Bear with me. I need to vent. I posted as my Facebook status that I feel like the universe is conspiring against us and I just want to get out of here. I feel like Dorthy stuck in Oz. Where the heck are my ruby slippers?!
Anyway, here's the sitch: About a month ago we went to Madrid so Alex could apply for his immigrant visa to the US. We were feeling like the end was near - or rather, new beginnings were on the horizon. All we had to do was sell the café, complete the paperwork, and Voilá! Home again, home again jiggety jig!
Unfortunately things aren't turning out as we'd hoped. As most of you have heard, Spain's economic condition is dreary. Our café isn't doing well. None of the businesses in our area are doing well. Now to make matter's worse, there's an association of neighbors, (we'll call them the Neighbor's Association, just to be creative), has begun to cause problems for all of the bars and restaurants in our area.
Let me back up a bit here...
The Bohemian, our café, is smack dab in the middle of the university district. With the economic crisis, however, students can't afford to drink in bars, and they still live with their parents (yes, it's common to live with your parents until wedding bells ring), so house parties are out. What do they do instead? They drink in parks and parking lots. They're loud and messy and piss off a lot of people - especially the neighbors who live in poorly insulated apartment buildings of the 1970s. So now the Neighbor's Association has complained to the city hall who, in turn, have unleashed the police on us. Hey! What a great opportunity for the local police, whose funding has been cut, to earn some money! Fines fines and more fines!! We've already received two - one for closing a half an hour late (and really, who closes on time in Spain besides banks and public offices?!) and the other for playing music in our café (our license doesn't allow us to play music, but it's fine to sell loads of alcohol). And if that weren't enough to scare the hell our of us - two of the businesses on our street have been closed down.
It's also come out in the paper that the Neighbor's Association wants to shut down any business that is operating under a false license. We have a license for an ice cream parlor. We do sell milkshakes, ice cream sodas, coke floats and specialty coffees with ice cream, but we don't consider the café to be an ice cream parlor. If the local government decides to be sticklers, they can ruin us and a lot of other businesses in our area. Plus they're talking about changing the zoning laws. How can we sell the café if they decide to change the zoning laws and makes us close earlier? We make most of our money on the weekends between midnight and two. If we have to close at 12:30, what then?? We don't know what we're going to do. We're petrified.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know what's going on. Oh yeah. I also did a voice audition for a guide bus recording in Gandia. I didn't get it. I lost it to a girl with a slight speech impediment. I'm not feeling the love right now.
This experience has been an eye opener. No matter what anyone tells you, believe me, success is not achieved solely by working hard. This is a fallacy. I'm not being negative, just realistic. Of course this happens to some people in some cases, but we can't discount the element of pure luck. Alex has worked his butt off for the past four years trying to make this café successful, and it was. It was going exceptionally well. But then the world economy took a nose dive and this whole craziness with the neighbors ensued... it is out of our control. It's made me think about how quickly life can change and about the highs and lows and especially about how we need to refrain from judging those more or less "fortunate" than ourselves because those things can be so temporary.
Luck plays an enormously large part in success and failure in this world, so let's not beat ourselves up when we do fail. We just have to remember not to let it make us bitter or afraid to try again.
I apologize for this negative post. Things have been hitting us hard lately, but I am trying to stay positive about what lies ahead. Until then, I'll keep repeating "there's no place like home. There's no place like home...!"
After my last post my dad pointed out that I seemed to have posted bazillions of pictures of Bella, and only a handful of Julietta. Touché, Papa. You are correct. Am I playing favorites? Moi? Certainly not I. But, I did come up with some very good excuses like: "She's an infant who's always sleeping", and - "She's partial to one position - horizontal - so all the shots of this two month stage are going to look exactly the same" (Remember I'm obsessed with photography at the moment). And when the truth finally came out: "how the heck am I supposed to chase Bella around and work on my photography while she's awake?" Well, I thought about the dilemma and turned it into a game(WAHOOO!), or a challenge if you will. I decided I'd better get my act together and start taking some cool pictures of Julietta too. We played make believe. I pretended to be a professional photographer and she was my model and we set up mock "shoots" - some on her changing table, some at the park, and some on our couch... Fun stuff. I know I made technical errors in quite a few of these, but I'm learning, little by little.
I had to slip one in. She doesn't model either. I'm lucky if I can get her to look at the camera.
Alex was sleeping here. Otherwise he's the model in the family. I have another post with all the shots Alex posed for. He's a natural.
I know it looks like she's wearing lip gloss in this one. In a way she kind of was. It's called "drool" - nature's lip gloss.
So there you go. I hope I've done her justice. Who do you think she looks like? I'm not really sure. All I know is that she's beautiful inside and out.
During a holiday here in Spain, we went to visit Alex's sister, Irene, in her monastery. This is when I started becoming more interest in learning more about photography. The pictures practically take themselves, it's such a beautiful atmosphere.
I thought this one looked almost biblical. In reality, Bella was throwing a tantrum and Irene was trying to console her.
We went to the park to blow bubbles. I have some hilarious shots of Bella throwing a fit because she wanted to blow the bubbles herself. She ended up with an empty container and a soapy mustache.
But she did have fun!
We played.
We found a new home for our cats, Ari and Gaia at Alex's friends house near Teruel. How perfect is this place for two cats on the prowl? Now, hopefully, our neighbors won't hate us so much.
We walked around the surrounding towns, Mora de Rubielos AND Rubielos de Mora. Who can keep those straight??
We went to the park (yet again) to feed the ducks. Bella was a stinker, though, and ended up eating most of the bread.
One overly aggressive duck, didn't like that one bit and got a little too close for comfort.
We held, comforted and loved Julietta as much as we could.
Bella began learning how to push the stroller around by herself. Now we have to struggle with her every time we go out because she wants to do it BY HERSELF.
Bella also has been taking care of her sister. She likes to undress her, poke her in the face, hold her hands and call her "Jayta", "Letta" and "Letita". It's cute, but I've got keep both eyes on her at all times. She just loves her so much.
Last weekend we went to Albacete, Paquita's family's hometown, for their annual festival. Unfortunately, it started pouring rain and we spent the rest of the day listening to Paquita give marital advice to her cousin's husband. Can you say "akward"?.
I managed to get a couple cute pictures of Bella while we were waiting for Jesus to open the car for us.
We also spent lots of time staring at cute little Ju Ju. She's starting to "talk" and it's the sweetest thing.
Most recently, we spent a day and a half in Madrid filing paperwork so Alex could get his visa. So far so good. We're on our way! The trip was extremely tiring for a little toddler. She was amazingly well-behaved while we waited and waited in the embassy.
But there were many moments like this:
We did manage to take a little break and have a gin and tonic at Parque Retiro amidst explosive poopy diapers and incessant crying. We were more than overjoyed to be back home on Wednesday night all snug in our beds enamored with the silence.
