PAVEing a Blog

Sorry for not posting earlier…my laptop keyboard, on the fritz, keyboard is from well, to be nice, HADES, and it takes 45 minutes to basically type my name, however, in 1 sentence, last night, we at at Mel’s Hamburgers and celebrated birthdays, planned a presentation for today and tomorrow, and now CSPA, interviewing CEOs the nextb

Students are in their last workshop (3:40 PM) and we will be headed out to the Soho Rep for info on interviewing him on what the literary and dramatic director does, as Raphael Martin does, our appointment – 5:00 PM  🙂  THEN, to the Open Mic 🙂

Tuesday –

I do not know about anyone else, but Alia and Natalie Cruz seemed more awake than me, lol…but they needed a towel so I grabbed one for them, and then came back to the lobby and was told breakfast was served in the basement, AND my delivered package, before 8:30 AM, was here already!  🙂  YEAH!

This is Jazz on the Park, no frills, yet, eating bagels, muffins, OJ, downstairs from the pool table, among many other people from other languages and countries, some people would be like, “Ohmygosh, this is PRIMITIVE!” yet, it is what makes Jazz on the Park, Jazz on the Park, they will go to any lengths for you, and are super amazingly nice, and are all for the person here, and you, if you are that type of person, learn to appreciate this is NEW YORK and yet, this very simple hostel is willing to do anything to let you see the simple things in life, without blocking them with the complicated.  I LOVE this place, the staff, and all Jazz on the Park represents, period.  LOVE IT.

Here is PROOF that there is snow on the ground from my third floor outside my room

Monday –  As I begin to try and catch up in the wee hours of Monday morning, our plan is to meet at the airport at noon and then prepare to take off from here!.  Any problems, my phone number is 554 834 5606.  Look forward to a great beginning photo and then the photos begin of our trip!

Mrs Clarke, thanks so much for the Sushi you sent to the meeting, it was DELICIOUS., my gosh!  🙂

We started off last night among the attending members talking about connection in New York we will have to Ed Sheeran, 😉 (close, we are on his trail!), then how we can help facilitate the interest in the New York Times article on the 911 Educational plans we need and will go through to achieve an amazing experience with our 911 student committee, on top of meeting with this group’s grant company, expressing an interest in helping them as they work through the grant process in Ms. Dixie’s glass, specifically, this is Charity Water, located in New York!  That is only HALF of our trip!  Not to mention the cool ideas we have for our presentations Wednesday and Thursday!  Don’t miss the chance to back channel with us and join us at 12:30, Wednesday and Thursday, at 12:30 Mexican time – here to join in our conversation during our workshops at Columbia!

What alot to thin about!  Details about how this all plays out on just getting here Monday, will be below!  🙂  Thanks for joining us!

First comments from Natalie on the trip – 2 down 7 more to go!

So, we all get to the airport, excluding Natalia who was initially waiting at ASF, and thank goodness they called, we got her here, once all here at the airport, we settled in to light discussion on what would we expect, everyone a little excited.   FINALLY, we took off to New York!  It seems a longer plane ride due to screaming children on board, but overall, we all got on without any complications, and as we exited into the U.S. customs, everyone was getting excited aside, from touching down at about 22:30 Monday night.

We were able to get onto the shuttle, all 9 of us, and we were headed on our way when, amid the exclamations of “I can’t believe I am here!”, everyone began to realize, “SNOW!”  LOTS of it, show plows, snow removers, shovelers, TONS OF SNOW everywhere! From the shuttle it looked awesome.  Natalie was awesome and got our keys for us, and we promptly checked in, a cool 8 bed dorm for the girls, and in 15 minutes we met in the lobby at the ripe old time of 12:30 at night.  We ventured out and found out old haunting pizza shop, La Familia.  We ate there but OH, the trek there through snow, everyone realized how WET, cold, and miserable snow can be on a night when it RAINS, like tonight.  By the time we ate and got semi-dried off, we went back out, half the group taking a taxi, the other half braving it to the drugstore for incidental items, and soaking wet, and Natalia, Alia, Alice, Ana, all laughing and carrying on, we realized when we got back to Jazz on the Park, we were wet, cold and now TIRED.  Around 1:30 in the morn, and it started to hit us, and we called it a night?

Plans for tomorrow? – We exchanged numbers, and set the time at 5:15PM to meet in the lobby, and we will make our way to Mel’s for dinner, to prepare for the first day, and wow – the first free day of freedom before the conference.  This night was an excellent trial run for all to see who needed gloves, scarves and items to waterproof their feet from the elements of slush, rain, and cold.

A long day, but we arrived with so many new elements of snow, coldness, and just NEW YORK, it was picture perfect how everyone just clicked and things worked out on our first day in NEW YORK!  🙂

Nervous?  Yes.  The DAY before New York, AND ST. Patrick’s Day, (Edinboro University’s version of the Fight Song (Scotland the Brave) and the bagpipe version of (Scotland the Brave) – St. Patty’s – my FAVORITE Holiday… we have a lineup of speakers that is well, amazing, that will enlighten us on the behind the scenes of Broadway shows, theatre, drama, journalism, and well, everything.  EVERYTHING.  Excited. SO EXCITED!  Thanks to Janet who arranged so many meetings for us, SO MANY.

My birthday was a realization of how large this New York week will become for Repentino., and how far I have come with making Repentino. a reality thanks to the hard work of Camila de la Parra and her insistence on continuation.  VERY important.

Shocking and ironic that 16 views on March 16th, my birthday? Or coincidence?  Hmmmmmm…Danielle has placed her blog on her voyages to Morocco, VERY exciting.  LOVED IT.  I think we can start a world voyage of blogs if we keep it up.  🙂

Random acts of kindness, last Saturday, I was walking and used the ATM for Bancomer along Insurgentes, there was an ATM card still left int he machine, sheesh (I would never do that!) Scoffing, I did my first week here, lol.  So I grabbed the card, waited for a few minutes, no one came back, and then when I arrived home, emailed Bancomer and told them the account and the name on the card to try and help.  A few days later, I received this message:

Thanks John Powell, Mark Webber, Cynthia Webber, Jeff Loomis, Rennie Martin, Megan Ver Duin, Janet Castelpietra, Gabby Garcia, Clau Robles Gill, Julien, Jason Schell, all for hanging with me the night before my actual birthday!

Friday was just, well, awesome to be FRIDAY  😉  While at ASF, Janet and Gabriela through a surprise birthday party  for Moct and I,  upstairs with so many pizza, such delicious cake, and balloons and decorations galore, it was AWESOME – and what a nice day!  🙂 I loved seeing Clau, one of our awesome students, come up and join in the festivities – it was awesome!  🙂

AND I bought tickets for this play thanks to Mark Webber!

Alan Ayckbourn’s A WOMAN IN MIND,  a British comedy   🙂

Going out in the evening, and jumping around several places with friends, ending up at Pata Negra with everyone among some very, VERY attractive ladies, and great friends, I have to say, the birthday was a good one – just to be out and among good friends.

Thank you everyone for taking time out to make it something special…;)

Yeah!  Sounds boring, but I am going to take time to settle in today, clean, prepare for New York Monday, take care of some puppies, and then a fun-fulled, relaxing night at El Ocho tonight…;)

Yes, as we prepare to attend Columbia Press Association’s Conference, we want to remind you of an upcoming gem!  See below!:

It’s no secret that I love March.  And St. Patrick’s.  And maybe even more the Repentino. staff after tonights 55 member Open Mic.  So much as I see 41 nearing, they inspired this in me:

FORTY –ONE

Great things are in the wind, yet,

And I feel that my accomplishments,

Piled upon the backs of others,

Are now the icing on the cake.

Yet, if this, my life, right now,

Is the icing on the cake,

The filling is so rich

Look at what we have –

Yeast – it makes things rise, and I am surrounded by those that make me

Yes, rise – rise higher than any leaven bread has the right to be,

Sugar – “You can do whatever you want with your life, but one day you’ll know what love truly is. It’s the sour and the sweet. And I know sour, which allows me to appreciate the sweet.” The sugar has been the icing and what is inside each of us.

The sugar in my cake, my Forty-One years of recipe…

Is just that, a recipe – if I could take each of you, on this crazy journey,

Referred to as a recipe, you’d find…

Everything you’d need to succeed  –

Thanks to the countless –countless, imagine that word…

COUNTLESS – meaning more memories than a human can contain –

This has been my life for Forty-one years – thanks to Dad, that could fill a room…

…on fact – a family that could fill a room, a Mom that kept pushing and believing,

students, that faded into the lines between family and students, usually not the case

but the exact case in mine… Two lives that slipped away that pushed me the rest of the way, when did I decide that would overcome the heartache, disappointment, and hurdles in the way?  No idea, no timeframe, no way, yet, here I am…

My forty-one years have been the best gift that override a gift, a cake, and even my first surprise birthday party at forty –

Life – is a living poem, and I am richer for having a living poem around me…

…at forty –one…

My blog is dedicated to the students of Repentino. making me realize, over and over again, oh how sweet 41 can be and how much more, the years to come will be…:)

“What he has demonstrated very clearly is that you have a choice. He took all that torment, all that agony, all that confusion and pain, and he transformed it, into something beautiful. He’s like the silkworm, you know, you know, you take this raw material, and you transform it, and you come out with something that wasn’t there before, something beautiful, something perhaps Transcendent, something perhaps eternal.  Insofar as he does that, I think he is representative of human spirit, of what is possible, that you have a choice, and this has been my choice, to give you sugarman.  No, have you done that? Ask yourself…” excerpt from Oscar-winning documentary – Searching for Sugar Man.

I just received the most amazing birthday gift, weeks ahead of my actual birthday.  Yes, I love birthdays.  No I do not like to make big deals of mine, but others.  It’s that whole, “Look, I am no here trying to be vain, but celebrate what others bring to my table.”

I watched this documentary, Searching for Sugar Man, given to me by Tulio Lugo to watch, and am struck by this being the most amazing documentary I have seen in – well, I can’t recall ever seeing something some REAL.  Yet, it serves as a lesson on how easy going and open you need to be to appreciate just that, the real things in life, avoiding what others feel it is to be successful and rich, and finding the aspects that are what real success is about – friends, family, events that can’t be measured by today’s standards.  This documentary has it all wrapped into one, a gift I have not seen or watched until today, am I the better to seeing it, my gosh yes.

Now, I need to get my hands on the record, the cd, and any albums I can by Sixto Rodriguez, without a doubt.  It is amazing to see how this man, so humble, represents so much of what people fail to see, great success in being humble and quietly going about fulfilling he need to see others succeed as well.  The last quote in the article above, “At the end of Bendjelloul’s film, we learn that Rodriguez is touring the world and playing to sold-out crowds, and is giving most of his money away to family and friends. Oscar or no Oscar, Sixto Rodriguez acts and sounds like a man who is very much at peace with the world.” says all you need to know.

In the past few days I have been lucky enough to experience so many new adventures, from learning who Yolanda Vargas Dulche was, after hearing about her, as Contadora De Historias and grandmother of my amazingly admired Editor in Chief for Repentino., Camila de la Parra, and attended a 100% Espanol roundtable discussion about her life at the Mueso De Arte Popular.  As if that wasn’t enough, I attended, in the same night!, the opening and premiere of colleague Jason Schell’s art at the hostel on Juan Escutia, (I loved seeing he actually studied at Grove City, I KNOW THAT PLACE!!),

and with the advent of Kinah having puppies, seeing the movie Oz, El Poderso Friday, eating an amazing meal Friday Night, and preparing for an amazing venture intro New York with an amazing Repentino. staff, yeah, life is complicated at times, yet, the good things, if you look close enough, will overwhelm the supposedly bad thing we think are there the whole time, an really are not.  Life is good and I even came up with a piece to read at Open Mic – not a bad weekend…:)

Oh yes, and you thought you heard it all….

Sunday – 6:00 PM – I am exhausted but relieved that I am making progress on my Mansfield University studies, as well as other work for Repentino.  All of a sudden, a high-pitched whining, scratching, from the living room area.  I go out, and Kinah, yes, Kinah is scratching the heck out of the furniture, oddly enough,after 10-15 minutes of this, my usually calm and restive Afghan, Kinah, was going BONKERS.  “Climbing the walls” was a great description that fit this to a “t”, and I even went to the liberty of recording this on video, to take to the vet, because at this point, that was where we were going, I had no idea what was making her crazy, but crazy she was acting, and then some.

I put her leash on Kinah, and she would not budge, not even an inch, which normally, she was the first one out the door.  I pick her up….carry her, make it to the second floor, and PLOP! – look down and there is a baby puppy lying on the stairs – in the placenta still not moving.  YEAH.  and you think Mondays are a surprise, this Sunday was a carnival.  I was in shock.

A puppy?  Seriously?  I immediately put Kinah down, and she did what I hoped, licked the placenta and sack off the puppy, and BREATHING, the puppy was alive, minus the mess of blood and mucusy substance that was  ow on the stairwell, I picked the puppy and Kinah up and rushed to my truck, and amazingly, I could get the truck out with everyone else usually blocking me in, not today…I rushed to the Vet, he came running out and informed me what I kind of knew on the way over to Condesa Pet Center,  I should not have moved her as this was her comfortable zone for giving birth – (As we now looked at two puppies instead of one in Kinah’s care, in the back of my truck) – I sighed but was realized as the vet told me she will take care of everything she needed to go back home, and unconsciously, KNEW – that I had not known she was pregnant at all – yet, all the things she had done in the last 30 minutes lead to her being just that, major pregnant….

I went back home, asked my neighbors in the bookstore for a box, and newspaper, shredded a homemade bed for them, as Kinah went on to have her third puppy (the vet warned me to expect 6-7 – oh my GOSH) – and I waited it out – yes, as she gave birth in the back of my truck…

However, a neighbor in my building chanced on coming out, and is a VET too, and oddly enough, HAS an Afghan, and told me we needed to get her inside as it is getting cold too cold for puppies who cannot regulate their body temp – now you reading this, cold here is 60 degrees, not the rain/snow/storm all are having with bitter cold like 30 and 20 F – but still to cold for puppies without an internal heater…

…SO before what we assumed would be the 4th puppy, we rushed Kinah, and puppies in tow, into my living room and waited it out.  Looking down, I realized how much blood I had on my shirt, jeans, and shoes, and always wished for a chance to have alot of blood on me to make me look like a mass murderer, check one off the bucket list for me.

After realizing people were looking at me as I made my up and down my building, with well, lots of blood, I redressed – (I could have used this for Halloween, timing….sheesh) …and waited, yet, no more puppies?  Seriously, THREE?  NO WAY, if I had to have puppies galore, I will settle for three, and three is all Kinah had – amazing!

Today is Thursday, four days later, and the puppies are alive and feeding, Kinah is gaining weight and a perfect, I mean, PERFECT mother, – she is awesome.  We have her on a routine that she does go out to bathroom breaks, and feeds her pups, and I have her shored up in my room to be away from the cats for privacy and security, and all are doing amazing.  Yes, pictures, right?  So here are two below, and now, who wants a puppy?  Of course, how did she get pregnant?

Sigh, not on my watch as she shies away from dogs, so my only conclusion is while I was at December she had some play time at Happy Dogs (ironic name) which, I have to say, I should have tried to get her fixed earlier, yet, I was hoping she would be separated and yet, obviously, pregnancy tells all right, so, Happy Dogs is kind of ironic, eh?

🙂

Not sure what the other half breed is though we know half Afghan and half?…   What would you prefer?  I would be happy with a Labrador and Afghan mix yet I am thinking the puppies look like, well, PUPPIES right now not a particular breed yet, but they are brown, so, not a white Afghan trait coming through…

And all this time, this post is just about puppies, and not the amazing other things that are occurring, so I will need to save that for next time, we’ll try back today or tomorrow…in the meantime, starting thinking of how you would handle puppies unexpectedly, and if you would like one, I am definitely in the market for finding good, honest homes for these awesome looking puppies, for a deal you can’t refuse….FREE….:)  More thoughts on parenthood later…I am learning to weather this storm of unexpectedness quite well….:)

2 hours old…

…by the way, I went back and mopped the stairs, just saying.