Anarchy and Flamenkulele

After spending the afternoon filling out a form trying to convince SIT that I will be an ethical researcher, I really don´t have the ganas to work on my damn capstone anymore, especially since, if I had it my way, I wouldn´t do research at all. My midterm report is due Friday, but I always do my best work at the last minute, so this will probably be brilliant.
After the news about Pinochet yesterday, I got distracted from the fact that I had a really great weekend in the mountains, hanging out at my new favorite place with Mathis, Mariann, and the kids. My pololo Ben came with me and fell in love with it just like everyone else does. Leo, the WWOOFER, was still there, along with another great girl from before, Jeany, and some new WWOOFERS from Denmark. I got to do my first olive harvesting, which was a great excuse to climb really high up into a tree and whack at things. I only got thwacked my Mathis once, and nothing was broken, so all in all, I think it was a great work day.
Florina, who is two, has been my challenge for the past few weeks. She finally decided to be my friend this time, and spent a good hour filling my sweater pouch with olives, then emptying them onto the net. I am amazed my how fast she´s growing. Suddenly, she´s starting to talk all the time, and since the last time I visited, she´s started to eat vegetables. It makes me all broody. As if raging mid-20s hormones weren´t enough, now I actually have a beautiful little duker picking olives with me. As they say here in Spain--fatal.
Birta, who is the oldest, spent a lot of time with me this time, and we´ve decided that we can call each other sisters now. She´s been taking care of a neighbor´s horse, Mina, so I taught her how to pick hooves, and got to go on a nice bareback ride. Then we braided each other´s hair and jumped on the trampoline. It´s like happyland for freaks.

The semester´s winding down here, and working is almost impossible. The whole city is like a mythical Christmas parade, and it´s almost enough to get me in the Christmas spirit if it weren´t for the damn Christmas carols. Here, we get the English and then the Spanish version. As a little act of rebellion, Zack and decided we are going to buy a menorah and celebrate Chanukah. Being the bad non-Jew that I am, I don´t even know when it starts this year. I beat Zack, though. He´s just a bad Jew. Gotta love the matriarchal lineage thing.

Mom gets here in less than a week, and I am so excited. I´m not sure how she´ll handle the fact that it´s really cold everywhere, but we´ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We have a week in Malaga, and I think if we close our eyes, put on a bathing suit, and get the bathroom all steamy, we´ll be able to pretend we´re somewhere tropical. I´ll even buy a little palm tree just to add to the illusion. My email says that it´s dumping snow in Colorado. I don´t want to hear about it because I might cry, but for those of you there, please enjoy it. And make a snow angel. Next season, I swear...