Up Up Alla!

We had just finished making puppets out of the vomit bags when the voice of the pilot came over the intercom. He announced that for unknown reasons, we had been "rejected" for take-off and that he would let us know as soon as he had more information. After two hours of waiting on the JFK airport runway with a two year old, this was not good news. The plane reverberated with groans and mutterings from unhappy passengers who proceeded to stand up and open the overhead bins in order to get their belongings. A few people started to head back to the toilets and others jogged towards the front of the airplane so as to be the first to be let back off again.

All of a sudden the plane lurched forward and starting zooming ahead at an alarming speed. The next thing we knew, we were no longer even on the ground and panic ensued as throngs of people lurched back to their seats, overhead bins hanging ajar and shopping bags falling into the aisles from above. This was literally 30 seconds after the first announcement which told us that we would not be taking off. 5 hours later we landed in Bogota with nary an explanation as to what had happened. Welcome to Colombia.

I think I'll start listing the books I've been reading within my blog entries since I can't get my Typepad reading list to work properly and I like to keep track. While on vacation I read- Grotesque, the second book by Japanese novelist Natsuo Kirino to be translated into English. The first one was "Out" which I totally loved. Very dark and so much more thought provoking than your typical mystery. Very culturally insightful as well. Grotesque was good but I liked "Out" better. I also read "Full Frontal Feminism" by Jessica Valenti of Feministing blog fame. If you already consider yourself to be a feminist, it's a bit basic but if you're not sure, definitely read it. Next I read Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins by Rupert Everett which was the best written shallow showbizzy autobiography that I've ever read. In fact, it was astoundingly well written. Right now I'm reading Finding Betty Crocker by Susan Marks and Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz. One is about the history of Betty Crocker and the other is about a girl's survival of a murderess ax attack. As you can see, my tastes are eclectic!

We're back in Switzerland now after a few weeks in Colombia and another week in NYC. Nico's speaking an odd mishmash of Spanish, French and English and I think he's pretty unintelligible to most people. "Up Up alla!" means "Airplane over there!" and "Tiene que share mio pousette" is "I need to share my baby stroller." People had told us that if each parent spoke in their native language that the child would just naturally separate them and not get confused. Doesn't seem to be working in our case but hopefully he'll figure it all out eventually.

Obsessively Listening to: Blond Redhead, Timbaland

Obsessively Watching: So You Think You Can Dance, S3, Big Love S2, Dora "L'Exploratrice" (not by choice this last one)

Obsessively Eating: Starbuck's double chocolate cookies and salads with Goddess dressing. Nico is  obsessively eating Gruyere cheese which he calls "Doggy cheese" since the dog in one of his favorite stories is named "Gruyere."