My blogging will be at a minimum for at least two weeks. My family is going off to visit my family in California! My son has been counting the days til we leave since August 1st. We are half packed and ready to leave tomorrow. Tomorrow will be airline hell, but by Tuesday I will be happily settling into my California relaxation mode.

I used to love flying. Now, if it wasn't for my family living across the country, I'd avoid flying like the plague. Between Homeland Security's ineffectual but degradingly insulting measures and the airline's incresasingly petty fees and service cuts, the fun has been totally sucked out of air travel, leaving nothing but a husk of misery, anger and bitterness. I used to travel with a smile and just enjoy the ride. Now I fly with a tight lipped sense of dread. Thank you very much airlines. You suck and your suckiness gets worse year after year.
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Coney Island, 1 September 2007

I think unitedstatians have a weird sense of humor. How can you explain celebrating Labor Day on the last day of Summer?

In this household we are not typical americanos by any stretch of the imagination. As good slash-puertoricans, would rather be boogie boarding in Isla Verde than fighting the crowds at Sandy Beach. So we are going to high-tail it to the park and the museum for our last day together, to have some fun.

How are you spending your 'labor' day?

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Mi silla en El Alambique, Isla Verde (Puerto Rico)

after i come back home from going home, i get this melancholy limbo of a feeling : that i have left a home behind in search of a home that is not there and yet is familiar and welcoming and soothing and incomplete for the lost years and the lost house because i have no real place to be home but the few couches and extra beds to crash on my families places and even my mother's house is this foreign, mold controlled zone in which my lungs collapse, my heart stops with the toxic molds that makes me feel unwelcomed and pushes me into the asceptic living of hotels with their climate controlled hells drowing the sound of coquis and the rustling of platain and palm trees in the middle of the night and making my body remember how to go to sleep.

after i come back home from going home, the place i come back to is so familiar and yet so removed missing the little bit of heart and soul and pain and laughter i left back in spanish with its ay benditos and ave marias and its tu sabes and its bochincheo with arroz con gandules and alcapurrias and habichuelas and sancocho de medio día and el cafecito para empatar.
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This is about the same spot I end up everytime I go to El Alambique beach in Isla Verde, Puerto Rico.

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Este es el sitio en donde termino sentándome cada vez que voy a la Playa del Alambique en Isla Verde, Puerto Rico.

8am in Puerto Rico

This is what, in theory, we have been doing for the past 7 days here in Puerto Rico. We have allegedly gone to the beach each day, played and enjoyed ourselves.

The reality is that, as part of the new working class, I have been squeezing in vacation time around my work schedule. I will blog about all the things I have been working on while here, but I just have to say that in spite of how difficult it is to have to work while being in a remote part of the island and alone with the kids, I am happy to be here. It's good to be back home.