The definition of STUPIDITY

My natural hair color is something like this
(minus the termites)

For those of you who don't know, I color my hair. Oh, I know you guys are sooo shocked. People who have known me for years have seen my hair go from various shades of blonde to red to blondish-red to reddish-blonde. It's like a kaleidoscope of hair color. When people ask me if my hair is natural, I say something snappy like, "This is the color I was supposed to have..." I've been coloring my hair for so long, I don't remember what my real color is... I don't think my own hair knows what color it really is. All I can say is the color I see when my roots start growing out can only be referred to as "Tree Bark Brown." Booooo-riiiiing. Flat. Dull. BLAH. It's so dull, I would become invisible if I didn't color it. Sooo, to spare the world from my evil powers of invisibility (there's no telling what trouble I'd cause if I ever decided to go invisible) I color my hair.

SO, now you know. The cat's outta the bag. The color is outta the box. Whatever.

Now, the definition of STUPIDITY is when you decide, after having a couple glasses of wine, that it's a good time to color your hair. And even worse (or more stooopid) is asking your husband, who has also had a couple glasses of wine (we've found an excellent cheap brand of boxed wine here), to put the color on your hair. So I mixed up the color per the instructions given to me by my lovely hair stylist, Adriana, from Austin. I hand the bowl of color and the application brush to Joel and he proceeds to jam the brush into my scalp over and over, attempting to not only color the existing roots, but also the roots still located INSIDE my head. OUCH OUCH OUCH.

I inform him that yes, he's doing a GREAT job of getting the roots, but ask him to please angle the brush in such a way that the bristles aren't getting lodged in my skull. Slowly, but surely, he gets the color on and it takes quite a while... And per Adriana's instructions, the color is supposed to stay on 25 minutes. Hasn't it already taken more than 25 minutes to put this stuff on? I dunno. My brain was telling me not to keep it on that long, but the wine told me to keep it on longer. So I set the timer and waited...

Tick-tock-tick-tock...
DING!
Time to wash it out!
I went to the tub and wash and wash and washed until the water came out clean.
I toweled off my head...
and looked in the mirror...
and...

OH NOOOO!

Her hollow eyes always creeped me
 out... WHERE ARE HER PUPILS?

I knew there was a reason why
I love Happy Meals...

I looked like the illegitimate love child of Ronald McDonald and Orphan Annie.

Ohhhh nooooo. No no nooo.

Damn that boxed wine! DAAAMN!

It was so bad, the next day while I was at the Puppy Palace, one of our sweet volunteers -- a man from Spain named Carlos -- saw me and said, "Oh Jennifer! Your hair..." and all I said was, "Yeah, yeah, I know." And he said, "Oh, no! I mean, no, it looks good..." but you know how you can tell when someone was brought up to be polite no matter what? That's what his reaction reminded me of. As my mom always told me,“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all."

I keep hoping hats will become the new fashion trend in Guatemala. Or maybe I'll start my own trend and wear a sombrero and tell everyone it’s just sooo much easier than putting on sunscreen every day. Or maybe I'll just suck it up and live with my SUPER DUPER FIRECRACKER EXPLOSION HOLY COW GRAB THE EXTINGUISHER BECAUSE HER HEAD IS ON FIRE SUPERNOVA RED HAIR.

*siiiiigh*

Until we meet again and/or until my color goes back to a color found in nature, stay thirsty my friends!

From rags to riches...or...HOLY CRAP! Check out the new house!



Courtyard with fountain... Stairs lead up to the giant guest room.

Yep, we've moved. And like the Jefferson's on TV, we've moved on up. WAAAAY UP. Not to a deee-lux apartment on the West Side, but to a bad-ass house in a place called Panorama.

Here's the situation. The lady who owns the house wanted to move back to San Francisco. The house is for sale and she needed someone to stay here and look after her dog and cat. So, here we are -- living in a quirky house with a nice dog named Ailsa Craig (named after an island in Scotland) and a very vocal cat named Squitten. Did I mention the gal who owns the place is a tad bit...ooooh, what would you call it... ECCENTRIC? (Other words come to mind, but this was the most fitting.) And damn, wouldn't you know it -- two days after we moved in we got an email from her saying she got an offer on the house. DAMN DAMN DAMN! Well, we will enjoy it while we can.

This house is AWWWWWWESOME. For those of you who have been amusing yourselves by reading about the death trap known as the CRAPartment (complete with a light switch INSIDE the shower), you will be happy to know we are safe and sound in a little nugget of Guatemalan heaven.

We have a garden.
We have a courtyard with a fountain.
We have a garage.
We have a washer AND a dryer. (Which we will never use because it will kill our electric bill and that is why everyone here hangs their clothes out to dry. At first, it really sucked, but I'm getting really good at hanging laundry out to dry. You can't imaging how creative you get when you are running out of clothespins and still have half a basket of jeans, socks and t-shirts left to hang.)
We have hot water.
We have a balcony with a hammock.

Former president says, "Hello neighbor"
(but in Spanish).
And is it just me, or is this man
making love to you with his eyes...?

We have not one, but TWO guest rooms.

We have two and a half bathrooms.

We have an office.

We are living across the street from the former president of Guatemala (Alvaro Arzu) so there are armed gunmen walking around the neighborhood. Ahhh, home security. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over. (Or totally creeped out by all of the guys walking around with rifles.)

My clothes are now in a DRESSER! Yes! I am so organized! No more throwing everything together into an orgy of undies, socks and bras. I can actually reach in the drawer and know exactly what I will find. It is so nice.

The kitchen has an over with NUMBERS. Nummmmmberrrrs. I can bake things and have a fighting chance of not burning them to a crisp. (Wish me luck anyway.)



The way cool kick-ass bathroom with the way cool kick-ass bathtub

 The bathroom is amaaazing. I mean, realllllly niiiice. It's like something you'd see at a fancy spa hotel. And it has a BATHTUB! I can take baths! BAAAATHS. It's sooo much easier to shave my legs in the tub than trying to do the flamingo one-legged stand in the shower.

View from guest room balcony... There's Agua Volcano looming
in the distance. Arzu's house is across the street
(where the big-ass man-eating view-killing monster ficus trees live).

The only bummer about the view from the upstairs balcony is that we can no longer see my friend, Fuego Volcano. Why? Because the former president of Guatemala has these big-ass ficus trees planted along the edge of his fence creating a screen so people can't see into his yard. (Yep, ficus trees grow that big here -- they are MONSTER-SIZED.) Nevermind the fact that every house here has a 10-foot high wall around it (homes are like mini-fortresses, minus the moats) he still felt the need to grow these gigantic trees. Who knows -- maybe he likes to sunbathe in the nude and wants the extra privacy? I need to go have a little talk with him and ask him to pretty please cut those trees shorter so I can continue with my obsession of watching the volcano erupt at night. I will promise -- Scout's Honor -- to never watch him sunbathe in the nude. He's about 65 years old -- believe me, if he's out there in the nude, I really DON'T want to see anything he's got swinging in the breeze. *sigh* We have an excellent view of Agua Volcano, but it's dormant and booooring. *sigh*sigh*siiigh*

And here are some more pics of our lovely new place. Enjoy!
 

Entryway looking toward houses

  

View of front garden



Bedroom with freakishly high ceiling...
We could put a basketball hoop in here and practice our free-throws.

 

Big ol' guest bedroom... There's a fireplace off to the left that you can't see in this picture.

  

Guest bathroom



View from guest bedroom down to courtyard


Until we meet again (or until next time we need to move), stay thirsty my friends!

-Jennifer

I'm not wearing any pants right now...

...and there's a good reason for it.

First, let me explain to you that I only have five (yes, 1-2-3-4-FIVE) pairs of jeans here. And my #1 very favorite top-gun most excellent A-1 mucho bueno pair of jeans are my good ol' Levis. I looove these jeans. I've had them for yeeeears. Like a trusted friend, these low-rise denim jeans have been there through all of my ups and downs (emotionally, physically, weight-wise, etc.) and they have magically form-fitted to my body. They are loose where they need to be loose, snug where they need to be snug, and don't give me what I call "bucket butt" -- where the back gapes open and shows your bootie when you bend over. Gotta love a pair of jeans like that, right?

Something bad happenend to my beloved Levi's the other day. I could have cried; I know I let out a little whimper. I looked down and -- gasp! -- there was a little tear in them.

NOOOOOOO!

Sad, but true. I have no idea how it happened, but there's a small rip just above my right knee. I figure it will only get worse from here. That little tear is going to slowly grow and grow and grow until I have to hold my pant leg on with safety pins. (How attractive.) I wonder if I should do the humane thing and put them out of their misery before they suffer too much, similar to Old Yeller...

So, the reason I'm not wearing any pants is because I needed to read the tag inside my jeans and NOT because I'm some strange "blog-when-you're-naked" pervert. I'm sending out an SOS (or, an SOJ, in my case) to all of you good people out in Blogger Land. If anyone can hunt down a pair of Levi's 313 Nouveau Boot Cut jeans, size 6M, I would be MUCH obliged. (Actually, the little brown leather tag on the outside of the jeans says they're a "515 M" -- who knows what that means?) I don't know how I will ever get these jeans from you, but I looked and looked for a replacement pair back when I was in the States, but couldn't find anything quite as perfect as this pair. I know it will be damn near impossible to replace my wonderful hip-hugging, comfie jeans, but I thought I'd throw my request out there and see what happens...

(Funny -- Joel just walked in the room and said, "Jenny...Why are you almost naked?")  :-)

Until we meet again, stay thristy my friends!

Harry Potter ain't got nothing on the Wizz-zards of Guatemala

Having no toilet seat is pretty common.
This is when those "hovering" skills
really come handy. And believe it or not,
this was the ladies room in a decent
 restaurant -- not some little dive in the
market! I'm usually just happy when
 bathrooms have toilet paper. And if
they have SOAP, too? Well, that's
like winning the Potty Lottery!

Hello again... It's me.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- MEN HAVE IT SOOO EASY. Especially when it comes to making their bladders gladder. The line for the men's room is never long. They can sit. They can stand. They can even wee with a drink in their hand. (I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam I Am.) They can even write their names in the snow. Women aren't so lucky. (Plus, my name is long and I think I'd have trouble dotting the "i.") We gals have to squat, lean or hover when the time comes. Ooooh, the misery!

But this story is more about Guatemalan men and the extraordinary powers they have when it comes to peeing.

Let me 'splain.

Guatemalan men think they become invisible when they pee in public.

Yep. They believe as long as they have something to AIM at (a light post, a wall, a tire, a rock, an ant hill) no one can see what they're doing.

Really guys? I mean, REALLY?

It's nassssty. I don't want to walk down the street and be surprised by a guy who is obviously NOT invisible wizzing away on a light post. Or by the side of a car. Or on a wall at the market.

So, here's a little advice for you Guate dudes from your good buddy, Jennifer: 

• THE LIGHT POST DOES NOT MAKE YOU INVISIBLE.
• WE CAN STILL SEE YOU.
• WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
• WE REEEEALLY DON'T LIKE IT. 

Plus, the men here must have hummingbird-sized bladders because not a day goes by when I don't see a man peeing away like his life depends on it. Oh, and they really aren't picky about what they're peeing on -- just last weekend we saw not one but TWO men wizzing on the wall of a church. A CHURCH? I mean, isn't that sacrilegious? I think so. Joel honked the horn as we drove past them -- I hope it scared them and they peed on their shoes. I have often yelled "HEY!" when I see a taxi driver who has pulled over on my street to pee on a wall. They usually finish quickly, looking embarrassed that their Powers Of Invisibility have failed them, and drive away without looking back. Grrrr. My street is NOT their toilet! Grrrr-grrr-grrrrr...

The happy face tortilla, my trademark

Anyway, there you have it. Watch your step when you walk on the sidewalks here. 

 

Oh, and here's a picture of something I did at lunch today. Anyone who has known me for any length of time will know that no tortilla is safe when I'm around.

Until we meet again, stay thirsty my friends!

Here, I am a GIANT



Me and Joel... Damn, I didn't realize
that Godzilla could shoot fire like that...
I think Joel has the advantage here.

I am only 5'4". I've never been referred to as tall or "statuesque." I will never get a phone call from Victoria's Secret asking me to wear a diamond-studded bra and matching thong in their next fashion show. My body type would best be described as "rounded at all edges." I'm not chubby, but there are parts of me that jiggle beyond my control. I resemble a stocky little bridge troll with my small feet, thick "Man Calves" (which make finding cute winter boots a bitch) and my short T-Rex arms. I once had a boyfriend tell me I was "unconventionally pretty." Ummm...thanks? (I think?)



But here in Guatemala, I am a giant. I mean it. The indigenous people here are very short and I am taller than most of them -- even the men. When Joel and I are at the market, I have no problem finding him in a crowd. (His Spanish genes ganged up on his Mayan genes and he grew to almost 6 feet tall.) If I am a giant, he is Godzilla. So that's it -- together we are Godzilla and Mothra, towering over the frightened villagers, making them scream and run for cover.

(Ok, they don't run and scream, but it's funny to think that they might.)


Godzilla Joel with his sister, Emma (in blue shirt)
and her daughters. Oh, by the way, Emma and her
daughters are very nice -- it's just that people
don't smile for pictures here. I dunno why.



And not only that, but I get lots of attention -- from men and women alike -- because I don't look like everyone else. Again, it's not that I'm a supermodel or a rock star. I just stand out. Most people here have dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes. (Although, strangely enough, there is a small group of albino indigenous people here, which is really unique.) I have reddish hair, light skin, and green eyes. The eyes get the most attention, but just a week or two ago, I had a deeeeelightfully gay man go ga-ga over my hair. He said, "Oh your hair -- it is lovely! I like it very much! It is bee-yoo-tee-ful! With your skin and eyes -- bee-yoo-tee-ful!" He touched my hair and explained that he was a hairdresser and his name was Fernando. I smiled and had to choke back my laughter at the obviousness of it all. Of course his name was Fernando...of course he was a hairdresser. Any other occupation or name would not have worked. So I am a big hit with gay Guatemalan hairdressers, if nothing else.

So, if you want to stand out in a crowd or feel really TALL, come visit us!

Until we meet again, stay thirsty my friends...

Ten Reasons Why I'm Cool

This is my "Don't Touch My
Popcorn" face. If you think I'm
kidding, just try me. You'll
probably lose a finger.
Possibly an entire hand.

 1.   I can eat my body weight in popcorn. (Anyone who has ever gone to a movie with me knows how dangerous it is to try and take the bucket of popcorn out of my hands. Many have tried. All have failed. I went on a first date with a guy who wouldn't let me hold the popcorn... Needless to say, it was our only date.)
2.   I still get excited when it's my birthday. (Doesn't everyone?)
3.   I know the words to "I Think I Love You" by The Partridge Family. (This is only cool if you are a member of The Partridge Family or a member of The Partridge Family Fan Club... of which I am neither.)


Mine is like this, but greeeeeen.
How cool is that?

 3.   I own a green t-shirt with the Millennium Falcon on it. (I know, I know...you are really jealous.)
4.   I am a Ninja. (But don't tell anyone.)
5.   I have driven a car in Guatemala City...and survived. (Even worse, I have ridden in a chicken bus from Guatemala City...and luckily survived.)
6.   I believe a really good grilled cheese sandwich can cure any illness. (Well, unless you are lactose intolerant...)
7.   I can recite almost every word in the movie "The Princess Bride." ("Anybody want a peanut?")

Yes, this size of spider is worthy
of my fear. (The one on the left,
that is. The "spider" on the right is
Joel's hand, demonstrating what a
big-ass spider this is.)

8.   I have climbed 4 volcanoes and have poked at lava with a stick. (It's gooey like Silly Putty, but much, much hotter.)
9.   I am not afraid of spiders. (Unless they are reallllly big.) (And have fangs.) (And growl.)
10. I know how to use a chainsaw. (It's fun for the whole family!)

Pictures of the CRAPartment

Due to this apartment ranking high on the Crap-O-Meter (we don't call it "Casa de la Caca" for nothing) and also because the landlady's son is a EVIL D-bag who tries to make everyone's life miserable, we will be leaving at the end of this month.

Do we have a new place to live yet? Noooo. Are we worried? Slightly. Have we been looking? Oh yes indeed!

We've seen a wide range of living arrangements -- from "apartments" (and I use that term loosely only because calling it a "prison cell from Alcatraz" might have offended the lady who showed it to us) that had a piece of plywood for a door and a chain and padlock for a door lock, to places with beautiful views, glassed in patios, and community pools (which were about 10x out of our price range)... We've seen it all.

It's depressing to say this, but the place we will probably end up is a first floor apartment that has ONE small window in the entire place. It's super cheap, it's only a few blocks from where we currently live, and it's NEW. Yes, it's decent inside and has new appliances and all that stuff, but DAAAAMN, it's going to be like living in a cave. Joel and I will have to start calling ourselves Pebbles and Bam-Bam. And here's another unsavory fact about the possible new apartment -- you have to walk through someone else's house (the kitchen, to be exact) to get to ours. Eeeew. I'm not too keen on that idea. I hope-hope-hope the neighbors don't like to cook in the buff. I reeeeaaaally don't want to get to know them that well. And you should never really cook in the nude anyway -- I mean, grease burns hurt enough when they land on your bare hands... OUCH.

In the meantime, enjoy the following pictures of our soon-to-be ex-apartment.



Notice how the light switch is inside the shower?
Yep, safety is our #1 concern here in Guatemala...
Plus, you have to swivel your way through the tiny bathrooom
in order to get to the bedroom. Convenience is
our #2 concern here in Guatemala...



These curtains are just overgrown lace doilies. They are perfect
for an exhibitionist who wants to be seen naked in their house, while
maintaining their innocence... "I don't know how they saw me naked!
I do have curtains on my windows, you know..." Riiiight.
The only room without these curtains is the bedroom which has striped red
"velveteen" curtains, which were most likely purchased when Hugh Heffner
had a garage sale at the Playboy Mansion.



Yes folks, THIS is our super-comfy (ha!), super-plastic,
circa 1965 plastic lawn furniture sofa. This is really cool
patio furniture, but it's terrible for a living room. We'd love to
move this to the roof but the landlady would have a cow.
(Not shown are the two matching chairs.)
(Yes, we are lucky enough to have the entire set.)



Ahhh, and here's a shot of our high-quality windows that look out
to other high-quality windows... Niiice. Be sure to note the lovely
avocado green appliances in the kitchen. Oh, and did I mention that the
oven dial has NO NUMBERS on it? I mean, how can you cook something
at 375 degrees when you have no idea what the temperature is?
I'm a bad enough cook as it is -- give me a fighting chance!
Numbers! I need NUMBERS!



Speaking of windows... Here's a picture looking up at our bathroom windows.
Notice how the one in the middle isn't quite big enough to fit the frame?
You wouldn't think it would make a big difference, but considering the apartment
has no heating, you can really FEEL the cold wind when it comes a-whistlin'
through this gap! Especially at night. And especially when you've just
stepped out of the shower. Brrrrr!



And here's Joel standing at the gate to our complex. That gate is a beeyatch
to open when we need to get the car out -- it has 4 different panels with hinges
and pegs that go in the ground and in the upper frame. UUUGH.

Wish us luck on our hunt for the next casa! I will keep you posted on all of the fun we're having in our search and will post pics of the new place...wherever it may be. Until we meet again, stay thirsty my friends!