In 2015 I got a valentine named Leila (born February 14th)
…and a little firework named Nolan Antonio (born July 4th).
Devin and I finally went to Mexico City to visit my cousin Carol’s family. Carlos Manuel and Devin became fast friends and spent hours playing rockets. I wish I had a video!
Victoria told me her favorite hobby was “helping,” so we spent time folding clothes and writing letters. She also learned to whisper and told me secrets like “I love baby Leila” and “Will you please come visit me again?” (I’m positive this information has been declassified by now.)
All four of my sobrin@s finally got to hang out together in November, and I realized just how little babies care about each other. Victoria was excited, but the rest of them were preoccupied with things like sleep, milk, and their mothers. I suppose the real lesson is that I know almost nothing about babies because I expected them to have so much fun and become BFFs, but I guess those types of interactions don’t happen until after you’ve mastered things like holding your head up and feeding yourself? IDK.
This summer Devin and I said goodbye to New York and hello to a little city between two lakes. In between, we decided to see as many of our friends and family as possible. Our goal was to attend every wedding we were invited to and meet all the babies we hadn’t yet met, and somehow we were able to do it. Highlights from this summer vacation included
• going to Jill and Eric’s wedding in Portland (the first Portland wedding I went to was my own, and Jill and Eric came to our wedding, so it was like déjà vu + role reversal + our friend Tasha!)
• sightseeing in San Francisco with my mom
• sharing Chihuahua with the world via Enormous Eye
• falling in love with Mexico City
• packing up our apartment and saying goodbye to our friends in New York (that part was actually so hard and sad and why can’t you make everyone you love go everywhere you go?)
• being welcomed to our new neighborhood in Madison by this incredible octopus sculpture (it’s gone now, but I will never forget it)
Sometime in 2015 I decided I’d like to be the Ambassador for Mexican Snacks. I blogged about burritos and junk food, and at Christmas I got my very American suegra hooked on Valentina, Mexico’s top hot sauce. Though I’m not yet receiving a paycheck for my ambassadorial services, I am certain that my career is on track and look forward to living in a mansion with a giant chamoy fountain in the center where I can entertain dignitaries and elevate Mexican snacks to the level of fame they deserve. I expect all of this to happen within the next year, and you are all invited to the housewarming party. ; )
I arrived in Portland three days before the wedding and was reunited with Devin, friends, and my family who battled the harsh bureaucracy of that cruel border just to say ‘I love you’ in person. That sounds melodramatic, but my little cousins’ visas weren’t delivered until a day after their flight left. The grown-ups in my family came together and bought them new (last-minute, very expensive) tickets. Then, they had to figure out how to get them to the airport and convince the authorities that they had permission to fly without their parents. I should mention that this was their first time traveling by themselves. Just to say ‘I love you’ in person.
The day before the wedding, we took thirty of our friends and family to a little island where we picked berries and flowers for the party. We picked so many, in fact, that we set a record on the farm for most berries picked, and Devin’s parents had to figure out how to get them to their house in Wisconsin so they wouldn’t go to waste!
Devin and I got married on a sunny day. He looked sooo good. Neither of us really remembers the feminist ceremony we planned for months. We do remember the flowers lovingly arranged by our cousins and friends, the surprise ice cream we received in the park while playing lawn games, and dancing to the sounds of seventeen musicians with my cousin Caren on vocals.
After celebrating from noon to midnight, we stayed at a hotel that I’m pretty sure I imagined and willed into being. The building’s architectural details have been preserved for a hundred years; it was decorated with Old Hollywood film stills; and when we asked for ketchup the next morning, they sent us a whole bowl.
We took a train along the Pacific Coast, basking in the beauty of the scenery, white-tablecloth dinners, and a freshly-made bed every night. This would have been a great honeymoon, but we were even luckier, spending a week at a veritable oasis in the Sonora Desert. Though I’m from Northern Mexico, I’d never been to a beach in my region, and it was incredible to swim in the ocean and emerge in a place so similar to my hometown. Devin and I spent our days swimming and snorkeling. We ate fresh fruit with chamoy in a hollowed coconut. At night we danced and learned about Puerto Peñasco from friends we made who live there. On our last day, they led us on an epic scavenger hunt to get souvenirs for our families and eat all my favorite snacks one last time before heading back to the States for a tornaboda on Devin’s family farm!
Where Devin’s from they’re into potlucks, so we asked everyone to bring a pie. In all, our friends brought 20 different pies! I tried in vain to taste them all; Devin succeeded.
We ended the night, and our summer, with a big bonfire and camping on a cold night in our cozy new sleeping bag for two.
Fun fact: our wedding was captured by two dear friends. Devin has known James practically his whole life, and I met Marissa the last time I wore a white dress in a church, my First Communion! They both had to travel far to attend and then got to work as soon as they landed. It is so cool to see the wedding through their eyes and know that the photos were taken with love.
We are really lucky to have family and friends who all chipped in and made the wedding beautiful and fun. Thanks, everyone! We love you!
I haven’t written much about planning a wedding, mostly because I don’t know the first thing about it. But this week I am in Portland with my mom to see Devin and start putting some real thought and effort into figuring out the beginning of our plans! This trip was planned on the shortest of notices. And I mean that. Here’s the timeline:
On Wednesday, Devin & I decided to have our wedding ceremony & reception in Portland.
On Thursday, I realized I have this week off from work.
On Friday, my mom and I decided we should come to Portland. We bought plane tickets in the wee hours of Friday night/Saturday morning and flew in on Sunday! I had never bought a plane ticket/packed my bags on such short notice.
Phew. I am also working on a very big translation project, which is fun but time-consuming work. I can’t really remember the last time I slept a full eight hours, but I am very happy about the reasons I haven’t been sleeping. My brain keeps having these pop-up notes like: Translating? Hanging out with my mom? Seeing Devin? Portland? Biking seven miles with Devin…and my MOM? Wedding-planning? IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?!?
It is actually happening, and I am posting this before I go to bed because I try my hardest to update this thing once a week, and I doubt I’ll have much time tomorrow. Sorry if it isn’t a very interesting post.
Let’s close with some engagement pictures!
Here we are sitting on the grass looking like your average engaged couple.Here we are showing off our watches like the feminist engagement super(s)heroes we are!
Funny story about these pictures. I made this grand plan for Jo to take our engagement pictures. Only I forgot to tell Devin…and I also forgot to tell Jo. Until the day I thought the photo session would be. Luckily, they were both free and such good sports about the whole thing. I guess after you know me a while you realize that while I might be good at planning, I am not always so good about communicating plans (some would say that’s the most important part, but what do they know).
‘Home’ is the word I most strongly associate with Portland, Oregon. It is far from the only thing I associate ‘home’ with—shopping malls, telenovelas, Christmas, American commercials from the 90s, and Mexican junk food all rank high on the list. But Portland is a special part of that list because it is the only place where I have felt at home from the moment I arrived.
I remember landing in PDX airport in August of 2007 and running to the restroom. When I turned to flush, I saw my first dual-flush handle (it allows the user to control how much water is used to flush, which saves gallons of water.)
It was love at first flush.
Everything I encountered after that was just as perfect: farmers’ markets, efficient public transit, bike lanes, flowers the size of my face, trees the size of my dreams, public parks, and delicious vegan food everywhere…
Because I moved to Portland for college, it became my first home apart from my mother’s. And what a home it was! Fittingly, Portland also has some of the most beautiful houses I’ve ever seen. While I was visiting last month, I tried to capture some of them.
The number-one reason Portland houses are beautiful is, of course, the setting. The above picture is an unedited iPhone photo of a random house I saw on my way to the bus. Look how full of life Portland is! Look how tall that tree is! Look at that tangle of flowers on the mini-porch! There’s probably a more apt term than ‘mini-porch’, but I am not an architect!
Even if you subtracted the setting–as I tried to do for this shot–Portland is full of beautiful Victorian and Craftman-style houses painted in cheery colors. This house with individually-painted shingles in some of my favorite colors used to be my dream house. When I showed Abbita, my grandmother, a picture of it, she noted that it had too few windows for her taste. You can’t tell from this picture, but I agree with Abbita. My dream house should have no fewer than one million windows.
Portland residents also like to add fairytale touches to their already magical real-estate realities. This Craftsman has miniature toy dinosaurs on every rock in its front yard! I’ve also seen tiny toy horses tied to horse rings in sidewalks. (Horse rings are what people in the 1800s used to ‘park’ their horses. Read more about Portland’s toy horse project here.)
But what’s a home without an interior? This picture of my friend Alex’s house shows two things characteristic of Portland homes: (1) amazing old wood details and (2) color. Sadly, the photo doesn’t do justice to the deep orange of this dining room’s wall. Another thing I love about this picture is the cross. Alex was my roommate freshman year, and this cross is the first thing we bought to decorate our room. We bought it at a store selling fair-trade artisanal goods from Latin America. From what I remember, it’s either from Ecuador or Honduras, but uh, don’t quote me on that. Living with Alex is one of the best living arrangements I’ve ever had—and that’s even considering the size of our room. It was so small that the next year it was turned into a single-occupancy dorm. Alex, if you’re reading this, I love you! Thanks for letting me crash in your perfect house.
When I walked into Jo’s house (a house I’d been dying to see ever since I saw this house tour on her blog), the first thing I saw was this yellow tea kettle sitting on the most darling gas stove I ever did see. I was breathless over the color coordination among the kettle, wall décor, and dishtowel. If I had a Pinterest, I would pin this soooo hard. Let’s focus on what’s important here, though: tea kettles. Every Portland house has one! A lot of them have a stovetop one and an electric one. I didn’t even know what an electric kettle was until I moved there, and I’d only really had two kinds of tea in my life: chamomile and peppermint. Then, I started drinking tea to stay warm, and pretty soon I was drinking it just to drink it. Once, when I was feeling very romantic and Devin was writing his thesis, I bought him flowers and fancy tea. Only the tea tasted like perfume, so I ended up using the tea bags as potpurri for my drawers. All my socks and t-shirts smelled really good for a few months. After I took the above picture, I discussed kombucha with Jo and her housemate Aria. It boggles my mind that a lot of North Americans reading this probably don’t know what kombucha is. If you have never heard of it, here is all you need to know: it originated in China, it’s fizzy, some people think it cures every disease ever, everyone in Portland has an opinion about it, and once Lindsay Lohan claimed it made her drunk.
Jo, Aria, & Chris also have the neatest book & zine corner. This picture is a testament to their design genius, in case you weren’t convinced by the kitchen shot. I know not everyone knows what a zine is, so I found this webpage from Brooklyn College that explains the concept. Basically, it’s cool writing made and self-published by cool people. Most zines are made using paper, scissors, and photocopiers though that has changed a lot thanks to things like computers and Photoshop. When Devin asked me to be his girlfriend significant other—he asked me to be his girlfriend, but I prefer the term ‘s.o.’ ‘Girlfriend’ is just too antiquated/normatively gendered for me. So is ‘fiancée’, but I haven’t found any accurate equivalent for that so most of the time I say ‘partner’, which doesn’t really capture it…ack sorry, what was I saying? Oh yeah, Devin photocopied every feminist zine he could find at the Portland Independent Publishing Resource Center, put them in a binder, wrapped the binder in newspaper from the New York Times Style section, and asked me to be his ___________. The rest is history! (Can you tell I miss Devin? Me too.)
Jo’s living room is one of the prettiest I have ever seen (I got to sleep on that couch, you guys!), but it also reminds me of every Portland living room I’ve ever been in. The vintage couch by a window, the glass jars and bottles on a coffee table, the laptop… The whole scene gives me goosebumps, in a good way.
P.S. Every time I rave about Portland, I feel a strong moral conviction to acknowledge the huge problem of racial segregation in that city. Portland’s racial inequality is increasing. Seattle—the other metropolis in the Pacific Northwest—is decreasing racial inequality thanks to bold, innovative policies. This episode of Think Out Loud, a radio show from Portland, is a solid introduction to the problem.
P.P.S. If you enjoyed the pictures of Jo’s house, check out her blog. It is my favorite blog in the whole of the worldwide web. Her latest post, especially, inspired and moved me. I cried the best kind of tears.
Hi, everyone! I’m still visiting my family in Mexico. Today is Día de Reyes, the last day of the holiday season here, which means I absolutely have to post my year-in-review post and stop listening to Christmas carols riiiiight now.
January
The year started with my cousin Carol’s wedding!I got to help teach kindergarteners about Martin Luther King, Jr. and social justice.Devin and I dressed up as ‘American Gothic’ in sepia for a costume party.
February
My housemates and I took family pictures thanks to our fearless leader Hallie!We’ve never been a Valentine’s Day couple, but this year Devin surprised me with my favorite cake! Here we are making a toast: Dev is holding my little glass of soymilk, and I’m holding his giant bottle of local organic cow’s milk. (We are a caricature. And how!)I celebrated my birthday with brunch at The Nines.
March
March was a hard month because my grandmother passed away. I felt fortunate to be able to fly home and see my family, but it was hard.
When I was little my grandmother would take me to Mass and out for ice cream afterward. I told Devin about our tradition, and he took me to do just that in memory of my Abbita.I had to spend Spring Break in the library working on my thesis.…but I did get to go skiing on Mt. Hood!I almost ruined Anda’s surprise birthday party. Thank goodness I didn’t! It was in our old dorm, and the pizza was delicious, and her sister baked a cake.
April
In April, I finished doing the fieldwork for my thesis. Doing fieldwork was fun and rewarding, but it meant I had to spend a lot of time waiting at bus stops in the rain (totally worth it).When I wasn’t doing fieldwork, I was in the library. Devin was a dear. He brought me like a million library dinners.This is my favorite picture from April. Nate’s glasses were foggy.
May
I finally finished my thesis!My dream of sharing Portland with my mom (again) and my two aunts (for the first time) came true! Here are the mamis and me at my favorite coffee shop! Dev & my mom got me a new computer for graduation! Before we parted ways, Melissa & Anda & I gathered for one final brunch. It was yummy, but I am still baffled: why didn’t we go to our usual spot?
June
At my first grown-up job in downtown Portland, I discovered the joys of the grown-up lunch break!The best show I saw all summer was the Rock ‘n Roll Camp For Girls Spring Showcase.In Wisconsin I discovered a breathtakingly beautiful bakery. The walls were covered with vintage recipe cards!
July
July was a big month, so brace yourself for lots of pictures!
Fourth of July was so much fun! The weather finally turned summery, and I feel like I hung out with fifty-three friends the whole weekend! Also, my hair looks like Cocker Spaniel ears in this picture.I got to live with my friend Nora all summer! Her birthday party was Kreayshawn-themed. This is one of my favorite pictures ever for the following reasons: a) Nora rules, b) it showcases our perfectly 90s kitchen, & c) you can see all our spices because the cabinet door fell off its hinges.Dev & I had a going-away party where everything was local (we even made sure our guests were real-life, actual Portlanders!).Devin & I gave each other watches to mark our engagement!I had to say bye to Devin AND the kristy dreambike (they took a train to the East Coast).
August
Before I left Portland, I discovered what an artichoke in bloom looks like.Then, I went to Texas to do fun Texas things, by which I mean I went to the mall with my mom. A lot.I bid farewell to my summer hair at Shampoo before moving to New York.
September
This was our building in Park Slope. It was pretty, but Anda, Marika, & I had to share a one-bedroom with an enormous pitbull who only ate raw chicken.When my mom made me evacuate New York for September 11th, I found a brunch place that matched my dress.Seriously, it matched my dress perfectly!
October
I fell head-over-heels in love with my new Subway stop!Grand Central & I started to feel like pals.This was my favorite sign at Occupy Wall Street.
November
I spent most of the month taking care of my mom post-surgery. The best part of the day was sharing breakfast in her bed.I also spent a lot of time with Laisha.I was going to have to skip Thanksgiving, but thanks to the genius of Dev & the East Coast’s adequate train infrastructure (rest of the States, get with it!), I flew to Baltimore & reached Philadelphia by train just in time for dinner with Devin’s family. Here we are with Grandma Pat!
December
I marched for Voting Rights!My first Christmastime in the cityyyyy! (You cannot imagine how many times I sang that one. Quietly. To myself. Alone. I’m not that annoying.)Then, I spent Christmas with my whole family, where I had so much fun that I forgot to take pictures. This one of some wimyn, a girl, & THE baby in the family comes to us courtesy of my cousin.
2011, thank you for the lessons & good times. You are dismissed.
This was at the Waffle Window, but I’m not endorsing any specific brunch place for the simple reason that I know any brunch in Portland is 1000x better than brunch anywhere else.
STEP TWO: Visit all your favorite flowers for photo shoots.
In real life, these flowers are 1994 incarnate.Nature’s MoodboardPaper FlowersUsually I detest anything evocative of gradients, but these flowers make it work.I see you hiding, wispy little blue flower.Flowers on tree, flowers near tree.
STEP THREE: Say goodbye to your favorite chickens.
STEP FOUR: Throw yourself a fabulous farewell party!
Thanks for making my wish come true, neat Portland friends!
STEP FIVE: Say goodbye from afar (otherwise you may never leave).
Were you a Flintstones kid or a Jetsons kid? I really wish I could say I was a Flintstones kid. The Flintstones kids probably grew up to be great environmentalists who hire goats to mow their lawns. Meanwhile, the Jetsons kids now while away their days dreaming about their first Roomba.
I was totally a Jetsons kid. Let’s watch the intro, just for fun!
This post isn’t really about the Jetsons except insomuch as it is about The Future. As someone who couldn’t wait for the future and spent hours deciding whether she would have Judy or Jane hair (both so flippy but in such different ways), I was really bummed when the advent of the new millennium did not bring with it sleek flying bubble cars and instead gave us the PT Cruiser. It was a total where-did-society-go-wrong moment for me. Fortunately, some of the things meant to exist in this time and place–like the Roomba–actually made it here. And now thanks to me, you can be a part of The Future as the Sixties intended it, too!
How? Well…the other day I went to the doctor at Oregon Health & Science University by the banks of the Willamette in dear old Portland, Oregon (I’m leaving in ten days, so it’s time to wax poetic). As I was leaving, the front desk people asked if I needed my parking validated. I said no. They asked if I wanted a tram ticket. I said, ‘Yes!’ because I’d never ridden the tram even though it has been on my Portland to-do list ever since I first saw it because look:
It is the perfect little space pod. Definitely designed by a Jetsons kid.
I was waiting in line to board when I realized I didn’t need the ticket at all because my job gives me monthly public transit passes, and the tram is publicly-owned. I tucked the ticket in my wallet and thought maybe I’d keep it forever because even the Tram logo is adorable.
That’s some cute.
And just when you think things can’t get any cuter, look at what I saw from the tram.
Do you see what I see? A rainbow!
Fast-forward a couple of days: I’m back at OHSU’s Center for Health & Healing, this time for an appointment with a really cool eye doctor who sounds like Joni Mitchell. At the end of my appointment, I am offered another tram pass, which I take. Then, I notice a basket of freebies and grab two of whatever prize is in there while the person at the front desk isn’t looking. I inspect the freebies in the elevator: roll-up sunglasses. I pat myself on the back for grabbing two and think they are way cool. This time I don’t have time to ride the tram, so I head home where I have a brilliant idea—-taking Photobooth pictures of myself in the cool sunglasses I got for free at the doctor.
They stay up like magic, no weird things behind your ears.
Then, I had an even more brilliant idea. I should give the sunglasses and two tram tickets away—-to you, lucky reader! I mean, the tram and frameless sunglasses are made for each other: sleek, geometric, futuristic. After realizing this, I couldn’t possibly advise riding the tram without the lenses. You could make a nice date out of these items, possibly involving Dipping Dots; or you could make two nice dates with yourself. The possibilities for fun with the tickets and the lenses are finite, but there are some.
I told Devin about my big idea to do a super cool future-as-imagined-by-the-Sixties giveaway (like a legit blogger!), and he pointed out that the roll-up sunglasses were not, as I thought, prizes from the eye doctor but rather, important tools for helping patients who’ve just had their pupils dilated so that they can see. You know what? That just makes the giveaway even better because the tram tickets say ‘Patient’ on them (they never expire; I checked). You can use the lenses if you want to pretend to be an OHSU patient or as a conversation starter with your fellow Tram-travelers (‘I just got my pupils dilated! Craaaazy stuff, man!’).
To win, simply comment and tell me whether you were a Jetsons kid or a Flinstones kid and why, along with why you want (deserve?) to win these inexpensive items I got for free. Entries shall be judged on creativity, level of detail, and—-above all—-syntactical complexity. The winner will be announced this weekend.
Word play!Buttermilk biscuit with honey butter made by my s.o. (hereafter known as Devin)The world in Technicolor, brought to you by flowers.My first hot air balloon!Carrie Bradshaw would have a picnic (read: existential crisis) with this sign.I found it outside this ferris wheel!I declare this the world’s most beautiful bike shop. I mean, the lighting? I swoon!And it has folding bikes.They let me test ride one. If I bought it on credit and joined a circus, how long do you think it would take me to pay back the $2,000?
Instead of a purse, I have been opting to carry my convertible backpack around with me. As you can sort of tell from the picture, it clips to my bike (see it now?) and has straps like seat belts (you can’t really tell from the picture, so just imagine).
Here is the stuff I’ve been toting around in there.
MacBook Air, ‘No one belongs here more than you’ by Miranda July, ‘Ordinary People’ by Judith Guest, ‘rose’ by inga muscio, and marionberry lip balm from http://www.wildcarrotherbals.com
I got the computer for graduation and haven’t been able to leave it home since. I feel like it is a perfect-and-fragile sliver of technology that has been bestowed unto me, that I must keep close to me at all times in case a brilliant blog post should occur to me or a gust of wind should blow. Mostly the latter.
The day after graduation I looked around and grabbed every book I wanted to read. It was glorious! I ended up with ten books in my backpack and feeling like the world’s most powerful pleasure reader…for two days. After that I realized that carrying around pounds of books was really not that different from being in school. Also, I lost one of them (Girls to the Front, which is so good. I saw the author do a reading of it, and she does the best Kathleen Hanna impression, no lie) and realized I couldn’t keep up with that many books at a time.
I narrowed it down to three.
Nobody belongs here more than you just happens to be the first book I read after graduating from high school. Weird. It’s a collection of short stories. Miranda July is a comedic genius, but I hesitate to say that because the stories are not really ha-ha funny; they’ll probably make you sad. Actually, you’ve probably already read them so you know whatever. I like reading them on the bus because somehow they are always the perfect length, and I have never missed my stop.
I took Ordinary People off the shelf because I thought it was made into a movie starring Ellen Page and Sarah Jessica Parker, and isn’t reading a novel then watching its movie adaptation the summeriest thing ever? Being able to partake of both suggests copious amounts of freeee tiiiiime. Turns out the Ellen Page SJP movie is Smart as opposed to Ordinary. However, this book has been adapted into a movie—-an Oscar-winning film directed by Robert Redford. I hear Mary Tyler Moore is one of the protagonists! Am I the only twenty-two year-old who aspires to be MTM? I hope not. MTM > SJP! I finished the book last night and deem it an enjoyable read that uses exclamation marks in a 70s fashion. I can’t wait to see how this translates to the screen! It is likely terrible! But it won an Oscar! Oh, who knows! (Like that.)
And finally, rose by inga muscio. I first encountered this book when I helped bring her to speak at my school last year. She read aloud from it; my heart swelled. I started reading the book itself over winter break (after giving it to my significant other who let me borrow it after he was done), but then school started. I haven’t really re-started reading it, so I can’t say anything particularly specific about it, which is totally apt considering its subject matter. It is about passive violence in our society + the rest of the world and how to break the cycle. I’m excited to continue reading it and will likely post a quote from it sometime soon because I don’t think I can do it justice any other way.
The other thing you see pictured is my new tube of marionberry lip balm. The internet does not even recognize ‘marionberry’ as a word and that is because marionberries are like the designer purse dogs of the berry world. The marionberry was invented at Oregon State University. Since I am leaving Portland for good at the end of the summer, I figure I should cultivate some nostalgia for this Oregon staple. From what I know, it is either a blackberry/raspberry hybrid or a hybrid of two types of blackberries. Regardless, there is not much difference taste-wise between itself and the blackberry except that it has an Old Hollywood name, and I have only been able to find marionberry jam at the airport.
smoothliminal 