Katanikotael

I've got the Mondays. I'm doing everything in my power to lighten up, distract myself, but I can't get away from a particular uuuuggggggghhhhhhhh feeling. So I turn to KATANIKOTAEL.

Katanikotael (Let's shorten that to Kat, hmm?) is a spiteful bitch. He gets you in your home- strife, unrest, flaring tempers, and unease. He's a zodiac demon, lounging somewhere in the declans of the zodiac. While most zodiac demons have a specific angel assigned to them to drive them away (My head flashes to Ron Artest guarding Paul Pierce. Bad analogy for 32 reasons.), this doesn't apply to Kat. Instead, to drive Kat from your home you need a cure of laurel leaves, holy water, and meticulousness. I interpret this as the difference between having a reinforced termite-proof house foundation and having to call an exterminator to tent your termite-weakened home as it falls down around your head. Both ways deal with your pests, just one results in far less cost and destruction.

Of course I recognize as I keep trying to pre-empt my own personal uneasiness with diverting blog posts and plans to redo my bathroom, I am trying to cohabitate with my case of the Mondays instead of starting to holy some water for a damn cure. Oh, you effing Mondays...

The Mondays are the silliest and stupidest of the modern demons. They are a glorified hangover. They are only effective on Monday, unless Monday was a holiday. In that case, Mondays double their strength and descend on Tuesday. They make you eat lousy food to fill the yearning-shaped hole in your soul. The antidote to the Mondays is a good night's sleep. They are innocuous and nothing worse than kinda bratty. The only actual danger of the Mondays is their ability to mask a real problem.

I had an office job once, and the Mondays sucked the life from me so much I could barely keep upright at my desk. It's just Monday, I would reason. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow wasn't better. My Mondays grew to stretch from Sunday night to Friday at about 3pm. I realized the week-long Mondays were hiding a very real depression. I never had an office job again.

My challenge today is to determine: Do I really have a case of the Mondays or am I dealing with a Kat-sized demon? I guess I'll know for sure tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, where do you get laurel leaves?

*Thanks to "Dictionary of Demons: Names of the Damned" by Michelle Belanger. Llewellyn Publications, 2010

On the Other Side of a Saturday

I didn't post last night because... I was out! (GASP!... smattering of applause)

A bestie was in town to visit and nothing gets me out of the house like company. It was a magical weekend of laughing, incredible food, movies, and more laughing. Serendipitous timing at restaurants, minimal traffic, and decent parking contributed to make the weekend a quintessential LA Weekend Visit Miracle. (Seriously, I haven't had a better Saturday night out in too many months to count and not feel like a loser.)

And now? The blues.

For every Christmas morning there is crap-ass December 26. For every college Mardi Gras there is the hangover sponsored by Saltines and Pedia-lite. And for this weekend, I find the frigid quiet of a solitary Sunday night, giving way to the harsh glare of tomorrow's "reality."

I'm being dramatic. It's from all the estrogen. For three days I've been in the company of women. I spa'd. I talked about dreamy movie stars. I read girly magazines. I even watched 20 minutes of the movie "Valentine's Day"... and defended it. I choaked up several times during all 10 minutes I watched of the SAG awards. I'm not this girly in a full month. And now? It's over... (whine, lump, glisten)

It's hard for me to be girly. I hate shopping. HATE. I have minimal patience for children and cooking. I tolerate spa-type procedures like facials ONLY if I have a gift certificate I can't trade for something else. I hate (HATE!!!!!!!) chick lit and every chick flick made after Bridget Jones' Diary.

But when I'm around certain besties, I forget to judge- okay, that's a lie, but I'm game for the girly, and the 14 year-old boy inside me (Let's name him something... Boo?) partakes with open-minded curiosity. It's like we (Boo and I) get to hang out with the cool girls and we play along and get to learn and do all kinds of new stuff. They encourage us to try on the orange mini-dress.They read our horoscopes to us. They ask us about how we feel. Its the same reason, I imagine, that the boy who sat next to me all three years of middle school went through my purse on a weekly basis. It was tourquoise and had dancing bears on it, and it contained intimate secrets (read: period stuff). It's a different Purse World that he (and Boo and I) can only visit because it's not our nature.

This is a long digression from my post-party weekend blues, but I feel on the cusp of a personal discovery so bear with me.

These girly weekends free me somehow. Not like I'm free to be the girl I've always wanted to be, because I don't want to be different- I like me, Boo and all. It's more like, the love, sensitivity and thoughtfulness of my estrogen-heavy girly girlfriends encourages me to be more adventurous, tender, and accepting of myself. And I, in turn, stop analyzing and judging myself and the things around me and just enjoy living.

It just occured to me the above qualities have nothing to do with estrogen or sex but more to do with real friendship and intimacy. I just blew my own mind. (Heh.)

"Okay, so now what?" Boo wonders, growing increasingly impatient with all this emotion.

I don't know. I just know I have the best friends in the world to give me the gift of enjoying my life and my self. The next step is... what...? Being a better friend to myself so I don't have to wait for Girly Blowout Weekends to truly relax and have a time too fantastic to put into words?

Oh. I just blew my own mind again. (Heh, heh.)

Luciel vs The What-Ifs

Another blog, another "Awesome, Inc." template.  (I love you "Awesome, Inc." templaaate! xoxo!)

I'm still new-ish to blogging, therefore newish to what exactly the hell I'm doing, rules, minutia, blah, blah. Yes, I could continue to only write about my own BS, which I'm good at since I'm straight-up self-absorbed (you love me!), but since the only people who care would include the 2 people legally required to and maybe 15% of my facebook friends, I felt the need to branch out.

(For those of you who still want to read the pathetic meanderings of a girl at home on Saturday nights, I will continue airing dirty laundry on Uptempo Plum.)

This blog is about demons.

I love demons. From the broad psychological monsters that push us to drink, screw and squander to the nasty nasties that elevate mediocre horror films into legitimate creepshows with nothing more than crucifix creativity and some body contortions. Check this out:
DEMON, n.
1. An evil spirit
2. A persistently tormenting person, force, or passion
3. One who is extremely zealous, skillful, or diligent

What's not to like?! Evil? I love evil! And the "persistently tormenting... etc, etc"...? Are you trying to turn me on? Not to mention zealous/skillful/diligent is so totally me. So, yes. Demons.

I'll start with one of my personal least favorites: The What-Ifs. Tiny bastards that travel in packs of a billion. Though they look, feel, and sound real, they're not. Difficult to exorcise if entertained for too long, but ultimately a good night sleep and a nice sunny day are the best temporary cure, second only to a good dose of reality. A strong spiritual practice helps.

Today I started to fall down the slippery grease-slick slope of WHAT IF. Igor, my ego, pushed me down the shaft when I wasn't looking and suddenly thousands of What-Ifs started slapping me in the face. What if I never get a job? What if I run out of money? What if I can't feed my cat? Real concerns smacking the rose-tinted shades I love so much off my face, I froze in terror and impotence.

After 2 seconds of torture - because What-Ifs multiply like knats (inside joke, http://biancaarvin.blogspot.com/2011/01/knot-gnat-last-knight.html ) if you let them play for too long - I thought to distract myself. I opened my book of REAL demons (no home is complete without one) to a random page and read about LUCIEL.

Luciel appears as a serpent with a woman's head (ugh) and is one of twelve dukes who serve Hydriel. Luciel may seem middle management, but he's no small potato- he has 1,320 ministering spirits carry out his commands! Luciel's turn-ons are bogs and swamps, and despite his appearance, he's courteous and a nice guy.

Not the Match.com profile I would pick, but whaddayaknow- a nice evil spirit! I like!

As I pondered Luciel, a got a flash of perspective on my What-Ifs. As much as they torment me, a time or ten (or more) What-Ifs have saved my ass. ("Why are you walking through the French Quarter alone after 3am? WHAT IF YOU GET KIDNAPPED, RAPED, AND MURDERED? Hail a cab, you jackass!") Like Luciel, What-Ifs are evil by nature and origin, but don't necessarily mean any harm. They're just doing their job.

Everyone has demons. Most people spend life avoiding, placating, or indulging demons of their own design. I know I do. So, I figure, why not try a little perspective from some real demon friends? And so I begin, with "Demon Sauce"...

*Thanks to "Dictionary of Demons: Names of the Damned" by Michelle Belanger. Llewellyn Publications, 2010

Knot a Gnat Last Knight

I analyze. I belabor. I stress. I'm a perfectionist. But I rarely spell-check.

I woke up this morning to a text from Bestie: "Your gnat?"

I snicker at myself, but then Igor, my Ego, points his fat finger at my forehead, "Idiot!"

I lower my eyes, chastised. Grainy war-footage flashbacks run through my head of every instance I typed "knat" instead of "gnat" in my previous post, as well as ON FACEBOOK.

Holy Christ, I posted my new, tender baby blog on Facebook! WITH MISSPELLINGS?!

Igor is right. I'm an idiot. I look like an idiot. I have hundreds of Facebook friends who will see that I don't know how to spell GNAT.

I decide: I can fix this. It's Sunday morning! People are either at church or asleep! I can delete the FB post, go into Blogger, edit, re-publish, re-post and most importantly, save face.

But... I like knat. It makes more sense than gnat. WAY more words begin with kn than gn- I know, I googled it. Good ones, too: knackered (AMAZING), knife (Love!), knee (essential), knit (very good for stress, I hear).

What other words begin with gn? Probably weirdo D&D names and biology terms... Oh, hm.

Gnarl. That's actually one of my favorite words.
Gnash. Oooo, good descriptive verbs totally turn me on.
Gnaw! I LOVE to gnaw on stuff!
Gnome. Aww, gnot gnome! Gnothing beats gnome...

Okay, just disproved the superiority of kn or gn words. Know (ha!) what? I don't care.

It's knat. I'm sticking with knat. Knat's mine. My own species of tiny, drifty flying bug, closely related to its Parent Trap split-screen identical cousin, gnat.

Screw you, Igor. And get your finger out of my face before I knaw it off. Tee!

PS. I spellchecked this.

Let There Be Light

I'm in the midst of award-winning procrastination (cash prizes?? oh... sulk.) to keep from finishing the script revision I STAYED HOME ON A SATURDAY NIGHT to work on.

(I didn't fool you, did I? There's a reason this blog is called "Views From Saturday Night" and it has very little to do with leaving my apartment-hole.)

I know I already posted my Saturday view, but I can't not share. I have something to confess. Oh God, I've become a blogger. That was quick.

The first phase of Procrastination Mode is Eat. So I do. I eat everything I can get my hands on. I eat anything that will get me away from my computer and to the fridge/stove/microwave to slice/spoon/nuke so I can chomp/lick/slurp. In this particular instance, I was reheating some Campbell's Tomato Soup. Not super important to the story, but was super inportant to me at the time because I like soup.

I've got the soup dregs in my Wonder Woman coffee cup ("As lovely as Aphrodite, As wise as Athena"... oh, sister, I KNOW.), I open the microwave - Lights on, inside! - and slip the cup in. I'm about to close the microwave door- I see a knat flying around inside the microwave...

I don't so much pause as I do register the following thoughts, "hey-knat-where-did-you-come-from-what-are-you-doing-in-there-I-wonder-what-would-"

SLAM! The door shuts and my evil scientist hand punches 20 secs on high.

My conscience eeks out, "reeeeally...?" as I watch the knat fly around my Wonder Woman cup, almost energized by the radiation I'm subjecting it to. Ironically, I have this thought with about 5 seconds to go: "I'm standing awfully close to the microwave. This can't be good." The knat inside gives me the finger.

DING! My soup is done and the knat must be, too. 20 seconds on high took my 2 tablespoons of soup from cold to boiling. The knat couldn't possibly...

Oh, but she did. Wonder Woman, indeed. I pop open the micro door and out lilts my little Frankenstein monster. My conscience is still whining, "I can't believe we did thaaaat! We teach yogaaaa!" My evil scientist hand considers shutting the Franken-knat in again to see what a minute would do.

My conscience wins and I eat my soup. I comfort my conscience with the fact that payback is a bitch, and I've likely strengthened this knat's DNA with so much radiation that she will catapult up the evolutionary ladder. I expect the clouds of Franken-babies to descend on my kitchen in a couple days.

"Want InnOut?"

Was Stella's text to me during her ride home from the airport. My response? GOD, no.
Yes, we've been back for a full 24 hrs now. I usually do my last blog entry from whatever foreign country I still happen to be in, because who the hell cares once I'm on the plane home right? That had been my plan for our last day - grab some coffee, walk around a bit more, play in the park, and end the blog.
Now that Stella and I had a thorough and complete understanding of our neighborhood, and now that I had figured out how to use street numbers ("Oh yay! The numbers get bigger as you go further this way! And that matches with the pocket map! We're GENIUSES!"), and now that we had walked and walked and walked through Palermo, Recoleta and Barrio Norte over and over, the last thing I expected was to get so lost that we had to scramble to make it back to the apt in time for our airport pick-up.
I blame not my poor sense of direction, but a wrinkle in the space-time continuum and the fact that I had already packed the pocket map that had become our best friend over the last week so that, instead of being on my person, it was resting comfortably in my suitcase waiting to emigrate to America.
The word "Lost" doesn't quite do justice to the situation I found myself in. I can't speak for Stella but I was so turned around that East was West, Right was Left, In was Out, Cat was Dog...you get the picture.
Ultimately, our driver was happy to wait - get this: he showed up 20 min early - and we made it to the airport with gobs of time to kill. Which I did by eating my post-scramble/pre-flying feelings in the form of everything sugary I could get my hands on. Hot chocolate, brownie with dulce de leche and whipped cream, chocolate bon bon...it was amazing. But I digress.
The point of the final blog post is to outro my adventure, similar to the way every dramady wraps up each episode with a "what I've learned" and a self-congratulary pat on the back as I wax nostalgic on events that just occurred.

What I've learned (insert appropriate Amy Mann song here):
- Porteno men appreciate women like it's their job. Day 1, after the 15th or 16th man appraised us, Stella and I wondered out loud why we weren't pissed off by it (because those who know me well, or even not at all, know I detest being ogled) and we decided it was because it wasn't just us. It was every woman. Men in Buenos Aires are like birdwatchers. They look and whistle at all birds, not just the pretty ones, because they like and appreciate all birds, not just the pretty ones. Also, this keeps the attention from being threatening in most situations.
- Buenos Aires loves Aerosmith. Every country I've been to has it's own guilty pleasure. In Greece, it was Tom Jones. In Costa Rica, it was Gwen Stefani. In Buenos Aires it is definitely Aerosmith. Specifically, "Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" the cheesiest of cheesy ballads. I think Stella and I heard that particular song at least 5 times in one 24-hr span.
- My motion sickness extends to subways. That's a bummer.
- Cab drivers in Buenos Aires are mostly fatherly or grandfatherly gentlemen - unless they are super hot and young - who love to give advice. Because this advice is coming from a dad-like "authority" figure, they yell it at you. Unless we were lucky enough to get a young, cute driver, they all yelled at us, but FOR OUR OWN GOOD. The lessons we learned:
1. the aforementioned close-the-door-slowly-so-you-won't-break-it lesson
2. the hail-the-cab-on-the-other-side-of-the-bus-stop rule
3. the don't-use-a-park-as-a-cross-street guideline
4. and the I'm-dropping-you-off-here-because-I-can't-drive-any-closer tidbit.
That last one wasn't a rule, but he still yelled it at us.
- Young men are persistent and romantic in Buenos Aires. I gave our number out to a couple of guys who I later decided I had no interest in seeing again, so I ignored their texts. Text after text after text, Stella would crack up and ask, "Which one?" But they never got pissy or put off. Ultimately, one of the guys essentially ended our "relationship" with something along the lines of "Our time together was lovely and I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip." but in Spanish.
- The word I most closely associate with anything having to do with motor vehicles on any street in Buenos Aires is "careen." They careen around corners, they careen through stoplights, and they careen straight at you.
- Valium doesn't begin to compare with the fairy dust magic that Ambien is. My flight home on Valium was a torturous affair of falling asleep only to wake up every 20-45 minutes.
- Buenos Aires has no shopping to speak of. This is contrary to everything I've read about the city. Granted, I'm not a huge shopper. But Stella is no amateur, so as we hit the streets our eyes were always open to finding a great shop or cool find. There was nothing, between the two of us, that we had any interest in buying. Clothes and shoes were uninspiring and jewerly looked like it was from any place else in the world. My impression is Buenos Aires is such a melting pot of cultures - European, South American and American - that it lacks it's own defined sense of self. Of course, I didn't shop for leather goods or antiques, 2 things Buenos Aires is famous for, because I can't afford them, nor do I have any interest in them. So maybe that was my mistake.
- Beef is good.

Usually the trips I take feature some sort of hardship like living out of a backpack, being unable to find enough tepid water to manage a real shower, or traveling to different locations every other day. This trip was the most comfortable and cushy adventure I've had, so my "what I've learned" aren't as profound as I feel they usually are, but that's all in my perspective isn't it? I already know how I deal with rats in my bedroom (surprisingly well) and oppressive heat (not so well), so how's about I see what I can see when life is easy?
I experienced an amazing and beautiful city with a volatile history with one of my favorite people in the world. We lived in the moment, slept late every day, ate what we wanted, laughed a lot and danced til dawn. And I wholly appreciate all of it. What more does a girl need?

"That's hilarious. Do we get real meat soon?"

This was a text Stella sent Pablo when he explained exactly what we were eating at his favorite restaurant. More on that later...

After Salsa we woke up late. Later than we'd been waking up which has been very late. LATE. Which means...dogs. After dawn, I ripped into my bathroom kit and found my ear plugs which gained me an extra 5 hours of blessed sleep.
The day was gorgeous as always, so after a stroll for coffee and my usual hour in the park to commune, write and soke up some sun, Stella and I took a bus to La Boca.
La Boca is the port area of town. Every tourist/guide book entry you read stresses the...let's call it not-particularly-safe-ness of the area. (STELLA NOTE - Sorry MOM!!) I glossed over this detail when explaining to Stella where we were headed because the area is also known for its bright and cheery facade. What are essentially tin shacks where people live and work are painted eye-popping colors with paint originally salvaged from ships in the harbor and I was dying to see them. I love me some bright colors. I did make it a point to stress we should head home before dark.
A very LONG bus ride finally deposited us in La Boca. The area was enchanting! Like when Hansel and Gretel find the gingerbread house. So yummy-looking! So colorful! And so dangerous-feeling! It was insane. The area was all but deserted except for a smattering of tourists sitting at a cafe. As Stella and I walked through the nearly-empty promenade, guys did the hard sell on tours, whiskey, anything we wanted. My sterns NOs and lack of eye-contact didn't really work and we had to stalk away. We walked further into town with the hopes of finding a place to stop and get a drink or an ice cream or something. Most everything was closed - I guess for this area weekends are the hot times and Monday serves as their Sunday. It made sense, we just hadn't anticipated it. I quickly had my fill of being tense and on guard - we grabbed a couple bags of homemade cookies and hopped the first bus we could catch. By the way, I mean literally hopped. A bus was pulling out and Stella and I ran to catch it. The driver never slowed beyond a roll and I did my best impression of hopping a freight train. I was appalled as only a girl who rarely takes public transportation can be. Stella was all "...what? Big deal."
That evening we went to this Vietnamese place we had heard a lot about. The food was good -- really, by LA standards, just fine -- BUT the fact that we were ingesting vegetables and tastes other than beef, cheese and bread was so refreshing, we were happy as rabbits. So happy and delirious, that we walked home (okay, we took a short cab-ride through the scary train track part of town, but then got out as soon as we were back on the well-lit streets) and I almost got myself killed by running into oncoming traffic. Here's the thing: street lights do this crazy dance where they not only turn yellow before they turn red, but they also turn yellow before they turn green. High off cabbage salad, I darted across the street at a yellow light -- Bad! Bad Bianca, I know! Thank god I'm fast. I feel extra bad though, because I suspect Stella had a very small myocardial infarction.(STELLA NOTE - i not only had a heart attack, but I found myself screaming "Oy!! Bianca Arvin!!" at the top of my lungs. quite embarrassing)
This morning we slept in. All the way in. Why? No dogs. It was silent all morning because for the first time since we landed it was raining and freezing. We spent all morning in, listening to it rain and thunder. When we couldn't stand it anymore, we escaped into the weather for coffee. Because this was our last full day, there was an over-whelming feeling of "Huh." We'd walked all over, had some things in mind to see, but nothing really moving us to expend a ton of energy in pursuing it. Finally, it was cabin fever that shoved us out of the flat and we hopped the Subte back to the financial district. From there I figured we would walk back into San Telmo and head to the Museum of Modern Art. We did just that, wandering in and out of stores and squinting into the sky that had suddenly cleared. We found the Museum...it was closed for renovation, and had been since 2007. From the looks of it, they weren't in any hurry because the place looked like a crack den.
Before heading back to the Subte, we decided to stop for a bit of pizza. Now, Stella and I have had tonight's dinner planned all week. Our new friend Pablo recommended his favorite local parrilla and we were all set to have our last big Buenos Aires eat-fest there. But we still had 3 hours until dinner and both of us needed a nibble. Our stop was fraught with drama and intrigue as 2 drunk locals raised enough hell that the police were called. Drama because there was tons of yelling; intrigue because I couldn't understand what they were yelling about beyond soccer and politics. Maybe that was enough. Regardless, Stella and I finished a whole small pizza.
This leads us to the sad part of the story. We cabbed it to Don Zenon, Pablo's recommendation, to discover it was everything we could ever want in a Buenos Aires restaurant. There wasn't a tourist in sight. The place was in a tiny barrio they don't even cover in the guide books. And...it was ALL YOU CAN EAT! For very, VERY CHEAP!
I made it through 2 courses before I felt too sick to continue. DAMN THAT MEDIOCRE PIZZA! I had eaten too much to choke down more than 2 bites of steak. The whole meal looked like this.
Course #1: Garlic toast and sausage. A beef empanada.
Course #2: Frites and fried plataines. Asado. (For those of you who aren't aware because I sure wasn't, asado is a plate of Cow Everything. Chorizo, blood sausage, sweetbreads, kidneys, small intestine, and...wait for it...testicles.) I made it a point to try everything on the asado plate.(STELLA NOTE- i took one bite and realized my terrible error in judgement. I ate no further of the mystery meat. but I'm pretty sure i ate some kidney thing...) Which may be why I got nauseous and dizzy enough to thinly sip my coke for the rest of my meal. One thing I ate was very tasty though greasy as hell. Let's all assume it wasn't testicles.
Course #3: Steak. We ordered asado de tira, which is ribs, per Pablo's suggestion. Stella enjoyed the steak course while she watched me twirl my hair around my finger and mouth-breathe. As soon as she was done, she told the waiter "Fin." (STELLA NOTE - i often fall into French..Bianca makes fun of me....)He got it.
Course #4: But he DID offer us dessert. And no matter how sick I am, I can never turn down dessert and thank God because we discovered something better than flan with dulce de leche, which until tonight was the perfect ending to every meal. We ordered pear, poached in red wine sauce, with vanilla ice cream. Mother of pearl!! Not only did it taste better than flan, it cured me! My stomach settled and I smiled.
Poached pear and all's right with the world. I'm gonna go eat some cookies.

La Boca in all its colorful glory


For real, La Boca was DESERTED


This woman is trying to wake this dead cat (STELLA NOTE - This cat is not dead. And when i told Bianca it wasn't dead she said "it will be when I tell the story".