Orange October

I was there when they clinched the division against the Padres.



I was there when Lincecum threw 14 Ks in Game 1 against the Braves.



I covered my face and held my breath and cheered and boo'd and worried and yelled and danced my way through watching the win in Game 1 over the Phillies.



So if this is what torture feels like, I'll have more please!

Argentina: Two Months Later

"This happens with many events and anecdotes in my life: it seems I have lived them, but when I write them down in the clear light of logic, they seem unlikely. That really doesn't disturb me, however. What does it matter if these events happened or if I imagined them? Life is, after all, a dream." (From "My Invented Country" by Isabel Allende)



I arrived in Buenos Aires alone and without a laptop, so my attention to writing about it suffered miserably as a result. It all happened as beautifully as it did in Chile, however, and all of those happenings are tucked neatly away in memory.

Meg lives in BA and has weaseled her way into the nicest group of friends - gorgeous, wealthy friends I should add - who showed me what a good night out in BA looks like. Fernet and all.

Patrick showed up a few days after I arrived and thanks to our accustomed ways of instant communication being cut off, we had to hope we would cross at just the right window of time on a corner in San Telmo during the street fair. I was sipping an espresso when I saw him with his hands in his pockets and shoulders shrugged up from cold in the Sunday crowd of antique shoppers. When I yelled out to him, everyone turned their heads to witness our reuniting embrace.

The three of us managed to eat enough for six in the time we were together - Meg knew Palermo restaurants like the back of her hand. I am now convinced there is such a thing as death by lomo, and suffered meat sweats thanks to my previous 40 days of vegetarianism.



I saw beautiful things - things that made me feel life so fully that it had to spill out into my eyes. Trained tango dancers on the street and groups of locals following alongside. The puente de la mujer. The floralis generica. The thinker statue. And death never looking more lovely than in the Recoleta cemetery.



I woke up each morning to tango music drifting up through my floor from the studio below and talked to Leti for hours over coffee as dancers stretched around us before their class began. In my desperation to find an soda bottle like the ones they used in old tango salons, I ended up in a winsome conversation with two old men in a dusty antique shop where I only understood every third word but all the good natured gestures they offered.

Argentina has felt like an unlikely and imagined dream in the light of what I came back to that characterized the two months since. But its continued proof that O'Henry had it right when he said "that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating." Fortunately, they do not predominate my life too often.

To Mom, on my first night in Argentina

Just got to Buenos Aires an hour or so ago. I loved Chile - mostly for the Chileans but also for Valparaiso which is the most enchanting city I've ever been to since Capri off the Amalfi Coast in Italy.

More on Chile some other time but for now, I have only been in BA for about an hour and already have had an adventure. The bed and breakfast I found to stay at through a series of connections sent a driver to the airport for me. Always a relief to have that prearranged because foreign taxi drivers are very aggressive with fresh-out-of-customs tourists. Anyway, so Andres whisked me out of the cold and after holding my breath that I could withdraw cash from the ATM (you never know what international ATMs will or won't accept) we made the drive to a little neighborhood of BA called San Telmo.

He pulled up to a street where there was literally nothing that remotely resembled a bed and breakfast. It's like a NYC side street where you would have to ring the bell to get into any building at all and very little signs of life other than the main drag nearby. So we get my bags out of the van and walk up to 950 Carlos Calvado street where there is one of many large steel doors and a tiny bell to ring. So he rings... We wait... He rings again... It's windy and cold and dark and damp... And then a little key shake and the door swings open to a short Argentinian woman who looks about 70 and maybe weighs 125lbs and doesn't hesitate to grab my huge monster bag and exclaim "bienvenidos carrie" (w rolled r's of course). And she beckons me inside and the door slams behind me and I look up as I feel a whoosh of sweaty warmth against my face. I am in a high ceilinged bright hallway that angles up to a dance floor where there are no fewer than 15 sweaty dark Argentinian men dancing gracefully to intense loud music in the middle of a tango class. Leti guides me through the floor luggage and all, and I "permisso" my way through the dancers as she grabs a skeleton key from the rack, and marches me to the back where there is an airy checker floored courtyard and up the stairs to my end of the hallway room number 5 that has a balcony overlooking it.



The room is plain and clean and perfect. There is a quaint reading salon next to it and Leti lives on the top floor. I told her in Spanish (for that is all she speaks) that I would refrain from yelling and making loud noises throughout the night on account that we are now neighbors. She laughed heartily and said I had better not! There is no TV and sometimes the Internet works and sometimes it doesn't and I would expect nothing less.

I dropped my stuff and came back downstairs - a new class going on, this time co-ed. With women in high heeled tango shoes. Leti shouts a dinner recommendation to me and says it is muy famoso. Been open since 1842. And I am here now... At a tippy corner table with a glass of cab sav since they are out of malbec. I told the camarero that it tastes the same after a glass anyway, so cab sav would be fine and he should not let anyone act like they can actually tell the difference. He laughed and I stopped being the poorly-spoken gringa in the corner and started being someone who he might enjoy just a little bit even if I can't understand his Spanish very well and keep asking him to repeat himself. The place is packed. It's about 10pm here - time for dinner. I ordered the Argentinian version of antipasti, since that's what everyone else has on their table despite the ten page menu.

I know you didn't approve of this trip, mom. But you should know this is what makes me feel the most alive.