It’s been a long time…

Hi.  It’s been over a month.  I’m about to apologize for this long absence, but I just finished watching the Martha Stewart documentary on Netflix and man, what an inspiration!  She is so driven and precise, it's disarming.  But what I noticed most- she is unapologetic.  She just wants to move on. So I’m taking a cue from Martha.  Let’s just get on with it.

I can’t believe it’s November 1st.  To all my Northern Hemisphere friends, I hope you are reading this snuggled up with a delicious cup of coffee, clearing the cobwebs from a busy Halloween night.  Here in Paraguay, it’s 10 am and almost 100 degrees, you know, peak springtime weather.  I’m drinking my iced coffee and trying to settle my nerves because I just learned our friends have scorpions in their house, which means I just learned that Paraguay has scorpions, something I’ve consciously avoided Googling since I knew we were moving here.  I’m contemplating buying some knee high boots and never taking them off ever again.

Since I last wrote, we spent our Spring Break (4 days) in Buenos Aires and I loved every minute of it.  Food was great.  City was beautiful.  I loved strolling around imagining one of my favorite writers, Jorge Luis Borges, walking the same city blocks drawing inspiration from the beauty of the place. 

We also took a little weekend road trip to the town of Paraguarí a couple hours away. Our friends (of scorpion fame) let us hitch a ride with them and their two dogs and we had a lovely weekend of lazing around by the pool, mild hiking, and great chitchat.

This weekend, Isaac and I are headed off to Iguazu Falls, the largest waterfall in the world, which borders Argentina and Brazil (and Paraguay, kind of).  We’re staying on the Brazil side which means that as I close out my fourth month of being here, I’ll be visiting a 4th country in South America.  I love that symmetry.  We’re planning on eating feijoada, riding a ferris wheel with a view of the falls, taking a boat to the mouth of the falls, and basically, just staring at the waterfall from every angle possible.  Also, there are supposedly toucans!  

Other than all my trips, I’ve been settling into my routines here.  My pilates classes are also serving as Spanish immersion classes where I learn helpful words like tacón (heel) and metatarso (mid foot).  I show up in my ratty old t shirt and yoga pants I’ve had since 2002 and sweat my face off while the beautiful Paraguayan influencers in perfect outfits and full makeup spend most of the class setting up their tripods and selfie sticks to gently crop me out of their frame while they do one to three solid reps of exercise.  When they're done with that, they usually lay on the reformer and listen to their Whats Apps and then class is over.  It starts 10 minutes late and ends 10 minutes early, but I’m still sore the next day, so it’s all good.  I do that two or three times a week and then I mostly read textbooks and write essays for my doctorate program.  I’m taking a double load this semester, so it’s a lot of writing, which is why the Substacks have been much less frequent.  I try to add one or two new adventures to each week.  One week I got my hair highlighted (I’m very blonde now), this week I went to the doctor and the dermatologist (all good!), and next week I’m going to try to get some of my clothes altered.  These may sound like boring errands, but in Paraguay where it’s a million degrees and no one speaks English, they’re a wild ride! 

Lastly, I had a nightmare about the election a couple nights ago and I still haven’t been able to shake it off.  I’m very proud that I managed to get my vote in all the way from Paraguay.  Please get your vote in too.  Living abroad has brought to light all the things I love about California and all the privilege we have as Americans.  Use that privilege to steer us on a safer, more inclusive, and environmentally conscious path.  Harris/Walz!