here’s the best possible picture at the moment of the new kids in the 88, dongxin road: grub and lilo, on a rare moment of quietness.

If the sun
Refused to shine
Down on me
‘Till the end of time
As long as i have your caress
Your tenderness
I will be blessed

If the moon
Up in the sky
Turned its face
From the lonely eye
I could never be distressed
Or love you less
I will be blessed

I will be blessed, Lisa Ekdahl

i like new years. not so much for the party, or the new figure on the date, but more for the excuse to wipe our whiteboards clean and start again. i like these fresh days, where you can begin something, a project, a vision, just a new set of rules. people reinvent themselves each new year, on better people, on new motivations, on fresh wishes. suddenly, there are more smiles out there, more willingness to improve.

this year was such a full one, and a good one at that. a year of discovering countries and people, of crossing the ocean, of finding what i wanted - and a year of waiting for it.
it feels strange, it feels funny. in a way, it feels like being a pregnant woman, waiting for a baby for 9 months. all those months patiently dreaming of that special day, of that life changing event in the future. 22 days left now, and i know, with all the tiny atoms of my body, that it is worth every second of the time i spent waiting.

i wish all of you a happy 2007. may you be able to embrace your challenges this year and look in the bright side of them.

ana

my kingdom for one of his kisses, a speculaas and a cup of celestial seasonings tea.

pretty please?

“Then I thought about how for such a long time, I’ve been so used to coming home at specific hours to talk to him. how I got so used to walking on the street or going out with friends or noticing interesting things then make a mental note to tell him about it when we see one another on camera, and how right now, I don’t have to wait, I open my mouth and point out things as they happen, I don’t have to rush anywhere to see him cause he’s right there, with me, I don’t need to do anything right now, I know that will change soon with needing to find a job and start settling into a life, but now, at this moment, I don’t have to do anything, I just exist, I just am - being, living, breathing, I can do whatever I want at any given moment. I’m going to get off this chair now and give him a big hug from behind.”

(from lilly’s blog, here)

she’s from israel, he’s from new york. they felt in love with an ocean in between, connected with cables, webcams, microphones, depending on isp’s dispositions and techonology moods. but they fought for what they believed and they stayed together, regardless the distance, the timezones, the war. one could say they had everything against them, and still, they managed

“Forty-two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?”
“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”

on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

they never asked me the question. today, i’d give them the answer (with units) in a glimpse.
42. 42 days. :)

(i saw rita made a post about her dad, and i suddenly felt like doing something similar here too. thanks for the idea :) )

my family was always a different one.
mom worked a lot. more than 30 hours in a row, at least twice a week (and amazingly, she still does). when she was home, we weren’t allowed to make any noise - a rule which later was responsible for us listening to music much lower than most people, i think.

so, anyway, how did me and my brother end up normal healthy kids?
yes, you might have guessed it, the trick was my dad. he woke up early, fed, washed, drove us to school, went to the teachers meetings, took us to the hairdresser and the dentist, invented new foods (pasta with sausages was his and our favourite!) etc etc etc.
on top of it all, he still had a semi-normal job with some degree of liberty and he helped my mom with the housework. wait, i know what you are thinking - “helped with the housework” is an ironic expression that is often a sinonym of joyfully washing the dishes once a week.
well, that wasn’t the case at all. the proof is i’ve never seen my mom ironing any single piece of clothing or vaccum cleaning.
that’s just the way it is.

we’ve had our ups and downs, but some people are special, i guess. my most treasured memories are from a period in which my mom was finishing some sort of degree or post-graduation and she had to study a lot. my dad would take us two to porto on the train with a kilo of rice and we’d spend the afternoon there, feeding the pidgeons.

on the picture you can see him and nani, my little cousin - who we took there a few years ago, just for the fun of doing it once again. we still love it. and i love you dad. :)

ps - paizito. já sei que não percebes o que eu escrevi ali em cima, mas não tem mal. já te disse tudo quando te liguei hoje. resumindo, gosto muito de ti. continua a fazer massa com salsichas e tudo, que a gente adora. beijocas.