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How do we apply epiphanies from stroke recovery to parenting? Easy, we now make our children count to 90 when they are mad. (Forget that counting to 10 shit…it doesn’t work; but 90 seconds, that’s a really long time.)

At the end of last year, Tom and I both read “My Stroke of Insight,” the amazing book by Jill Bolte Taylor describing her stroke and her subsequent recovery. One of the tidbits that really jumped out at us was her describing her left brain recovery and her realization that a lot of negative personality characteristics came from the left side of her brain (i.e., the internal voice that nags you for days after you get busted for a speeding ticket.)

We set about applying her insights to kid anger management. We passed on Jill’s observation that the body purges chemicals related to anger from the bloodstream in about 90 seconds, so if a person remains angry for more than 90 seconds, they are emotionally choosing to let that anger continue. (Yes, this is an important lesson for Mommy as well). So now, when our lucky offspring get out of control, they have to start counting to 90. And you know what? it really works!

Furthermore, if there is an issue that they just can’t let lie, we talk them through having the right side of their brain tell the left side of their brain to give it a rest. They actually respond to the physiological explanation of that little voice that won’t let it go…smart little beans.

As my sainted Mother likes to say, “I’m glad you weren’t my parents!”

Photo by Erica Marshall of muddyboots.org. Used under a Creative Commons license.

I must issue a disclaimer — I am a horrible knitter.

With that out of the way, let me tell you how I came to knitting. I decided to learn after placing two fabulous knit shops in their commercial spaces in Portland: Close Knit and The Naked Sheep Knit Shop. I approached my mother (who is excellent with all things craft) for lessons and she taught me (as well as Tom, Ian and Zoe) to knit over a Christmas vacation.

We were astonished at how hard it was to knit with a consistent gauge and we had tremendous difficulty not adding or dropping stitches. During our holiday festivities, we created abominations out of yarn, which my mother kindly labeled “fiber art.”

Eventually, I achieved enough facility to start (and finish) a project — it was a scarf. I discovered too that I love to knit while traveling — bus, car, diners, planes. So, my current modus operandi is to work on easy scarf projects with interesting yarn while bumming around on sabbatical (the fancy yarn is an attempt to compensate for the fact that I do zero in the way of complicated patterns).

The scarf pictured here is one that I completed just before making it to Southern Patagonia, and am I ever glad. It is a microfiber yarn with a carry-along thread that has a tight weave. It is toasty warm and has accompanied me everywhere, including glacier walking, as shown above. Completing it wasn’t easy, I didn’t have a crochet hook to thread the ends through the edges of the scarf, but Mom came to the rescue and suggested I use tweezers (something I don’t travel without given my eyebrows). It worked like a charm!

I’ve received a lot of funny looks as we’ve traveled throughout Argentina, it seems that knitting has not experienced the resurgence here that it has in the United States. (One Argentinian woman thought I had knitted the whole scarf with the tweezers when she saw me weaving in the ends.) Most Argentines are surprised to hear how popular knitting is with younger people back home. Aside from the puzzled and embarassed-on-my-behalf looks, I do receive many encouraging smiles from older Argentinian women, especially in rural areas.

What do Whitney Houston, Chumbawamba and Katy Perry have in common?

In the early 90s, when I was hopping between tiny Caribbean islands for months, it was impossible to escape Whitney Houston and I Will Always Love You. And when I say impossible to escape, I am dead serious. I almost achieved a state of PTSD over that song. On the other hand, hearing the theme to The Bodyguard now resurrects very fond memories of my travels.

In the late 90s, Tom and I spent weeks on our Honeymoon experiencing the beauty that can only be found in the remote areas of various national parks in the off season — Yellowstone, Glacier, Jasper. Ironically, the song that has become “our song” by virtue of it being played ubiquitously during our post nuptial haze of bliss in the middle of nowhere is Tubthumping, by Chumbawamba!! (What’s not to love with lyrics like, “He drinks a whiskey drink, he drinks a lager drink…” and “I get knocked down, but I get up again?” These are classic marriage themes!)

Fast forward to the new millennium. Traveling throughout Argentina, I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry seems to cue up in every restaurant, bus, grocery store and gym that we enter. It has become the song we shall always associate with Argentina.

Weird, I know!

QUIRK: Garbage Cans. Why is it that every cabin and every hotel room that I’ve stayed in has only one garbage can located in the bathroom; and why is said garbage can so tiny that you can fit exactly nothing in it; and, why does this garbage can have a lid with a rotating top that cannot function if there is actually any garbage in the bin?

QUALITY: Dulce de Leche…for breakfast…I mean caramel in the morning, does it get any better than that?

QUIRK: Flash Web Animation. In planning our two months of traveling this summer, we surfed a lot of sites from all over the country, and it seemed that EVERY site used the same Web designer because they all had a flash splash page that took forever to load and featured background music that could not be turned off.

QUALITY: Everyplace that we have traveled in the campo has had fabulous neighborhood dogs that kept the girls occupied for hours.

QUIRK: Maps with No North. We have noticed that in Argentina, maps are often displayed with an eye toward a pleasing layout and often do not have any indication of which way is north! Of one thing you can be certain though, north is not at the top of the page.

QUALITY: You can sit in a cafe for absolutely ever, sipping on agua or cafe con leche, and the waitstaff will never try and roust you out of your seat. (We truly tested this in Cordoba where we encamped at a cafe for 6 or 7 hours during our layover. At one point, we had two computers plugged in, running movies which four of us were watching on headphones with Y adaptors…no problem!)

Motorcycle/Scooter helmet law in Baires requires that you have a helmet on your person, but you don’t necessarily have to wear it on your head! I know…weird.

Generally, you see these permutations:

1. Not having a helmet at all.
2. Placing the helmet on the motorcycle in between the driver’s legs.
3. Hanging the helmet on the forearm, or in the crook of the arm, while driving.
4. Placing the helmet on the crown of the head, so it looks as if would blow off in a stiff breeze.
5. Seating the helmet completely on the head, but not fastening the strap.
6. Lastly, wearing the helmet as it was designed.

Ian has a friend who wears his helmet properly, and when Ian asked why, his friend said, “Because it’s more comfortable than wearing it on my arm!”

Don’t worry, I won’t be flashing pictures of my pasty white gams!

Prior to our arrival, my knee had been improving steadily since surgery, but it hadn’t received the day in and day out punishment I was going to be dishing out in Baires. When I first got here, the huge amount of walking required, coupled with the very uneven sidewalks, presented a real challenge.

I had to walk with my head down at all times, scanning for anomalies, and my leg was usually pretty swollen by the end of the day.

Fast forward a few weeks and things are really improving. Tom and I have been at the gym doing our own CrossFit workouts. I’ve been able to execute some deadlifting, squatting, jumping pull ups, stationary biking, etc. And, my walking has made great strides (pun intended), hitting the improvement trifecta for appearance, speed, and stamina.

I want to continue to work out hard before we leave in December so that I can actually hike while in Patagonia.

With neither of us working, our sabbatical is supposed to be an opportunity for Tom and I to do more together.

That sounds easy, right?

Well, it’s not as simple as I thought. It really requires a phase shift in thinking — surprisingly. You see, once you have kids, everything is planned for time maximization, and because someone has to be watching the kids, tasks are always divided.

We still fall into those patterns. If we have time free together during the day, our knee jerk reaction is to think, okay, how can we split up and get a bunch of stuff done? “You pick up the kids from school, while I run to the store and start dinner.” Or, “I’ll go to Spanish school this week while you use that time plan our summer travels and make reservations.”

We are slowly changing our habits. We now try to forget about being productive and instead focus on what we can do together!

So yes, we’re getting into the swing of things. What’s astonishing is that we had to work at it!!

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I am afraid that I can no longer suppress my strong feelings about granite.

Why in God’s name does everyone use this as a kitchen surface?

I hadn’t had any experience with granite until we moved into our rented condo last year. We had black granite tile on the counter surfaces. It was impossible to clean and showed every streak, drip, or speck of dust. And, tile as a kitchen surface??? What were they thinking — every grout line becomes a sinkhole for detritus!?!

Here in our temporary rental apartment in Buenos Aires, we have a solid slab of granite in the pattern shown above. This counter is still impossible to keep clean, and with the busy pattern, it’s infeasible to determine if it is wet or dry, sullied or unsullied, etc.

And, in relation to our aforementioned recurring ant problem, we can’t spot those little bastards on the counter to save our life. The buggers basically need to be engaged in the equivalent of a manifest destiny ant migration before we can locate them for the paper towel kill.

I hate granite. I’ll stick with boring old Formica (it will become retro chic any day now).

Big surprise, Zelda broke her glasses about a week ago. (She went to bed with them on…’nuff said.)

Anyhow, Tom and I would carry them around with us, ready to dash into an eye glass store whenever we happened upon one. A few days ago, we spotted a store, did the dash, but the very nice gentleman wasn’t really able to fix them. *double sigh*

Then, on Halloween, with blonde Zelda dressed up as a devil (wearing a red covering over her head with black horns sprouting out), we moseyed into the eyeglass store near her school. Needless to say, the American family walking in with their daughter dressed as a devil really caused an uproar. After several devil jokes, they took her glasses into the back for a technician to fix.

By the time we left, we had a pair of beautifully repaired glasses (free of charge), and a host of technicians and sales people gathered together waving a fond farewell to us as we strode out the door.

Buenos Aires is one of the friendliest big cities I have ever had the pleasure of visiting!