The Orange Threat

Let me tell you a little story about my best friend.

She was born in 1978 (like me), her favorite color is orange (like me) and she is fond of French food.

We met on the computer like most people do these days and within a week we were inseparable.

OT became a part of my family when I bought her for 3,500.000 Pesos, the equivalent of about $1,700.00 USD. She was the only car being sold from that year that was still with her original owner and had its orignal exterior and brown leather interior. She was absolutely beautiful. I felt and still feel like I am in Dukes and Hazards every time I get near to her.

Since the beginning she has been quite challenging.

First, she was not automatic. I had to learn how to drive stick and according to people here who have been driving stick for a very long time, she was no easy ride. Not to mention the roads here are so difficult to understand and the drivers are maniacs. I began on the road around our house in Medellin and for more than two months I was too scared to drive alone. Mostly because I got a good handle on the driving but could not, by any means, get up a hill. And in Medellin a hill will come out of nowhere and there will be traffic smack in the middle of it. It was super difficult at the beginning.

Second, 2 months into driving we decided to take a road trip to Bogota, about 8 hours from Medellin. Within the first 20 minutes we kind of maybe, just a bit, collided with the mountain and the car, after flipping over and skidding along the wet, curvy road, ripped my hair

and lost many of its much needed parts to function properly. According to all those that saw us flip, we were extremely lucky. We were further lucky because we found some amazing men in Barrio Triste, one of the most deprived neighborhoods in Medellin (not including the guys who stored their drugs in our tires) to replace all the parts of the car that were destroyed including the roof, hood, front and back windshields, tires, sides, exhaust and the bottom parts under the gas tank and where it was repainted.

side note: Barrio Triste is what is says, a very sad neighborhood. There was recently an article in one of the Colombian newspapers about it that emphasized the danger of living and working there. It stated how most people there became addicted to drugs and did not live very long to talk about it. This same neighborhood is where you can find mechanics, painters and other car gurus who have been working every day since childhood. They are more efficient and effective that mechanics who go to study for a few years because this is and only ever will be their livelihood.

So, slowly but surely all her parts were removed and replaced.

Nuts and bolts were screwed back on, engine parts were put back together again and paint was re-applied. Over a month later she was almost back to new minus the front and rear bumper and what we found out very quickly after we took her home, oil and 4 bolts in the steering wheel. If we had been lazy and not checked, the entire steering wheel would have disconnected from the tires and we would have had another very nice little crash that maybe we were not so luck with this time.

The good news though, OT is back on her wheels, driving me everywhere I have to go and sucking me dry of all my money. But she is worth every penny and she is the first car I have ever outright owned.

Brain Pain - Life in a Cyclone

It has been more than a year since I last updated my blog. Since then I moved to Colombia, got a job teaching English and... well, that's it really.

But this past month has been a whirlwind of emotions and a roller coaster of ideas and experiences.

Too much to catch up on so Im going to list it:

1. Quit my job 2/22/12 (oh, just noticed that is exactly 10 years after I had my first episode where I was misdiagnosed with MS)

2. VISA canceled 2/23/12 The school canceled my VISA and I had a month to get a new one or leave the country
a. Victor and I decided to get a temporal visa which states that I am in the country for 2 years, not true but no bad karma attached. (im putting it out there so it becomes true) To do this we needed to get a letter stating that we are together signed by a notary and fly to Bogota for several days to visit the Colombian embassy. While there we had to answer several questions about our relationship, pay $210 dollars and I am now officially able to use his health insurance and stay in the country for one year as well as work.

3. Rent a Room 2/27/12 Vic and I rented a room inside an apartment full of university students. 4 rooms, 7 people. I dont even remember living like this when I was in college. But, we needed a place in Medellin to stay when we could not travel back to Santa Elena and this was in the neighborhood we wanted and well, it is damn cheap. $150 for both of us every month. The plan was to just stay for a month but then I quit my job, yadda yadda yadda, and we are staying an extra month to save money.

4. Dancing again Two of the girls in the room are salsa dancers and I had not been dancing for a loong time. I began going with them and havent stopped since.

5. New Cookie Business I was lost and looking for direction and had my period, which of course meant I was craving chocolate. I had no idea where to find a great chocolate chip cookie so Vic told me, make one. THat is when my cookie business began. I went to my apartment, met a friend from the states who is living here for 6 months and told her about the idea. THe only problem was I dont cook and I never baked. She LOVED the idea and was looking for something to do to occupy her time so we decided to get into business. (For the past three weeks we have been trying different cookie recipes, buying different cooking materials and creating our logo: a milk and cookie dancing together with our name underneath http://lasmunchies.wordpress.com/) We are already sick of sugar and tired of baking but we are pushing forward. We made a plan and next Friday we will take samples of our cookies with little cups of milk to our neighborhood where all the kids are smoking and drinking and start selling them.

6. Swimming I began swimming lessons, 8 classes for $40 in the most amazing stadium with 12 different pools all outdoors. I started off in level 2 and after 2 weeks they bumped me to level 6. Yay B'nai B'rith for teaching me something! Now I am learning the butterfly and everything hurts.

7. New Dating Business While swimming I met Cesar, a guy in my class, who for some reason told me that I should speak with his friend, Jerry. Jerry is a Chinese-American 65 year old guy from Hawaii living in Medellin for 2 years. He told me Jerry is trying to start a dating business and he is looking for someone who wants to start it with him. Well, we all know my history with online dating, I am the QUEEN! I met with Jerry, we liked one another, he is putting money down and I am putting ideas and time into the project.

8. New Yoga Business Shanti, the Colombian yogi who is not a yoga teacher but will begin teaching classes with me. He is really studying architecture but has decided that his passion is yoga and healing. We met 2 and realized we will work great together. This week we are meeting to discuss logistics. Basically, we will teach every class together, one will be the main teacher while the other walks around and corrects.

9. New VISA 3/18-3/22 - Bogota for VISA

10. New teaching job 3/23, Thursday, I was called for an interview at a different school. The woman who replaced me at Vermont school told this HR director about me and that I was looking for work. I went in for an interview and Tuesday I was called back in to sign a contract. I negotiated what is great for me and terrible for almost everyone else. I wanted a 2 month contract (their mid-year vacation starts june 8th and I only wanted a contract until then). The principal thought this was odd but granted my request and I begin Friday!

10. Moved out of cute, perfect, far far away house 3/25/12 We left our beautiful, cute, little finca in Santa Elena. After 4 months of waking up at 4:30 every morning to travel 2 hours to the school and then coming home another 2 hours to get there at 8PM to go straight to sleep, we realized something about our livelihood was missing the "live" part. We were never really able to enjoy the farm and the beauty of it because we were never there in daylight. And, to top that off, when we were there on the weekends it was always cloudy and raining. But, we had to break the contract. And, we wanted to do it in the best way possible so we told them owner that we will stay in the house until she finds someone new. Of course she found someone when we were in Bogota. We were there from Sunday March 18 - THursday March 22 and had to move out that weekend. So, we came home, went straight to the finca and moved everything to his mother's place, also in Santa Elena, and his friend's storage unit in the city.

OK, this was really a blog for me to remember all the hecticness that has been going on. It is also to remind me that when something ends, if I remain positive and open to living my passionate life, it will all come. And it did.

Reina, the Queen of Queens

I figured that after 14 years of trying to figure out what to do with my life, I would revisit that question once again, this morning at 11AM with Reina.

Reina is one of those women that reads your energy and the energy of other people. I went to her office (after a month and a half wait), sat at a small table across from her and she took my hands in hers for about 2 minutes. To make a story short she told me I had two purposes in this life:

1. To get married and have a family. She told me that while many people take this path, this is my purpose, this is what I am meant to do. My heart and my soul were created to bring a family into this world and raise them. OK. Moving on, anyone can say that to a 34 year old women and they would be right 95% of the time.

2. My essence is to bring love and life to people through an artform. (this peaked my interest, i am pretty damn good at painting and drawing but i dont really enjoy it) My artform, my essence, my calling, my energy: dance. OK. hold up a minute, this caught my attention. This is exactly the reason I left on this journey 2 years ago, to explore my passion for dance. She continued to say that I will not make money at this initially because I need people to reach out to me. How do I do that? Through teaching or any other job where I can communicate with large numbers of people on a daily basis. The more I can reach out to the community and get them to trust me and know me, the more people I will have to extend my "gift" too.

Wah-lah. And that is how Reina became my reina. i have been doing it right all along. I guess I just needed someone to "ok" me. Teaching to the masses, now I have to start to introduce dance into that. Oh wait, but I just quit my teaching job (hmm, will revisit that in another post).

But Reina was not finished with me yet. She started with my purposes to butter me up, then she turned to the energy that was blocking me from success in both relationships and work.

Reina: Who was the man in your life 14 years ago?
Me: LP (for those of you who remember, he came from another country to be with me in college)
Reina: He is standing here next to me right now, staring at you. He is following you everywhere you go. He means you no harm but he loves you immensely and cannot forget you.
Me: Um, he is dead?
Reina: No, no, its just his energy.
Me: So do i have to call him and tell him to leave me alone?
Reina: (laugh) No, that is my job. Its important for you to know that you never had long, lasting, meaningful relationships because he always blocked your success with another man because he would not let you go. Once his energy is cleared, you can continue with your life purpose #1 (ok, she didn't exactly say that, but she suggested it by pointing to her left hand's ring finger over and over again - remember, there was still the language barrier)

Another wow for me. I used to think 3 months in a relationship is long based on my dating CV, but when I reflect back on it, being 34 years old and only having 3 month relationships?? not so intense afterall.

Great i thought.. time to move forward when she struck me with another one..

Reina: who was the woman in your life 14 years ago? She is a bad energy and does mean you harm. She is pulling your hair and pushing you around and preventing you from feeling comfortable staying in one place.. you want to move from her any chance you get and she is not letting you out of her grips
me: i dont know.. i had a roommate but she never meant to block or harm me..
Reina: think..
me: could be the girl LP broke up with to come be with me and then went back to and married
Reina: that could be it.. with the cleansing of both these spirits you will have open space to move forward. no more excuses to lose interest and move around and not take action.

(damn, who has she been talking to?)

Reina: Lastly, where are you?
me: Um, here?
Reina: (laugh) i know that... but your head is in the clouds and you are floating around.. put your damn feet on the floor, baby, its time you get centered. You cannot help anyone or bring your love and soul and energy to the world if you are not in this world. Trust me, you will have a lot of time up there one day, but for now, BE HERE! Center yourself. Get grounded. Head up, but feet on the floor! STOP LOSING INTEREST IN EVERYTHING YOU DO (She did actually say that more strongly so I think I have the right to put it in caps)

And that was the final commentary on my life. If you know me, you know its true.

What was great about her was the she didn't predict the future, she didn't tell me how to bring dance to this world (even though i begged her to tell me what to do.. lol) and she would not tell me what my path is. She only told me about my essence and my energy: to love through dance and have a family.

I think that was a pretty good gift to myself.