My new favourite Spanish name.

Okay, so spanish people can have really funny names, in case you didn't already know, the spanish have their first name, which are very commonly double barrelled, and they take their fathers first last name, and their mothers first last name. If somewhere along the line there has been a notable last name, they can also continue it on, if they damn well please, using both of each parents 2 last names, then grandparents, great grand parents etc etc until your name is longer than the passport queue at a London airport.

Until now, my favourite name has been Maria Jesus de Todos Los Santos. (Mary Jesus yes that is actually a woman's name Of all the Saints). I don't know why this is my favourite, I just heard it once and thought it was funny. When Maro & Sing, the aussies who lived here, went back to Australia, I tried to send them jamon (cured ham - a spanish delicacy) in the post, it was an air sealed plastic wrapped package, i though it might get through. On the "sender" part of the package I put that it was from Maria Jesus de Todos Los Santos. The jamon didn't get through. They got a note from customs saying that Maria Jesus de Todos Los Santos was commiting a crime by sending meat in the post.

So although I've known my friend Maria's full name for a long time, I've never really thought exactly what her name translates into english. My friend Maria, who rocks by the way, mentioned at dinner the other night that people used to laugh at her name when she was at school. Then after discussing why, I realised that yes, she has a really fucking funny name. Its Maria Isabel León Carrillo del Albornoz. Which translates to Mary Elizabeth Lion Little Cheeks of the Bath Robe. HELLO! HILARIOUS! How have I missed this excellent name of my good friend Maria? The only time I've even really seen her last name is on her emails, and the last name is so long I didn't really pay attention. So much time has been wasted with Maria Jesus de Todos Los Santos being my favourite! How has this little gem of Maria's name been right under my very nose the whole time!?

Even just having the word Lion in your last name is cool, not to mention Little Cheeks of the Bath Robe! Crazy shit!

I'm part Thai now

So last week my sister said to me, "Oh by the way, we are going to have a new step mother next Tuesday" WTF in capital letters, was my reply.

So my parents have been divorced for about 14 years, Dad has had a few girlfriends, since. One I didn't like much cause she pretended she was really posh even though she was going out with a man, nicknamed Keg who bought a house on a property precisely for the Greyhound training facilities, replaced the Australian flag on the flag pole in the yard with a VB flag (his favourite beer) and named his new house VB (said beer) Lodge. She was kidding herself.

Another one I didn't mind too much. Her name was Peg, which rhymed with Keg and she drank whiskys and cokes at the same rate my dad drank stubbies of VB. She was hardcore. I thought they suited. They also kinda looked the same.

Then Dad started going to Thailand. Considering that dad is pretty damn racist and is known to call chinese people chinks, and probably cannot tell the difference between Thais and chinese cause in his words "They all look the bloody same" this was quite surprising. He was obviously taking advantage of the infamous Thai sex industry. Its gross and hideous to me, but what can I do. I hardly ever speak to my dad, I can hardly disown him. Well, after a few trips there was one such Thai lady that he seemed to be quite interested in. She was a chef (score!) and eventually came back to OZ to be with him, steal my inheritance from under my very eyes and enjoy life at VB lodge (poor love).

There is no time for embaressment. There is no way I can spin this story to make it sound less embaressing. I just gotta accept it, get over it and hope they have a little Thai bebe.

She has a son, 8yrs old, who is named...wait for it.... EGG. I think Egg quietly rocks. (even though i don't know him yet).

So on a Tuesday, (a perfect day for a wedding don't you think?) Dad married the Thai. So now I have a step mother. And you know what... I DON'T EVEN KNOW HER NAME! No one has ever told me! I have NO IDEA WHAT MY STEPMOTHERS NAME IS.
There's gotta be a bright side to your dad marrying a mail order bride, so I have a few questions:
Does she cook good Pad Thai?
Can I now get a working Visa in Thailand?
Does her family live by the beach or in a picturesque landscape?
When will I have a Thai step brother/sister?

Update

My ankle was fucked and I had to get plaster. 2 weeks of plaster and I've been limping for about 2 weeks. If I thought I was doing nothing being unemployed before, being unemployed AND with plaster on my leg was REALLY doing nothing. Solitaire. Movies. Books. I went from the bed to the lounge and ocasionally getting up to go to the toilet. Argh. Hard work. I didn't even cook lunch. Marcos took over and when he was too lazy to cook lunch he just nipped on over to his parents house and picked up several days worth of delicious homemade spanish dishes. (I am waaaaay past being guilty about getting food from Ms Mum, far too tasty!)

Well one day I actually did try to make lunch, the first and last time until I was properly mobile. Our kitchen is really narrow and the space between the sink and the bench is the perfect distance to use as makeshift crutches. I started cutting some onion but I was in an awkward position so I decided to lean on the bench and swing myself around to a more frontal position, for some unfathomable reason as I was swinging myself around I held the knife I was using by its handle and pointed the sharp bit towards my person. And of course as I swung myself around I stabbed myself right in the god damn fucking thigh! It went in only about 1cm, but I felt it go in, and then the sensation of pulling it out and it was hardcore! I stabbed myself! Not a cut. a STAB! I started bleeding and Marcos came home from work minutes later to find me on the lounge, pants around my ankles, blood running down my leg and screaming the minute he walked in "I stabbed myself!" His reply WTF!? It is interesting to note that when you tell someone that you stabbed yourself their first reaction is as if you did it on purpose, like you were trying to kill yourself. The idea that you were trying to kill yourself is somehow more likely than an accidental stabbing incident. When I re-told the story, most people looked at me like I was a suicide risk when my first descriptive words of the incident were "I stabbed myself!" I soon changed it to "I ACCIDENTLY stabbed myself" and things were instantly clearer.

So due to the plaster I haven't been running for ages, I have been sitting on the lounge alot, I haven't been doing jack shit. I have been eating peanut butter & butter on toast instead of my normal healthy breakfast. I have been eating lots of lollies and chocolate that i still have left over from easter. (yes thats in April and its a little crusty but I kinda like how it makes your tongue a but furry). My doorman asked me the other day if I was pregnant, he didn't just ask it, he felt it necessary to state that I looked fatter in general and that my belly looked huge. Thanks fucker. But no. I am not pregnant. He looked a bit embaressed that i said no, but not embaressed enough to ask Marcos again when he got home, just to double check! Hijo de la gran PUTA! But interestingly, in my life, its not the first time I've been asked even though I've never been pregnant. Belly be gone! One day i will have a normal belly...one day.

I fell over

I went running along the river and some cani (westie, redneck etc) had his motobike down there (not allowed) and he rode past me and did a wheelie. He wasnt really near me but when he landed I could see he wasnt really in control (cause he was a 16 year old cani with far to much confidence and hair gel) so I went right to dodge right away from him, didnt see a mini ledge and I dropped down like a sack of potatos. Twisted ankle and a grazed knee. Falling down sucks. I lay there for ages not wanting to get up. Luckily Marcos was with me and I could say a million times "It really hurts, Ive really hurt myself" in a whingy type of voice. At home Marcos wrapped my foot in ice & an aboriginal art inspired tea towel that mum sent. He also put something called agua oxigenada on my graze which bubbled up white shit and looked like acid and hurt like hell. It still hurts. I have crutches. (well they are kinda cool) Exercise and cani´s dont mix and can be hazardous to your health.

It would be so awesome to have given birth to TuPac.

Just got back from a weekend in Lagos, Portugal. I went with Discover Sevilla, a tour company that I do design work for, they offered me a free trip, all I had to do was help out a little when needed. My good friend Rachel works for Discover Sevilla so as I wasn't doing anything else & Marcos was in Berlin running the marathon I decided that drinking at the beach with Rachel and 115 20yr old American students would be fun.
Well it was fun, it seems that "helping out" was drinking beers with Rachel, occasionally counting students and making sure they didn't fall over when so drunk they cant even walk. I did have fun but it has to be said that 20 yr old american students are fucking freaks of nature. Instead of making me feel old, which would have been quite possible considering my newly 30´d fragile state, they made me feel damn happy that I wasn't 20 years old and therefore may have to hang out with people like them. They also made me worry for the future state of America.
At the opening party, the people at the bar had written on the blackboard out the front. "Cum and party, fuck on or at the bar" and the security guards wore TShirts with a stick figure on the front, that had no head, with words below that read. "SECURITY, needs head" I mean REALLY! Call me prudish but can people really get away with this shit? Inside the party, there was shockingly some nerdy looking boys who really knew how to cut some moves on the dance floor, then some girl got off the podium and I saw her undies, then I saw some people doing my all time dancefloor HATE move, The Man Sandwich, (girl in the middle, 2 guys gyrating into her from either side) then I had to get the hell out of there.
Manning the door, I met Brad, one of "the kids" he couldn't stand up, so I stood with him on the wall, he had mentos, he kept trying to give me one but kept dropping them cause he lost his motor skills probably at 2pm that same day. I took them off him and ate them all. Sucker. I made the mistake of asking Brad what he was studying. He got into his spiel, something like this "Finance Consulting, I am going to work for the American government, where I will have the safety and benefits of working for the government BUT I WILL EARN LOTS OF FUCKING MONEY" He spat in my face when he said that last bit. I can't even tell you what some of the other american kids said to me, they would speak and I would have absolutely no response to what they said, cause it was 1. boring or 2. made no sense. How can someone speak and make no sense? These are suposedly literate people.
Day 2 one guy said "I just want to immerse myself in the portugese culture" he was so drunk he couldn't walk straight and had the red face of someone who had been drinking for 36 hours straight. He was asleep in the corner of the bar an hour later. Can he hear himself speak? I didnt want to know what he was studying at university cause I feared he would respond, medicine or politics and then I would want to spear tackle him into the cultured portugese earth. Then he would sue me and I would then be a financial contributor to his path to greatness in american medicine or politics.
I think its their voices... A friend and I once decided that Americans speak every sentence like what they are saying is the most important and truest thing in the world. I have a lot of american friends here and not one of them speak like that, so I have come to know that this can be true only with young americans. Well, I have met some young americans that don't speak like that so maybe they come from a certain part of america and its their specific accent. I don't know. But I do know that its annoying, but for comedic value, it does make what they say sound even more outrageous.
I was sitting in front of 2 girls on the bus, these girls had the annoying way of speaking that I talk about above. They were listening to music, sharing an iPod and talking at the same time, talking so loudly so I heard every mindless word they uttered. Some of their riveting conversations went as follows:

Girl 1: Oh my god, I would have like, loved to have given birth to TuPac, like you know, be his mother.
(This was when I started listening to them, I simply cannot describe what it feels like to hear someone say something so stupid but with such conviction. and um isnt TuPac like DEAD?)
Girl 2: Yeah totally, or like, someone equally as famous or just like, equally as cool.


Girl 1: Can you like, sing, because you seem to know lots about music and performing and stuff and I feel like you must be a really good singer or something.
Girl 2: Modest Um, well. Then silence so she must have been shrugging or blushing.
Girl 1. Oh my god you can sing! I would so LOVE to hear you sing like on tape or something.
Why wait to hear it on tape, she is sitting right next to you! Is tape better than hearing it live?
Then about 1 minute of silence... Then the girl starts singing! Like ballad singing, to really show off her excellent (it really wasnt) voice. Oh for the love of god. SHUT UP!


Girl 1: I feel like I wrote this song I know it so well.
Girl 2: You wrote this song!?
Girl 1: No I just feel like I could have cause I know it so well.


Girl 1: Do you think they were really in love?
Girl 2: Yes, they were SO in love, like really in love.
Girl 1: What do you think Justin thinks about her now, is he worried about her? Do you think he like calls her to see how she is?
Girl 2: Yeah, definately, cause they're still friends.
Talking about Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake.

Entertainment Puro.

Unemployment....and the snail family.

I really should be blogging more. I am unemployed after all. I got fired. It happened a couple of months ago. Long story short, my boss was a tool burger. I was working crazy un-necessary hours, working till 6am just cause your bosses have a presentation the next day (that I had to prepare) and at midnight they are still arguing over the content (only starting to brainstorm the content at 11pm) doesnt maketh for a happy workplace. Boss turns up at 4pm most days, with "urgent" work that is due the following day etc etc We have a meeting, everyone is pissed. the bosses say if you dont like it then fuck off. They say "no es justo pero es lo que hay" Its not fair but its what there is. I suggest that we need to be compensated for our overtime with corresponding days off/free hours at the end of the project to encourage not taking advantage of our time. The boss says "when I worked in New York I´d be in the office all night long" This is NOT fucking New York dickhead and maybe if you didnt spend so much time in the office you would be able to distinguish between the two cities, loser. My workmate called them franco era facists. She got fired too.

I am claiming unemployment benefits which you get for a percentage of the amount of time you have been working. For me, thats 4 months worth of unemployment benefits and almost the same pay as I was getting when I worked. So its holidays till November....

The snail family is still alive! It must be said that liquid paper does not kill snails. Seville has just had a lot of rain and the snails have been out like crazy. We´ve seen many of the old little guys that haven´t been seen for ages. Whitey, if you remember, was the one we painted all white. He´s gotten so much bigger and isnt so much white all over but more like splotchy white. He´s grown up and gotten kinda punk. Unfortunately last night, my friend Miguel, crushed to death Casi, the one named after Marcos´s Mum. It was quite sad to see her all smashed up. There are lots of new little babies out, if its cruel to put liquid paper on snails then it must be even more cruel to put it on baby snails. Like piercing a newborns ears..... which brings me to another story. Marcos´s friends Javi & Ana recently had a baby. Marcos showed me some pics they sent him online, when they were still in the hospital and I was shocked to see that, in the hospital, the baby had its ears pierced! WTF I said! The baby has its ears pierced! Little tiny pearls! Marcos tells me this is normal and someone comes around while the baby is in the hospital and asks if you want it done there!!! Poor little new born baby ears! After discussing this with every spanish person I came across in the next few days, they all tell me that all the spanish do it, and its better for the baby cause it cant even feel it! Well, methinks it can feel it. THEN, Marcos went to visit the baby, I couldn´t go for some reason, and when he returned he had MORE freaky spanish baby news.....THEY´D SHAVED ITS HEAD! It seems that baby had unsightly bald patches and thin whispy daggy baby hair... So Buzz Cut for Baby! She looks cuter, and it goes so much nicer with her pearl studs now doesnt it? I couldnt believe this! Then, when discussing it with Ms Mum, she tells me that its normal (in Spain of course, nowhere else where Ive damn been!) and you have to wait till the baby is 40 days old to do it. THERE ARE MEDICAL RULES TO BABY BUZZ CUTS? Well it seems there are. Jeez, so much to learn.

Betty

Little baby Betty has got a tooth! So cute! The liitle alien will be into steaks in no time!