Missing my Mele [sisterly love]

hydrocortisone cream, you = life saver.

As the holidays come to a close, I reflect back to my adventures and fun (in the form of copious amounts of sleep). This year, I am grateful to have been gifted hydrocortisone cream (anti-itch cream), a great pair of hiking socks (made from bamboo!), a ballet class and the cutest lil' jars. Shucks familia, just what I wanted ;)

My adventures:

• A successful and drunken sister for our dreidel night.
• Winning our family game of Scrabble (as in just me and my mom, everyone else hates it).
• A tick bite and removing about 25 ticks from Yoda.
• A dog that farts on my face. 
• Poison oak. 
• Big Sur back-packing trip.
• Going up on the strip pole at a gay bar with two of my best friends.
• Sleep!
• Death Valley camping trip!
• And finding great Arab spices in Berkeley. 
• Lots of Borax.
• Movie dates with my dad.
• And 'Hanukkah Hockey'

Holiday break, you served me well ;)

Great hair dad.

The contact sheet of pictures is from a shoot that Mark Susnow did with Annie Libowitz (Leibovitz), that was featured in the rolling stone. 



 *This is not a joke.

Motorcycle Racing

If you didn't know, Monday night is Date Night. So that is what I did, went on a great date with my Dada. It consisted of extremely cheap movie tickets (gotta love having a dad that gets the senior citizen price and pays for your ticket too) and arcade games. That is right, I played motorcycle racer against my dad...

I am happy to say that I won. 

6th Night of Chanukah

It is tradition in my family to choose one night of the eight to celebrate Chanukah, more than just lighting candles (as to be fair to Christmas). We normally will choose the Friday, as to coincide with the Sabbath and do a big dreidel night with friends and lot of latkes and kugel. This year my sister and I decided to do our own dinner and dreidel with our friends, which turned out to be a big success. She got ridiculously drunk and well it was simply hilarious...she is the type of drunk that gets super touchy and cuddly. At the end of the night, when the dreidel game had ended (we set a timer), and before anyone had the chance to count and determine the winner, she takes all of her money that she played (each person put in five dollars to bet with) and tossed it into the middle of the table. Giggling the whole time, announcing the winner: "Everyone is a winner ;)"

Finals

My birthday was almost a month now,
yet I only feel that I can start celebrating now!
A month later, why?
Academics. I often want to do so much, and man, it makes you tired.

So thank you to everyone that made my birthday amazing.
Now let's go have some fun and tiring fun!

"Sneak a Sleep"

That is my new nickname. Apparently it is rude to doze off on a car ride.

I went to LA this past week, what should be a 6 - 7 hour ride depending on traffic...instead it took 8 1/2 hours with my dad. Why so long? Because my dad was adamant about stopping every two hours, and leaving 150 in between each car. Great road trip guys, and you got mad at me for taking a quick nap..the new nickname was uncalled for guys..

I love re-learning about your own family when it is actually within your capacity.

Great Grandma Kathleen had two children.
Went to high school but they aren't sure if she finished since she married at 17.
She was a stay at home mom, but then took up a job at the supermarket during the war so she should get a first crack at things that were rationed.
She was married to the same man till she died at age 54.

Great Grandma Aileen, had only one child.
Went to second grade and then stopped because she was being bullied for something that her brother did. 

She had many jobs during her years. She started at 17 when she came to the US from Newfoundland and was a nanny and housekeeper. She worked in NYC factories during my grandma's childhood and then became a bookkeeper later on for Chase Bank. When she was about 60 she was again a housekeeper in Catholic church rectories. She was married twice, and her first husband dying when he was 42 and the second one when she was in her eighties, she was widowed for 30 years. 

Jai Uttal - "Down on My Knees"

This is my madrinha, paidrinho e Ezra. Love!

Tradition

Every year, (this is the second year) my mom and sister come down to Santa Cruz for my birthday (which was last week 11/7). 

Each year they make the same delicious cake: a carrot cake filled with citrus and coconut..

And each year it just gets better and better. 

The first photo is from last year, and the second one was less than a week ago!

Love u Mamãe + Goo

Proud Daughter

My dad recently did a photo-shoot with a friend for his website. He had me look through the photos, and these were my favorite. I then made him send me them so I could print them out and put them on the fridge. These are definite role-reversials right now-I guess you could call me a proud daughter..

I love you Dadda, but I think you already knew that.

My dad called me a Jewish Hipster. True story. 

Why? Because I made round braided for my Uncle Bro.

I heard some crazy family tree connections.

Luke, I am your father.

Went to LA to visit my Uncle Bro,
Still visiting now actually, and maybe not coming back.

My sister's transmission broke.

being home.

"How old do you think the tree is?" my mom asks to my dad as I begin to count the rings,
"What Savo, you think each line represents a thousand years or something?" says my Dad as if I am a complete dumb-ass. My mother and I start to laugh hysterically.
"No, each one is one year Dad." I reply cooly.
"So you think this is real?" he replies.
"No dad, they implanted the tree here, then carved it out, in fact-it is made of cement and this new synthetic  paint that appears to be a tree, almost bark-like you could say. Then they set up the light so that it hits just so, giving the illusion that in fact it is a tree. Can you believe the trouble they went to?!" I say back to him.
"Savo, I don't think so." as he walks away laughing at my theory that this is in fact a real tree.

Traveling Pants

     Tis I, the lil' Russian dumpling with some lovely hand-me-downs. Damn straight, all the way from New York..my momma went back East for a family reunion this past August, which I of course missed (again) : (

But, she brought back with her this mighty'o treasure. Apparently my Grandma gave them to her and said that she was too tired of holding onto them..and now she (my mother) doesn't (didn't) know what to with them-so I grabbed them as if it was a no brainer and put them on. Not to my surprise they fit magically, and now I too have my very own pair of traveling pants, well shorts really.

And so the lineage begins:

     First they were my mom's Levi jeans back when she was in high school, perhaps her favorite pair. Very stylish indeed, "you should have seen the bell on these" according to mommy dearest. She also took them to Brazil when she lived there for her junior year, where she embroidered 'cogumelos' (mushrooms) and added many other embellishments..

        Second, my mom went off to college and left behind her beloved Levi jeans..and she thought she would never see them again. Much to her surprise, my Aunt Susie (the fourth? of eight) took them as her own-adding her own embellishments and drastically changing them for the 21st Century. 

Thus turning the Levi jeans into short shorts. 

Now, some thirty/forty years later-they are mine...did I mention they fit absolutely perfectly?

And to think I was always ridiculously jealous of all of the girls in my class that had hand-me-downs from the seventies..

My embellishments are still in the works..right now I am focussing on patching up all the holes first, a final picture to follow ;)

Ezra is so big now.

We spent perhaps way too much time together, and now we have withdrawal. To the panqueques, the Hondo Hipsters and Florian's Farts:
Our Baleada Bunch Blog.


Comprised of Bachata dancing, scabies ridden, bacterially infected and hemorrhoided hotties, the Baleada Bunch got it's name from stuffing their faces with quite a few too many Baleadas per day. Now we can only dream of the damn things-

Mommy Dearest,

When I get home can we please go and get yummy bagels..you know, just the way that I like them: sesame, slightly toasted with tomato and a chocolate milk..with a straw.

Thanks, slash I can't wait to give you a big hug too.

Six months is a bit too long for me, don't know about you..
Plus then we can stay up late at night and tell each other stories and laugh until our tummies hurt.

Ate mãezinha, diga oi á meus avos. 

They are playing Britney Spears in the Internet Cafe right now..
Thinking of you fondly sissy.