christmas?

So Christmas is coming. It sure doesn´t feel like it when the weather is warm and sunny. Today we went out and bought some things to make the nativity scene and will do that this afternoon. Very few people have christmas trees, many more make some sort of scene. Mostly buildings with snow, which makes me laugh. I look forward to seeing what we will do this afternoon.

Ruby´s sister died last month and yesterday we had a mass for her. That was interesting. I hadn´t been to mass since I lived in Mexico, and it was enjoyable. In Mexico, they were always in Latin and so I loved them because it was the one time a week that no one else understood the language either. This one was in Spanish and I was able to catch parts of it. It seemed much less formal than the ones I was used to in Mexico, also much much shorter. After mass, a pile of people came over to the house to visit and eat. They were there all afternoon and we drank some bottles of wine and I used all of my skills to try to understand a big group of half drunk people all talking at the same time, telling stories about people I don´t know. I have to admit that I didn´t catch much of it. I suspect I wouldn´t have done much better in English though. It was fun to meet more of the family and start to piece together who everyone is. Extended families run so far here, it´s hard to keep track of who is who and how they all fit together.

I will be spending Christmas with this family and there are 36 people getting together for Christmas dinner, so I expect more of the same bewilderment. It is enjoyable, I have always looked forward to holidays with different families - seeing different customs and ways of relating. It sounds like there are many things happening between now and then, lost of masses for the baby jesus and get togethers of different sorts that we will be attending, but I can´t figure out what they all are, I just get ready to go when I´m told. I think that everyone will get tired of seeing my one party frock, but it´s what I have, so they will have to live with it.

I have been loving seeing different party invites and information about what people are doing for Christmas at home come acrosss my email inbox. It´s been just long enough that Oregon is starting to feel like a different and strange world. When it´s not making me lonely, it is a fun experience. I saw an email that it is snowing there, and as I run around in my t-shirt feeling warm, I can´t decide if I wish I were there for the snow, or if I am glad to be here where it is warm. Both I guess.

bug bites suck! well, bugs suck, then the bites swell up and itch like hell. By the time this one was done, my whole wrist was red and swollen all the way to the left side of the inside and I couldn´t wear my watch at all. OWWWW! Thank goodness the swelling went down cause I didn´t want to go to the medico for an injection. They give injections for everything here and no one seems to know what is in them. Headaches, cough, tired, bug bites, everything. same injection.

It´s meals like these that remind me what a white-bre(a)d, supermarket girl I am. I don´t even know where to start eating this fish. I worked it out, but it wasn´t pretty and I´m pretty sure I was laughed at.