, including kick boxing, spinning, cardio classes with my favorite being zumba and afro-brazilian, but other than that pretty low key. One day, many years ago I willingly got pulled into running a 10k without any training, mostly because I like the guy who mentioned the race and asked if I wanted to go, but I also thought it would be fun to try it out. I got my sister into going with me, and I had zero mentality of winning or being the fastest. In fact, we were more like tourists, taking in the views along the course. The 10K race was at Lands End in San Francisco, one of the most beautiful places in the city, where you get amazing views of the pacific ocean coming into the San Francisco Bay, and of course you get to see the impressive wide world famous Golden Gate Bridge in all its glory, most of the time, if there is no fog, or at least you see its bottom. That day it was a nice bright clear sky and we were enjoying the road, stopping to take selfies, or pictures of the view in the many curves that go along the coast. There were lots of opportunities to take awesome shots for sure.
I have to say, my thought process worked like this to set my mind set into doing the thing: Ok, since I got into this race with zero preparation, I know I can walk, I had done hikes of about 9 miles in the past, so if anything I knew at least I could walk the 6 miles distance, even if I was the last one crossing the finish line. With that little piece of naive but somewhat reassuring thought we signed up. My sister is way more athletic than me, she was playing waterpolo since high school, and would go on runs here and there when she could, so I knew she would be fine. Except, on the way back she got ahead of me, I couldn’t see her in the horizon, and when I finally crossed the finish line, my guy friend, who had probably crossed who know how many hours before me, asked me, where is your sister?.
What? Is she not here? she was ahead of me, for sure she should be here somewhere. He said he ad not seen her. Finally after a little while I got a phone call and t was my sister, she asked me, hey, where is the finish line? I am in the neighborhood with houses… She got confused and had taken a wrong turn by the Legion of Honor museum, follow the road down the golf course and ended up in the Richmond neighborhood… Ayyy! My friend could not believe we were not serious about our time, and that we were stopping several times to take pictures here and there. Ooops, I did not know the etiquette and was oblivious to seriousness of the people racing. My bad, I apologize.
With all of this for an intro, I think you get the idea, I am not really anywhere near being a runner, or an athlete in any category. I enjoy low key physical activities, mostly dancing, because they bring me joy, but I guess my competitive side is quite chill! (Although I have seen glimpses of a little fire in there in some situations).
Anyhow, I was recently listening to a podcast with guest Rick Rubin, I didn’t know who he was but he had released a book called the creative process, and I wanted to know more about this person. I listened to the podcast, the guy is a record producer, with lots of experience in music and creative projects, has a podcast, is a writer and has had quite an interesting life. His main message is that in art and the creative space you need to do what you love and what tickles your fancy, and not really what all the marketing people recommend which is cater to the consumers. His approach is more of follow your bliss, and all of the other stuff will follow, and if it doesn’t, that is ok, because you are being genuine with your own creative desires. I like this idea very much!
In the podcast, he mentioned a book he had read. The book is called Born to Run, here we go with the running again. He said he was not a runner but the book was fascinating to him. I felt pretty curious and looked it up. I am mostly using audiobooks now, they work for me even though at first I felt kind of like cheating, but then a friend mentioned they are like reading because as you listen you have to imagine the scene, or situation, and so we are using the same part of the brain as when we read. This makes me feel so much better.
I have started the book and I am now almost half way, the book is indeed fascinating. The writer, who is a journalist but also a runner himself is obsessed with running. He embarks in this research of the most fierce runners out there, and he finds there is a tribe in Mexico called the Tarahumara people. The Tarahumara live in the Copper Canyon area, in the southwest part of Chihuahua, under the most basic conditions, with a very basic diet, eating beans and corn mostly, and with footwear that is more like a huarache sandal. Nothing fancy or high tech. These people are pretty much the most humble super humans to roam the earth, and I had no idea they are well known for their long distance abilities.
I didn’t know there were even ultra runners until maybe 10 years ago, and I only found out because I know a friend here in the city, who used to go to the parties or social events, etc back in the day, and then gradually started to disappear from the social scene. He had gotten the bug of ultra running, and the social parties and the ultra running DO not work well together. Imagine how much you have to endure when you run 50 or 100 miles, continuously, day and night. And I guess some people even go for 200 miles. I mean, who are these humans? what are they made of? What is their brain like? I am so curious and have so many questions.
Back in October, I spotted a running group here in my little neighborhood in Noe Valley. This group advertised through social media they organize runs every Friday at 6:30 am for a 4 mile run, or 7:30 am for a 2.5 mile run. Since October, I kept thinking I wanted to try the short run. Since my infamous 10k years ago I have not done any sort of thing like this… but it looked fun, and I guess I am feeling the isolation aspect of a remote worker. We are social creatures indeed.
For the past 4 months, I could not get it together to go on this little run, sometimes it was raining dogs and cats, and the temperatures were to low for me to get into the outside world, which I know some people would find laughable, but to each its own. SF is not that cold I guess in the wide spectrum of temperature, but it is cold enough for me.
Anyway, yesterday I finally muster my energy and went out to join the unacquainted neighbors and try out the little run. I had woken up super early, feeling good in energy and the temperature was not too low, finally! I had to push aside the uneasy thoughts, trying to not care about the awkwardness to introduce myself to new people. I am totally out of practice for new social interactions, so I guess that was a good thing to test as well.
My expectation was to find maybe 10 people or so. I was surprised to see 30 to 35 people showed up. There were 2 clear captains of the group, for what I could see, and one of them instructed everyone to form a circle and to go around saying our names out loud. Then he asked if there was anyone new, I raised my hand,and I think a few other people did as well, but I could tell a lot of them were regulars. When I first showed up I talked to a young man who was approaching the corner of the cafe where the group meets, I asked him if he was part of the group, and mentioned that I was new and was going to try it out. He was nice and said he was part of the group, and that this was his second week. And gave me some words of encouragement.
After all the intros the group started running. We went down on Sanches, for like 2 blocks, to encounter the first up hill segment, we turned on Elizabeth to a semi flat segment and took on Church street up to 22nd street, to go to a most welcome down hill segment, then it was mostly flat on guerrero up to 29th street, and back up a little hill to Sanchez to go back to the cafe. Pretty early on the run I was on the back, but thankfully with a group still nearby. There was a faster group that was ahead but one of the captains stayed with us in the back. By the last stretch I was out of gas, mostly our of air, but I could walk-run sort of. I finally made it to the cafe, last one, but not too far behind the last group to get back. No one seemed to care what time you got, which was great! Some nice lady high five me, and kept saying nice reassuring comments. They were kind and I appreciate that.
There were parts of the run I sort of hated the activity, and I thought, why do I do this to myself, but there were other parts that were ok, I am fine here, moving at my little pace. I can see why this is a very mental activity, you have to deal with the beast, the struggle and deal with it, so you can keep going, step after step. Although I did feel like I wanted to call an Uber, I have to admit. By the time I got home I felt great, I started to make breakfast, I wasn’t starving, but I had a huge appetite and I was thrilled to eat my signature breakfast, pronto. Those who know me know my menu. Arepa, with a spread of avocado, cheese, and egg on top, with hot chocolate. Umm chef kiss!
The high of the run, and the blood pumping lasted for a while, I felt great, productive, and in a great mindset! I see why people get addicted to running, and I admire their grit and determination.
As a bonus point, I found out from the little conversation after the run, that the St Paul Church, on Church street, was the filming location of Sister Act! I had no idea, even though I been here for so many years. See, I love this kind of interactions, you never know what new thing you will learn!
I leave you with a picture of the church I took yesterday, not during the little run, I learned my lesson from the 10k to not take pics during runs if possible! The cherry flowers are blossoming, so extra cherry on top, pun intended. I will return to my audiobook, I am fascinated by this gods from the Olympus that descended upon the earth in human flesh. Truly mind blowing.
St. Paul’s Church. Filming location for Sister Act!
I first heard this American proverb at a Toastmasters meeting. This very nice lady that was part of the group was giving one of her speeches and she mentioned the phrase. Through the context of her story, I understood the meaning, although I still had to look it up.
For me, the saying meant that if you find yourself in a difficult situation, you need to take action, and so something about it.
Of course, sometimes this is easier said than done. Usually, difficult situations come accompanied with undesirable friends, like fear, anxiety, shame, doubt, etc. All of them combined can lead to a freeze response. You are incapable or moving, if it’s a physical response that you need to do, or you are unable to make decisions, and this can bring it’s on consequences and not for your own benefit.
The phrase made me reflect quite a bit, and even though this happened years ago, I still remember this nice lady when I hear it, or read it somewhere. It became a core memory.
I recognize the freeze pattern that sometimes I have experienced going through difficult situations. It is so frustrating. And that is part of the learning, dealing with the frustration, and the feelings of I have no clue. There is a big relief when you get through it, even if it was a painful transition, but getting to the other side is better than staying in the undecided, not what to do phase.
May you find the strength to get into action. I’m ok with a temporary freeze because in a way that is the time you are static because you are digesting the information, strategizing and coming up with a plan of action per se, but let’s hope the freeze time doesn’t take too long and that you can get unstuck rather quickly. The point of view can make a huge difference and it will open up the possibilities once you make your decision and move forward. Its even ok to take a step back and re-direct. Life is definitely not a strait line path.
With love, may you get the strength to navigate life’s ups and downs! The universe doesn’t owe us anything and most things are out of our control.
I recently found out about a little book called consolations of philosophy. The book was written by Boethius, an Italian man that lives around 400 B.C. The book is ancient but full of wisdom that is still relevant today. In this book Boethius tells his story on how he went from having success, a family, a good job, and in a twist of fate finds himself in prison after the king he worked for thought he was a traitor. In his prison cell Boethius is feeling desperate and extremely hopeless with the situation. He knew he was going to be sentenced to death and could not defend himself. He started writing and he said a woman appeared with messages. It was lady philosophy coming to the rescue. Here is a short video that explains his book in great style from The School of Life. I love how they talk about the Inner Citadel, which is you inside fort, your most sacred place where you have control of your thoughts and your actions, your attitude and your outlook in life. I hope you enjoy it!
I have been having this very strange dreams, most of the time funny and weird! And there are some rare evenings when I get the creepy nightmare, and those I don’t like as you may relate.
I usually go back to sleep and then at some point I wake up with a song in my head! I usually forget quite quickly, but I am always surprised with the tune in my head, it’s so random!
The other day I woke up and the song was super clear, I didn’t know the singer, but I was able to look up the words in the chorus, which were electric avenue and there he was, Eddy Grant! I learned he is a Guyanese-British singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and was part of the band the Equals.
But there is more! the song has quite the background, per wikipedia:
The title of the song refers to Electric Avenue in the south London district of Brixton, the first market street to be lit by electricity. According to Grant he first became aware of the existence of the street during a stint acting at the Black Theatre of Brixton.[1] The area is now known for its high population of Caribbean immigrants. At the beginning of the 1980s, as identified by the Scarman Report, tensions over unemployment, racism and poverty exacerbated by racist policing culminated in the street events now known as the 1981 Brixton riot. Grant, horrified and enraged, wrote and composed a song in response to these events. Shortly after, Grant left the UK to live in Barbados, and his most recent batch of songs was lost during baggage transit. “Electric Avenue” was one of the songs he wrote immediately afterwards to make up for the lost material.
I had no idea!
I will try to keep an eye on the upcoming songs in my head and see what I can learn, this has been a very enlightening exercise!
It’s winter here in San Francisco, and yes, it’s not a brutal winter by any means and I am very thankful for that. It’s mild if we compare to other regions up north or on the East Coast.
There is rain, and then it goes away, we have had lovely sunny days, and even temperatures in the high 60s, which is quite nice although I would say atypical for this time of the year.
This week we are getting through a storm moving from north to south, and it has brought quite a lot of rain, they even call it Atmospheric River! Yesterday, there was lot’s of rain in the morning, hard drops, I could hear them even with my brand new windows that are double pane and are quite good at sound proofing outside sounds, but this I could hear, so it was powerful indeed.
In the afternoon, the rain retreated, sort of, the clouds started moving and some patches of blue parted in the sky! I decided it was my opportunity to go for my daily walk before more water decided to materialize in the from of droplets, so I put on my tennis shoes and jacket, and off I went. As I stepped outside the building, it was drizzling, I almost turned back, but I spotted a beautiful rainbow hitting the Mission, so I decided to keep walking to get a better look. I had no idea I was in for such a visual treat! The droplets mixed with the sun rays and there were quite a few rainbows in different parts of the city!
I decided I would go on my regular loop since that takes me up into a hill and I could have better visibility. The original rainbow was gone when I got to the top of the hill, but there was another one, bigger, brighter and beautiful! BBB! I saw people in cars pulling over the curb to take pictures and take the majestic sight in!
Here are a few pics I was able to snap!
Rain and Sunshine, The lord’s grace! – My grandma used to say this, but in Spanish, it rhymed.
“Lloviendo y haciendo Sol, son las gracias del señor” decía mi abuelita!
Hum, what a great word! Among some of its definitions we can find using the Oxford Dictionary, and good old Google, perspective is:
The art of drawing solid objects on a plane surface so as to give the same impression of relative position, size, or distance, as the actual objects…
a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view. “most guidebook history is written from the editor’s perspective”
For this piece I am using the second definition, as today I had quite a good example of perspective, from peoples point of view depending on what place on earth they are!
I am currently in San Francisco. Our current temperature is 56 Farenheit, which is about 13 Celsius! Not too bad for early January, some would even say that is a great temperature to be in! A few weeks ago I returned from a trip to Bali, where the temperature was reaching 105 – 110 Farenheit sometimes, depending on the location and time of the day, the humidity was super high as well, and as much as I like warm weather, it was sometimes unbearable to be outside!
Today, I saw there were some notification in slack from co-workers that live in the north of Sweden. They were sharing they were currently experiencing temperatures of -43 to -36 Celsius! I can’t even imagine what that is like! One of them sent a picture and you can see some little white ice balls on his facial hair near his nose! He was covered in a scarf and the scarf had more ice! It’s also crazy to see their weather app reports, seeing a -36 celsius but feels like -48 celsius! Looord! This would be my worst nightmare, honestly! I would think of all the ways to not be there, as I sometimes do here… but I see that maybe I exaggerate!
The 2 extremes make me feel like SF is indeed a good place to be at the moment, all because of perspective!
Now if I want to feel FOMO, I can go watch the feed of people that are vacationing at some hot beach place, but honestly I think I am onto something good here, so it may be best to avoid the social platforms, so I don’t ruin this illuminating moment of reflection!
I live in a small studio apartment in a beautiful and very expensive city, San Francisco CA.
According to Zillow the building was built in the 70’s. The apartment has 3 panels of windows. 2 regular size and 1 large panel that is the size of 2 regular windows together. The windows were so old, single panel and for some reason they didn’t fit perfectly in the frame so when you close them there was a gap. This would make the apartment super cold during the winter months and I would wake up to very cold air during the early hours of the day. It sucked. There was also mold and as much as I tried to clean it it would come back.
I have been in this space for a long time but I guess I just got through each year because I was mostly getting through each day in a fast paced prepandemic world. I would get up super early to get to work in downtown, drop off the kid in school and then get back to pick V up and do our school night routine. Then when the kid was older. I would get to the gym and then come home and rest to start all over again. You see I was only here in the evenings for the most part. And of course I would have to use the heater which is also super old but thankfully it works
Then 2020 hit and we started working from home. The apartment was sooo cold. I finally told my landlord if it was possible to upgrade the windows. I also noticed the other apartments had double pane windows except for mine. She said unfortunately it wasn’t in the budget 😱😭
The windows were so flimsy they would shake if there was wind and if you know the Pacific wind, you know it can come as quite a strong current. Basically, it was almost like camping… Just not completely outside and without the sleeping bags. No wonder why I would use so many layers and I have a dedicated blanket just for my head! Looord!
I managed to work remote from friends and family places sometimes but I can’t do that all the time. This summer the landlord had to come in to replace the fire alarm in the building. I showed her the windows again and pointed out the mold and the window gap and some cracks around the windows and just how bad the insulation was in the apartment. It was basically non-existent. Finally she agreed to upgrade the windows. Miracle!
The process took a few months since this happened and they had to bring in the contractor and then ordered the windows. Finally this past week the contractor came in and did the work. He also found out the water drain from the ceiling to the lower floors was completely rotten. I’m in the third level. I knew the neighbor on the second floor had problems during the rainy season because the water was out of control. The contractor is now working on the side of the wall and is replacing the surface with new wall materials. Thank goodness!
They patched up the cracks in my interior wall and also repainted. It looks like I live one 2023 now.
Besides the usual inconvenience of dust and loud noises from the machines they were using to rip the old windows out and finish the wood frames around the new walls there was one very stressful moment.
The Internet modem and router connection is hooked right in the middle of that wall. I even put a little sign for the 2 men doing the work. Please be careful. Internet modem. The job took three days. On the final day, yesterday, they were getting ready to paint. Meanwhile I started my work call and after about 5 minutes I lost connectivity and got kicked out of the wall. Mind you I was trying to get through this call from the bathroom since my studio is so small it was the only place with a door. I got creative and used some stools and books as a very improvised desk. Loord. Desperate situations required desperate measures. I thought about going to the library again but you can’t talk too loud during calls so I decided to stay.
As soon as I lost connection I panicked and ran out of the bathroom to check the modem. The cables were all wrapped in tape because the contractor was taping before painting. I couldn’t get the modem to work but I was able to get back into the call from my cell phone. I missed about five minutes but thankfully it wasn’t too bad.
After the call was over. I tried to re-connect each cable and see if I could make the Internet work. After several failed attempts during the rest of the day I still don’t have a working modem. I made about 3 calls to my Internet provider and they are sending a technician this afternoon. I am typing this from my phone. I know this is a very typical first world problem and in the bugger scheme of things all is well. I do hope this tech guy can fix the issue because I start calls on Monday super early.
The good news is that there is no more wild wind coming through the window and I have woken up to a nicer and warmer air this fine November morning. 🙏🙏🙏
Just in time as there is rain forecast for next week. Now I have to focus on the modem… 🫠🙈🤞
Ok, not a kid anymore! Although she is not an infant or a teenager, I don’t think of her as an old person, at all! To me, she is still very young with basically her whole life in front of her.
That is why it’s so funny to me when she says certain expressions.
For example, the other day we were on a call and she was telling me about a frustrating moment at her job. Then she goes on to say: “I’m too old for this sh*t”… in all seriousness!
Excuse me! 😂
I couldn’t help it but this is a funny choice, coming from a 20 year old being!
Or maybe kids these days feel they have lived so much already? I mean for sure she is way ahead of me, comparing with my 20 year old being, back in the day!
I guess I don’t know anymore, since I am from the last century! 😂
Even though I love movies, I don’t really go to the theater very often! I used to go quite a bit during Uni, and as a kid. These days going to see a movie takes a little more effort, for a few reasons.
– Streaming: There is a lot of good movies that you can stream at home
-Subtitles: You can turn on subtitles
-Pause/Rewind: You can stop and rewind if you need to, and you can take bio breaks and pause the movie so you don’t miss anything that is happening.
-Food and snacks: Your kitchen is right there if you get hungry!
Regardless of all of these conveniences, watching at home, is of course, not the same than watching in a huge screen with amazing sound, which is wonderful if the movie has a bunch of special effects. Also, the new chairs at the theaters today are sooo comfy! Wow, things have really changed in that department and definitely for the better!
So last week I went to see Barbie, on Tuesday night to get the discount ($9 instead of $19 in San Francisco). It was really fun, the color palette is quite vibrant and overstimulating, but very cool messages and so important to keep empowering women to become whatever they want to become. I had mixed feelings about going to see this movie! Typical story of many women that don’t look like Barbie!
I played with Barbie dolls as a kid, but then as an adult, questioned it and realized it wasn’t really a cool role model or toy for a kid that has nothing in common with the actual doll! Of course, there was a big influence of Machismo, and so that touched everything. I won’t get too deep into this right now. It is a good movie and is worth watching, even if it is just to see America Ferrera speech alone! Which was wonderful!
Today, I went to see Oppenheimer, taking advantage of the National Movie Day discount! It was
I know it has not had the same amount of viewers like Barbie, but it is a freaking amazing movie! Even though it lasts 3 hours, I didn’t even realized all that time passed, I was so into the story, I forgot about time! I did miss having subtitles, because it helps me if the actors mumble, or say some word I don’t recognize. Other than that, what a way to portrait history! I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t, but talk about man egos in the 40’s and 50s and even 60s! This is probably the movie of the year!
Anyhow, go see these movies if you can!
Margo Robbie as Barbie and Cillian Murphy as Dr. Robert Oppenheimer.
Brownie! 
