maria

talking

People come over and they almost always ask Will about his country. He tells a great story. But you knew that already.

We went to Balboa Park this Saturday.

We went to Balboa Park. That group of people there is the crowd gathering around a magic show.

Chris was the magician.

And he had an assistant.

Danny took her bike. She gets nervous when turning.

There was a gathering of the tropical fish club association group thingie of San Diego (chapter A subsection 2). All the fish were lovely, but this one was, by far, our favourite.

There were velvety plants.

And roses.

I go to a Halloween thing

Everyone was in costume.

This was my favourite - I think it's "Ugly Betty", see the monobrow?

Costumes gave the grown-ups the opportunity to be flirty.

Treats were brought and shared with everyone.

Penguins melted in the heat.

There was a Sheffield United player there - oh, alright, probably not, but you could have totally believed me.

tired

Will has had a couple of really hard weeks. These upcoming free days will be nice.

rich

We had a nice weekend, the kids were only going to be here until saturday night, but stayed until sunday morning. Saw friends on saturday, which was great, we went to their flat, there was food to eat (greek potato salad!) and drinks to drink, the weather was cold, but Nikos went into the pool anyway – Danny refrained – and then came home relatively early so Danny could go to a party that she later on decided against going.

I was sadder about this than she was. She really didn’t care. Or maybe that is what she tells me, I don’t know. She’s a teenager, I feel often like I lose my footing when it comes to being a mom to her.

covered in bees!

Will is back in school and things are nearly back to normal at home. I miss him, though. It’s weird, because you sort of forget that the summer break is exactly that, a break. And so when things go back to what they should be, it’s a bit disconcerting.

Slowly it’ll become routine. And then there will be the Christmas break and it’ll be weird all over again.  Good times.

behind the screen

The summer was cool and nice up until about a week ago. Right about when will was scheduled to go back to school – he hasn’t, for different reasons, all perfectly legit, but I won’t go into it, ask him if you want to know –, when the temperature started going up and going out became an absolute drag. Nikos went back to school today – on too little sleep, thank you, bastard ex – and Danny has been back for about two weeks now.

Remind me to tell you about her friends and what’s been happening there. Right now, I have to sort out the flat. We have people coming over today, for dinner. Will is making Indian food (not native american, as my idiot computer keeps suggesting, but food from India), and my task is to get the flat in a livable state before they get here. I totally had it down until yesterday, when I realised that the bathroom tap was wonky. Water was coming out but in a spray pattern that managed to get everything wet without actually having water land in the basin. So. I am used to this problem because the water we get in Tijuana comes from the river and pipes are constantly being repaired and whatnot, so pebbles and stuff are totally normal. It is also very hard water. And so I figure I’ll clean the filter in the tap. Except I’ve never done that before, because it’s not a screw-on filter. I have to uninstall the whole thing to see how to get it out. And once I do, I realise that it is a whole unit type thing so that I cannot just remove the filter, I have to buy the entire assembly. Which is brilliant of them, really, you know, to make it so that you have to buy a whole other water tap assy? Nice. Except of course, what maybe they didn’t think of, I’m not buying the same one. But. You know, you can see where they were going.

Anyhoo, this little project landed on my lap maybe on not such a good day for it because now the bathroom is a mess. BUT. I’ll get it sorted, and it is definitely a better plan than handing our guests raincoats before they go try to wash their hands in the bathroom. 

Will makes curry

The incredible boldness of it is that, even though he’s sort of learning to make it, he still decides, upon getting all of the ingredients that he needed, which would have been impossible to do if we couldn’t go across the border, that we should have friends over for this. He’s brilliant.

it's christmas eve tomorrow

 

you are so beautiful