Leveling up

The last couple of days, I have been trying a new approach to motivate my nephews to do their chores. I call it the "Turn it into a video game" model. 

Get dressed? You passed the level. Brushed your teeth? You leveled up! Did something nice that you didn't have to do? You powered up! Wait, the next level is a cooperative timed level! Can you work together to win the level? 

So far it's working. Which could just be because it's novel and I'm the aunt not the mom. But I am definitely going to milk it for all it's worth as long as I can. 

When is a party not a party

I received an email from Microsoft with the subject heading "5 easy steps to turn your holiday party into a PowerPoint party." And the only appropriate response is, "WHAT?", said in the Marianno style, where what is legit a 4-letter word. 

I don't want to undersell PowerPoint. It is pretty handy. But in what version of reality is there a group of people planning a party--work, family, neighborhood, I don't know--saying, "This party is okay. But what would REALLY make it the party of all parties is a PowerPoint." And throw out party of all parties. I don't think there is even anyone saying, "A PowerPoint would add a nice element to our party." Yet, Microsoft sells it as making your party extraordinary. 

And yes, it would definitely make your party unusual or remarkable (see definition of 'extraordinary'), but I think not in the way you want. 

But a PowerPoint party isn't just a party with a PowerPoint. It's like a Pampered Chef party, but with tech. Per my email, "At a PowerPoint party, each person creates and shares their unique presentation to the group. Add a theme or keep it random. Then let your friends and family show off their creativity at this event they won’t soon forget."

If you are really my friend, if you really care about me, do me a favor: never invite me to this event. And I will do the same. Happy holidays. 

More travels

Greetings from Machu Picchu! Well, I'm home now, but I was in Peru last week. Hopefully these pictures will be worth at least a couple hundred words. 

Plaza de Armas, Cusco

Cusco

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Chinchilla, Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

My favorite mountain at Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

approaching Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Llama at Tambomachay

View from Saqsaywaman

view of Cusco from Saqsaywaman

Saqsaywaman

Sawsaywaman

Feliz navidad

I usually try to hold off on Christmas stuff until after Thanksgiving. Mostly out of a weird unfounded worry that I'll burn out on Christmas too soon.* Or get in the Christmas mindset too early and still have a huge chunk of the year left. NO evidence that either of these will actually happen, but there it is.

This year, though, I am starting early. Two weeks ago, I was just ready for the Christmas music. So I jumped in, which I can get away with because I live alone. And today, I put up the tree which yes, is early, but I have a VERY good reason. See, I'm out of town for Thanksgiving, and I get back on Sunday, and then I leave super early on the Wednesday for a work trip to Peru, I get back from that on the 10th, and then I go out of town for Christmas on the 17th. And won't be back until January. So, if I don't start now, I won't get to do it at all and I LOVE the Christmas decorations! 

And yes, of course they will probably stay up until February, but you don't get the same feel from them after Christmas (trust me, I know). They are still awesome, and I still love them, but the Christmas vibe is past. It's the lead up to Christmas where they are the best. 

That is why I'm doing Christmas early this year. Because I feel like it, and I deserve it, and I need it, and the season is going to be too short, and I need just a minute to breathe, and maybe with the mood of Christmas, I'll get my minute. And it's beautiful. 

*And I also want to add, I support people who start sooner, because that's your call to make and sometimes, you just need some great Christmas music. Also, there's just not enough time for everything if you wait too long! But I'm not a fan of Christmas stuff going up the day after Labor day in stores and black Friday happening in October. It's too much.

Holiday spirit?

It's that time of year when businesses try to get you to buy stuff for Christmas. And I've noticed a trend in the commercials. Basically, it's, "We're such a great people-oriented business. If you give us a lot of money, we'll give a small portion of it to help people in need for the holidays."

Call me a grump, or a socialist, or whatever. It just seems like a really great company would just give money to help others whether you spent money with them or not. And if I really want to help people, I'll just give my money directly, rather than going through you, Mr. Corporate Middle Man.

I know this is nothing new, but for some reason, this year it's bugging me. (Possibly because with streaming, I'm getting the ads on repeat...and repeat...and repeat). I'm not planning on being a major spender this Christmas (or any, really), though, so I will just do my best to ignore the nonsense. 

New Year's celebrations

I know, it's not even Thanksgiving. But, this week at work, we were talking about how we celebrate the holidays. My Chilean coworker mentioned that in Chile, you celebrate the new year the way you want it to be during the year. To which I mentioned I always spend it sleeping, and my boss said, "Is that why I'm always tired? I welcome the new year by sleeping, so then I am sleepy the whole year?"

Which makes me think we need some kind of guide for ringing in the new year Chilean style. For example, does sleeping at midnight mean you will be sleepy all year? Or well rested? If you party alone, does it mean you'll be lonely? Or (for the introverts among us) content in your own company (which can be a good thing). If you spend the evening playing games with family, what does that mean? Or watching the news? 

So basically, we need the New Year's celebration equivalent of dream interpretation: what does xyz thing mean. And someone needs to write it soon, because I need to get my plans right!

Civic duty

Am I the only one who finds voting stressful? And, now that I think about it, a lot of civic duties are stressful. Jury duty, for example. For the record, I think I would be a horrible jury member. I sense that I would come away with lots of questions and doubts and I just don't recommend me for jury duty.

But voting. That comes around much more frequently than jury duty and there is no lottery setup, where you might get out of it. And it's just...the worst. 

I think I could handle it if I had to choose from a series of good candidates. I mean, that would be the dream. But usually, it's choosing between a series of undesirable candidates. And there's the ballots where there's only one candidate. 

The closer to the local level you get, the less information there is. I tend to resort to whoever bothered to fill out their bio on the free election website. At least they bothered to put in that low hanging level of effort. 

Furthermore, why are some of these positions elected? Why is the state auditor an elected official? Or the coroner? (Not a thing in my state, but it is in some). It's weird. Just hire someone, for crying out loud. Not everything needs to be a vote.

And don't get me started on the mail. I will vote for the candidate who opts to save the planet by not sending out a bunch of junk email telling me about how bad their opponent is. And whoever doesn't text me with dramatic warnings of doom. I'm not into drama, especially trumped up drama. 

Yeah, voting stresses me out. Nevertheless, I will do it. Because it is my responsibility as a citizen. But, I would really love it if it could be less stressful.

With great power comes...

...a massive amount of emails. 

I shifted to a supervisory role at work a while ago which I never really wanted to do. I would have been content not being in management, but what can you do. And there are several things I don't love, but one of the things that is a definite drawback to being a supervisor is the number of emails I get. I don't love it.

In my previous role, I could get away with cleaning out my inbox once a month (or less!!!). It was brilliant! And I didn't get the back and forth on things as much. One or two emails, problem solved, moving on. Now, I send out one email and get a dozen in response (and the email tool we use doesn't group them together, annoyingly). I got my inbox down to 60 earlier this week, and I'm already back at 120. 

Which may not sound horrible to some people but it is mildly panic inducing for me. A few, I can handle, but a flood of emails is too much. 

So all in all, I'll take less power. And fewer emails.

Adulting lessons

There is a ton of information about being an adult that I seem to never have received. I don't know if it is just me, or if we all missed out on that particular class but either way, I definitely missed the class on dealing with illness: how to know if you are sick, how worried to be, when to call a doctor, and basic care when you are sick.

I came down with something on Tuesday night (seriously, hit me out of nowhere), and stayed home on Wednesday. But since then, I've just been a bit queasy. And at the same time, not, which makes no sense I know. I have just felt off and not really wanted to eat anything, and have been a bit nauseous and tired. And probably some of it is just a mind game at this point but I'm still just not gung-ho about eating. 

There are some upsides, though. I haven't had to decide what to eat for dinner at all this week. Or fix dinner! Or lunch! (Which, given that more frequently than I'd like to admit, I don't get to lunch, at least now I can say there's a good reason for it). But, given that I haven't had a ton to eat, it just makes me more tired, which definitely isn't helping things. And I'm not entirely sure when to get really worried. 

And my friends keep telling me (because they are good friends!!!) to rest, and I really do try but this annoying life business keeps getting in the way. And hopefully today will be a turning point. I am feeling better. I mean, ice cream sounded great, so that's a good sign, right?! 

Anyway, I am just feeling like I should know better what to do in this situation so if anyone has any notes from that adult class, let me know. 

I get it now

Twenty years ago this December, I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Spanish. Twenty years ago, it didn't seem like a great career move. The number of people who asked me, "What do you do with a degree in Spanish?" [Answer: Speak Spanish and hope someone hires you to do something.]

In high school, I'd actually kicked around becoming an architect. But when it was decision making time, I chose to go to a university with no architecture program and no real idea what I was going to study. You could argue that it came down to a better financial aid package, other reasons. But honestly, I just felt right about attending the other university. 

I kind of fell into Spanish, too. It wasn't really planned. I took 101 and 102. Then 201 and 202. And just kept going. I still don't feel like I'm particularly good at it, and I know at the time I didn't feel super fluent, but I kept at it. Twenty years ago, I never could have predicted how pivotal that seemingly random (or at the very least, not super proactive and determined) decision would be. 

As part of my degree, I did a study abroad, leaving the country for the first time. I look back and can't even imagine the kind of person I would be without that experience. I am humbly grateful for how it expanded me as a disciple of Christ or, for the less religious or non-Christians among us, as a global citizen. It it didn't feel dramatic at the time, but it was the little decision that made a huge impact. (Okay, maybe not little. It was a 4-year degree, which is a pretty big commitment of time and resources. But you know what I mean).

But that's not all. After graduating, I did indeed speak Spanish and find people to hire me to do work that had nothing to do with Spanish. And then, ten years ago in April, I graduated with a Master's degree in Archival Science. Now I am an archivist for a global religion and guess what I specialize in? Records from Latin America. My team meetings are in Spanish, English, and Portuguese, with Spanish as the lingua franca. A significant portion of the records we collect are in Spanish, and I then describe them in both Spanish and English. I've been to 4 Spanish-speaking countries this year, and will likely go to 2 more before the year ends. 

It's not that being able to speak Spanish wasn't useful in the years between degrees. It always came in handy. But here I am, twenty years later, seeing that it wasn't just a handy side skill, while I got on with other work. Not to minimize my master's degree--if I only spoke Spanish, I'd be pretty useless. But, 10 and 20 years later, I can see there was a purpose to the path I was inspired to take, even though at the time, it felt pretty purposeless. And I hope in 30 and 40 years, I look back and see even more how purposeful those decisions and future decisions have been. 

Vroom vroom

Yesterday, my friend was trying to teach me how to roll my r's properly when speaking Spanish. I've never really been able to manage to do it right, so he was trying to teach me. And in the process, I discovered that we say our r's really weird in English. 

My friend kept saying, "Say run." And after some back and forth, I realized that r's are very different in English and Spanish*. When he says "run", its a postalveolar sound--the tongue hits kind of between the hard palate and the alveolar** (the area above the back of the teeth).

In English, we make a palatal r sound--our tongues are back farther in our mouth, and the sound is made in the area of our palate. Which was a revelation to my friend (and to me) and also made him want to puke a little. Not sure I blame him. When he made his r's the way we do in English, the difference between the two pronunciations became really obvious. 

It was a very entertaining conversation with lots of laughter (mostly at my horrible attempts to not vomit r's) and I don't know that it's necessarily blog worthy, but I share it because 1) I just love that it's a conversation I got to have in the middle of a Walmart and it makes me happy that I have friends around the world, and 2) I finally know how to actually learn to roll my r's and get better at Spanish. So it brought me joy, and we all need more of that. 

*I may have noticed this twenty years ago when I studied linguistics, but if so I had completely forgotten.
**Again, it's been 20 years, so I may be a little off on this, but that is how he was saying it. 

Teotihuacan

 

Mexico City

Since college, if you had asked me where I wanted to go in Mexico, my answer would have been Mexico City. And finally, after 20 years, I made it.

Why Mexico City? It's a city on a city on a lake!!! Why would you NOT want to see that? A city built by Aztecs about 700 years ago, on a lake. And then, 200 years later, the Spaniards come, and decide to build their city on top of Tenochtitlan. And it's still there!!! On top of the city on the lake!!! And it's kind of sinking in places (yeah. I did mention it's on a lake, right?) but it's STILL THERE!!! How amazing is that?!  

Anyway, one thing off the bucket list. 

Basilica de Guadalupe

Meat cooking

Templo Mayor

Metropolitan Cathedral

Palacio de Bellas Artes

Museo Nacional de Antropología

El Caballito

 

Who knew?

It turns out that I hate unpacking.

At least, I assume that's the case based on the fact that for all of the trips I've taken in the last 6 months, on only one occasion did I unpack within 24 hours of arriving home. I got back from my most recent trip on Wednesday and still haven't unpacked everything. And the record? I think it was something like 2 weeks to fully finish unpacking.

It may not be fair to say I hate unpacking. I think it's more a lack of interest. I'm ambivalent, and there are other interesting things to do, so I don't get around to it. Which could have some sort of deeper meaning about the state of my life or something, but who has time to worry about that.*

Also, in my defense after this latest trip, I was coming off of a week of averaging 4.5 hours of sleep per night, going into essentially a 5-day weekend**, and coming out of COVID (very mild case, and only 1 out of 3 tests confirmed it was COVID, but I feel like it was the confirming test that counted). Clearly, other factors were at play.

All of which means I still haven't unpacked completely. But tomorrow, if I break my general pattern of non-working day shenanigans, it will get done.

This is fine. 

*Okay, you got me. I do. Or at least, the couple weeks prior to my departure I seemed to, because I spent a lot of time laying in bed not falling asleep overanalyzing life. So, time? Yes. Desire? NO.

**That ended up really being a 3.5 day weekend. The first day went as planned: worked half a day and took half a day sick-day. The second day was supposed to be a comp day, for working the weekend before, but then there was a project our team in Mexico had to have done by the end of the day and of our team of 7 people stateside, only one was planning on working. And it's not like I could go anywhere (COVID. I probably could have gone somewhere, but it seemed like a really bad idea). So, I kind of worked 5 or 6 hours. Maybe 4. Whatever. It was fine. We got the project done, and I wasn't bored out of my mind all day. I also didn't unpack, but tradeoffs. 

The truth about Mondays

Mondays are the day we find out what pranks the universe has been preparing for us. Every Monday morning, we get up and we go to our work, whatever that may be. We have an idea in our heads of what the week will bring, conjured up on Sunday evening as we ran through everything approaching in the coming week. 

And then the universe reveals its hand. "Ha! You thought you'd work on editing and cataloging today! How charming! But I have a surprise, just for you. Kiss your little plans goodbye!" Our week is upended and the other days just fall like dominos. No amount of begging will keep the universe from tipping the first domino. 

And truthfully, what else is there to do than sit back and enjoy? 

Health and well-being

It seems like lately, my closest friends (and me!) are hitting a wall when it comes to life. Maybe it's burn out, maybe it's a mid-life crisis, maybe it's the post-pandemic slump. Maybe it's just the people I hang out with,* I don't know. I do know that everyone I know is feeling the increasing madness of the world. And be fair. The world really has lost its mind. 

As a result, I've decided that instead of asking how my people are doing, I'm going to ask how their sanity is. It seems far more the relevant question. And, just think! It would keep the conversation about mental health going without putting all the work on famous people announcing the measures they are taking for their own well-being. All in together, I say.

And while we're at it, I have another thought. Could we have a cabinet post for "Therapist of the United States"? I think the country could use it. 

Anyway, I hope your sanity is holding up. 

*But I like them and have no interest in changing crowds. My people are my people. 

The downside of adulthood

I know. There are lots of downsides of adulthood. It definitely doesn't float on a balloon. But here's a random and very minor one.

I'm listening to a book that I have read before and enjoyed. It's a retelling of the twelve dancing princesses. I enjoy retold fairy tales, and I am enjoying this one. However. In this retelling, the youngest 'dancing' sister is an infant. Literally a baby. The oldest is maybe 16? So, 12 kids, between 0 and 16, a deceased mother, and a father who is off at war. They are all inexplicably (maybe it explains later and I will get there) they are all SUPER obsessed with dancing. And the older kids, as they are sneaking out to dance every night, are thinking, "Hey. I know what we should do. We should drag along a baby with us while we go dancing. It will be fine!" Really?!?!?!

I know it's totally a story-telling device. If stories made sense, it would just be real life, and I get it--we get plenty of that. Maybe I always realized these little bits were kind of crazy and just didn't care, but it feels like now they scream at me, instead of being subtle niggles that I just ignore.

Don't get me wrong--I'm going to keep reading and I'm going to enjoy it and it's all going to be dandy. It's just one of those dumb things about being an adult. 

Service, PLEASE

Last month, I had a series of run-ins* with various customer service entities that nearly drove me over the edge of sanity. I was on the brink of finally setting up that archive in Antarctica that I've been talking about for ages, they were that bad. 

One of them involved trying to leave feedback about a certain delivery service that cannot actually deliver packages to my complex because it requires a physical key and this particular service doesn't have one driver assigned to the route. Obviously, for security reasons, it would be nutters to give the gazillion different drivers who might stop by to deliver a package their own key. For months-possibly-years, I have been training them one at a time on how to actually deliver a package to my complex. And it is exhausting. So I tried to send feedback explaining the situation but I was only allowed to leave feedback about the actual delivery person, NOT the company itself. Which just seems like they are saying, "Leave us anything we can blame on our employees, but we aren't interested in constructive feedback about anything else." Which is silly and rude.

Then there was a package from a different company that didn't show up. I tracked it, and followed all the instructions on their website for what to do if you can't find a package: wait 3 days, check the entire property (which in my case includes 10 buildings, all of which have 2 possible entrances where a package might be left), etc. Nothing. So I emailed. They emailed back and told me to do all the things on their website. Which, I will cut them some slack, because they probably do get a lot of people who don't check to see what to do and just email. And when I replied and explained I had already done those things, they were very prompt in getting me a refund. It was just frustrating to not have the thing arrive (and, probably not their fault). 

But the last one was the worst. I was trying to download something, and whenever I clicked on the link to download it, nothing happened. I read the website and did all the things. Then I tried to contact the company, which doesn't answer phones after 6:00, which is a pain, because I'm at work until then, and can't really problem solve for something that's on a computer in a different location. So I did their chat, which just puts you through to a robot, and the robot just kept telling me to do all the things on the website. I finally figured out how to get past the robot to an actual human, and the human told me to do all the things on the website, which I told them I had already done, so they told me, "Clear your cookies and your cache." Which, friends, is the new next step after, "Is it plugged in? Did you turn it on?", in case you wondered.

So I tried that, which took forever, and when it was done, didn't work, but the chat had already been closed. Sigh. 

Well, I decided to try again another day, and it was the same rigamarole with the robot, but this time, I got past him faster (it's like a new kind of video game! Bypass the bot!!!). And then the human, after reading the chat conversation in which I explained that I couldn't download something from the internet, hopped on and said, "It looks like you're having problems with the internet." Which is not at all what I had said, and made me question human's literacy skills.** So I explained to human the problem and that I had already done ALL THE THINGS and cleared my cache. And he sent me the link to do all the things, which again makes me question human's literacy skills, because I am not at all understanding what was confusing about my explanation, but I have wondered lately if I have some weird syndrome where I hear everything in complete, comprehensible English sentences but what actually comes out of my mouth and is heard by everyone else is gibberish***. 

Well, this human tells me to try starting my computer in safe mode to solve the problem, which 1) doesn't work and 2) again kicks me out of the chat. And, as a bonus, 3) has me wanting to bang my head against a wall repeatedly.

I never did get anyone from that company--robot OR human--to solve the problem. I figured it out myself when my computer asked about updating Java. I updated and voila, problem solved. (Which, no, that didn't come up in any of the google results when I tried to see if anyone else had the same problem. I really did do my due diligence).

Anyway, I'm not saying the penguins in Antarctica would be any better at customer service, but on the other hand, I wouldn't expect them to be, so I wouldn't be disappointed. And maybe it was just a bad run, and I'll go for months or years without such taxing customer service interactions. But, sheesh!

*If you can call it a run-in when there is no physical encounter and it all happens in a digital world.
**Maybe it was another more advanced bot?
***Why is it "gibberish" and not "jibberish"? I think the j looks better and makes more sense, really.

A driving tour of Santiago

 We didn't have much time in Santiago de Chile, but our chauffeur during our stay was so great that he gave us a driving tour on our way to the airport. 

 

Parroquia Nuestra Senora de la Divina Providencia and a cool bridge.

 

Cerro de San Cristobal and President Jose Balmaceda Monument

A random park

The National Library!!!

The Chile version of the White House, the Palacio de la Moneda

A random building that isn't actually random but I can't remember what it is

Alameda Railway Station (Or estacion central), which is 137 years old

Speaking of heat waves

And speaking of heat waves (it was in the last post), it's really making me miss Buenos Aires. Where it was winter. And by winter, I mean in the 50s. And I miss it so much. The best I can do is reminisce. 

The bad news is I didn't have as much time in Buenos Aires to get out an about as I did in Montevideo. The good news is my last night in Buenos Aires was at a hotel right in the city center (I'm guessing it's the center?) where lots of cool stuff was and I could see it all from the balcony. I did leave the room, but yeah, didn't have to.

View from the first hotel room

Shampoo, conditioner and body wash in the hotel, but super genius. Why are we still doing little bottles?

Empanadas. They were amazing! And this one shows really well how they mark the flavor with letters on the crust.

View from the second hotel room.

View from the second hotel room.

The Obelisk. With the letters BA. 

The Teatro Colon

The literally 16 lanes of traffic outside the hotel. Okay, 16 is just my estimate. You'd think I'd have time to count the lanes, but when you are crossing, you have to hurry just to get across the section. But if you can figure it out, kudos! I'm going with 16.