Cali
We’ve been back in California for a couple of weeks. We surprised my mom on her birthday and it really was a surprise! She had to take a moment and I could see she was shaken, but of course, very happy to see us!
Life has been super duper busy lately. Andrew has been putting in lots of hours at the office. His company was bought out by Oracle and and he’s been going in and getting to know his new coworkers. What little time is left after that, he’s been using to do a major remodel on our little casa. The old office/dog room/closet was torn down and in its place we now have a beautiful new walk in closet/dog room and bigger private office. It looks amazing and I am in love with my new closet. Oh the joy of having a full length mirror! Will have to post pictures soon.
In the meantime, Ingrid and I have been spending lots and lots of time with our beloved family here in the Bay Area. Ingrid sees her cousins almost every day. After two weeks of this we have finally reduced the visits down to every other day or so. This was out of necessity because I always have so much stuff to take care of while we’re in the Bay Area. It’s all important stuff, like renewing our passports, updating registration, ordering checks, those types of things.
The other biggie taking up a lot of my time: dance! I have to get into serious dancing shape before the end of May, for the San Francisco Carnaval Parade. This year was extra busy, as I had to try a bunch of classes and decide which group I’ll join. My old group, Brazivedas, is no longer. My instructor retired just before we arrived in California. I felt pretty depressed about this for a few days but in the end I decided I had to bite the bullet and find a new group. And I am really really glad that I did. The group I’ll parade with this year is called Samba Mundial. They put on more of a Rio-style show. To make myself feel better about having to make all new friends (not easy for someone as shy as me), I splurged and ordered a real costume from Brazil! It turns out the people I’ll be parading with, and my new instructor Sandy, are super nice and just as welcoming to Ingrid. I don’t know that I would have ventured out of my comfort zone to find a new group had it not been for my other group ending. So it’s actually been a blessing in disguise. One great thing about SM is that they are close by, in Mountain View, so I don’t have to drive to San Francisco for every class and rehearsal. There are four types of costumes you can wear, and the routine is very simple. There’s a song I had to learn, and there’ll be a line from the Yellow Submarine in it, which just happens to be one of Ingrid’s favorite songs. Ingrid says she will parade with me, but I’ll have to see it to believe it. She can get shy on me at the last minute. I’m going to make her a costume anyway, so she can at least be dressed in a fun way for the parade.
There’s also a small parade we’re going to do this weekend, the Mountain View Annual Family Parade. I don’t have the costume every one else is wearing, so me and some other dancers will just wear a white skirt and a tank top. It should be fun. At the end of the parade there’s a park where they’ll have games and we’ll have drumming and dancing with audience participation. Andrew won’t be there, so I can’t promise any pictures from that one. But Ingrid is excited about parading in this one, and we’re working on her costume this week. Hopefully someone else will take our picture.