Bugigangas

Where have my resolutions gone' Oh well, it doesn't matter much. The year never starts until after Carnaval.Carnaval this year was hot, hot, hot. We stayed home again and were surprised by how quickly the days went by. G went to his first bloco, which happened to be the sertanejo, or Brazilian country music, street party, which was kind of fun and not too crazy. We had high hopes of doing a costume for him, but in the end, it was just too sticky and he went out in a diaper and his baby...

Is it really surprising that the world wastes so much food'I think of our own household, and how with just three mouths to feed, sometimes we get swamped with leftovers that go bad. I don't always try as hard as I ought to use all the bits and ends that our modern recipes and tastes have relegated to the waste bin. I don't like wasting food. It may be a reflection of wealth, but it's not a flattering one.So I've started to hunt down ways to waste less. One way is by meticulously planning...

He cackles, throws his mouth open like a cavetwo stalagmites catching the light,four stalactites jaggering downfrom the laughter den.He grabs for me, those pawsevery day more sureless needing steadying.He twists and giggles, looks askance,tells me in no uncertain terms that I amdadagoo gooand heheheheh.Should I be flattered'My constrictor instincts surge,I want to squeeze himand swallow him wholebut the monsteris cleverand wiggles away,blowing bubbles,waving to himselfas if there were a...

A friend turned me on to Lou Beach, and of course, besides loving the stories, I thought "what a great way to encourage myself to write when the little man is hogging all my time." So plagiarizing his original idea, here's installment number one: Momma would sneak goat's milk into the jug, pretend it was store-bought. The speckled hairs floating on the cream betrayed her every time. Frugal, she saw nothin' wrong with free, not even when chocolate syrup couldn't hide the taste of wild...

The little one is napping. I'll try to start off the new year right, not losing these precious cling-free moments to the never-ending list of blog posts and news articles instead of writing. Since today is Sunday, I'll share Slacktivist's Sunday favorite, which happens to coincide nicely with some of what I've been pondering since our trip to the Northern Hemisphere over the holidays.Psalm 146Praise the Lord!Praise the Lord, O my soul!I will praise the Lord as long as I live;I will sing...

Before the little man was born, I joined up with a group of writers for a critique group that meets a couple of times a month. It's been fantastic for my creative life. I've never been much of a sharer and even less of a finisher. If you opened my hard drive or journals, you'd find absolutely compelling tidbits of stories, scraps of ideas, thoughts and essays. Compelling nibbles. But very little that is actually complete, something that can stand alone. Be published. Be shared.Thanks to my...

The internet can be a monster, sometimes a good monster, sometimes an evil one. It consumes time and trivializes relationships down to an IM message, a Facebook post, a two-second email...while at the same time making it possible to keep in touch with people who, in an internet-less world, we would have been separated from by both physical distance and the quirks of life.I'm hoping that the internet monster is going to continue to show its good side to the people I'm about to tell you about,...

I can't believe it's been a month since I posted. Geeze. Sorry. I hope I still have some readers left! I have no excuses other than I've been:1) learning to navigate life with a 4 month old, which is great and wonderful and way more brain consuming than I was prepared for. I don't want to write when I sit down. I want to nap. Or play sudoku. Or, gasp!, watch television. Good thing the latter is locked away in the storage closet!2) feeling kind of under the weather. My arthritis has been...

(Apologies for the lack of linked links...I haven't figured out the ipod app and typed this all with my thumb!) Reading my blogroll at our 5:45am feeding (8 straight hours of sleep!!!), I latched on to this phrase from a blog post: "Lack the courage of their convictions." (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2012/08/whats_all_the_fuss_about_todd039350.php#)I half-wonder if we even know what that means anymore.Honesty with others has already fallen by the wayside, but it is...

The Republicans are the Democrat's best friend this year. Are the Democrats donating to the campaigns of guys like Missouri's Todd Akin' Because if they could get guys like him even more time behind a microphone, the elections are sealed in their favor! Akin's making the news for saying in an interview that "legitimate rapes" rarely cause pregnancy, so the legality of abortion in cases of rape is really a moot point. Did the senatorial candidate skip 8th grade health class' Fascinating...