SLAUGHTER THE GOAT!

I borrowed this beached whale from here

I am massive. I'm putting odds on this baby being born 2 weeks early. I'm also putting bets on me going just a little crazy if it doesn't. I can't bend over at all, which is weird. I swear I don't remember not being able to bend over when I was pregnant with Jack. I also don't remember Jack having razor blades for bones. I have pointy elbows, and Nipper has pokey sternum (it's true!), so maybe this one has inherited those charming traits. 

Nipper Knapp's niece and her best friend came to visit us this week from Michigan for their spring break. They are 13. Oh holy cuteness. They are all at once sweet kids, and eye rolling, Katy Perry sing-a-longing teens. We did the rounds with them, taking them to the Hollywood sign, Universal Studios, the beach, the giant Forever 21 in Pasadena that used to be a Saks Fifth avenue (so depressing). 

On Tuesday I had my friend Deanna do their hair and make-up before we went out for the day. Deanna works in film and television and I thought it'd be fun for them to get sort of a make-up lesson from a pro. Aren't they pretty?! 

Tuesday afternoon I had arranged for them to take a dance class at The Edge Performing Arts Center. It's the place in town where it seems like all the professional dancers and choreographers train. I had sent them a schedule of classes and they decided they wanted to take a hip-hop class. I asked them if they wanted to take a beginning class or a regular one. They said "I dunno". They're both dancers and have been taking for years. So I asked if they had ever taken hip-hop before. "Nope". Ok, so beginning it is...

Nipper texted me from Universal and said they were both a little nervous about the class. Oh and that their feet were sore from walking in flip flops all day. My  Knute Rockne brain took over, and I gave them my version of a pep talk.

I told them about the time I was in Cuba my senior year of College. I was there studying Santeria under Communism. I had befriended some people who worked in our hotel, and they were showing us around, introducing us to their families, and showing us how they lived. I asked if anyone could take me to meet a Babalawo or Santero (you know like a priest or shaman). The lifeguard at our hotel said his sister knew a guy, who knew a guy. We went into a shanty town a few miles from our hotel. We went to her house, and then she took us to the Babalowa. Also later that day, I may or may not have made out with the lifeguard, but I left that out of the story for the girls, didn't seem pertinent to my point. 

The Babalawa had people lined up outside his house waiting to see him. He had an alter in the main room and was in the process of helping some little girl who's mother was sick, or maybe she wasn't doing well in school, I can't remember. I asked if there were any sort of rituals or ceremonies I could be witness to. He told me to come back later because they were going to do something important later than night. Then he pointed to the half door that led to a tiny space behind the house. There was a goat and the biggest rooster I had ever seen in my life. They were going to slaughter them, then do something with the blood. OH MY FUCKING GOD. 


In my time there I had seen a newly killed pig being cleaned for a roast in a yard, and I wouldn't say I was squeamish, but something about seeing these two animals live and in the flesh did me in. I didn't go back. I think about it all the time when I'm afraid to do something or try something new. I regret it all the time. It was a good lesson. I should have gone back that night, seen what it was all about. Instead me and Radio Raheem necked in the stairwell of my hotel.

So I said to the girls "sometimes life presents you with an opportunity to do something you may never get a chance to do again." Not that hip hop class in LA is equivalent to ritualistic animal killing, but still. I said, "you are never going to see these people again! Even if you just stand in the back and sort of half dance/watch, what've you got to lose?! SLAUGHTER THE GOAT!"


Needless to say they skipped the class and we all met up for pizza instead. I can't wait until Jack tells me he wants to quit his interpretive dance class, or flag football. "SLAUGHTER THE GOAT JACK!"

Can you see the resemblance. The lifeguard was cuter though...

Office Space Redux

When we bought this house, I had visions of turning the garage into an office, and having the crawlspace under the house, turned into a finished storage area. Nipper Knapp, ever the naysayer, said, it couldn't be done. Humanity was not yet advanced enough to make it so. But then a few months ago, our gardener/handyman/lord and savior, Roberto, and his brother, whose name is Geronimo, which is awesome, but everyone calls him Momo, were doing some work up the hill, and I asked them if they could finish that space downstairs. They said "Por Supuesto". Actually they said "Yes, of course". Roberto is kind enough to never make me speak my horrible Spanish. And in the rare instances when I do, he's kind enough to not laugh in my face.

There was a time in my life, when I could speak Spanish. I even read Borges in Spanish. Which kind of qualifies me for Mensa, because I don't even understand Borges in ENGLISH! I was fluent for crying out loud. My parents were kind enough to pay for me to get a liberal arts education, from the University of San Francisco. I got a degree in Latin American History. I visited City Lights Bookstore for readings by assorted communists and outlaws. I raged against the injustices of the last four centuries. I drove my car while intoxicated, with a Jesuit priest in the back seat shouting, "Lorenzo!" out the window, as we passed Lawrence Ferlenghetti on the street. I went to Mexico by myself, and didn't tell my parents where I was going. Sorry mom. I went to Allen Ginsberg's memorial, where they had oranges floating in a fountain. I wrote poems in Spanish. I know... mortifying! I'll try to dig one up, and post it. There was a lot of stuff about mangos, and unrequited love, and oh yeah, the sorrow of my privileged birth.

Here are some pictures of me spending Christmas in Cuba. I know! Escandalo! And NO, that is not Radio Raheem, in the pictures with me. It's the lifeguard from my hotel, and I totally made out with him. Sorry mom. The other shot is of me at some Santero's house, getting ready to sacrifice a goat. No shit. I actually left before they did that, which I kind of regret. I was chicken. They also sacrificed a chicken, but it wasn't me. Also, my hair was REALLY ugly. I apologize for making you look at it.

Nowadays, I'm lucky if I can remember how to say "how do you do". So I just don't. I figure people would prefer not to hear someone fumbling around with marbles in their mouth, rolling their r's inappropriately.

Where was I? Oh right, the crawlspace. Here it is before Roberto and Momo worked on it:

And I'm totally mad at myself for not taking pictures of the melee that ensued once they started work. First they had to haul away, the 80 years of construction castoffs, and DIRT that were under there. It took two giant truckloads to get it all to the dump. At one point there was a mountain of old wood, bricks and concrete FILLING the yard. One of the guys on Roberto's crew was using the pile as a work table to saw the plywood pieces, they were using for walls.

Then they poured a concrete floor. When I say poured, what I mean is two guys mixed concrete and then hauled it in there and raked it, or shook it, or whatever it is that you do to make concrete lay flat. The whole process, confirmed, once again, that while I think I could someday be one of those ladies on tv, with safety goggles, and a miter saw, that's just a big joke I keep telling myself. Because frankly, I'd rather lay on the couch in my recession dress and watch Jack play with one of his 1700 garbage trucks, and concrete sounds heavy.

Ok, so here is the finished room:

Now for the garage/office renovation. Oy vey. When we moved in, it looked like this:

Unfortunately, it now looks like this:

In the next few days, I have to figure out how to fit all the stuff into the crawlspace, so that I can start painting, and Nipper can start dry walling, and we can all get on with our lives for the love of the Virgen de Guadelupe...