Lucky 7 Posts

Lucky number 7, baby! Katie at Seashells and Sunflowers tagged tangocherie to participate in My 7 Links, a project organized by Tripbase. This post here fits in nicely because it is my Lucky 700th!

Katie writes: The chronological nature of a blog means that quality posts continually find themselves getting buried deeper and deeper in the archives with the passage of time. The idea behind My 7 Links is to dig up some of those posts at the bottom of the heap so that readers can discover "new" material or get reacquainted with old posts they'd forgotten about.

[1] My Most Beautiful Post
Una Tanda Mas

[2] My Most Popular Posts
The Circle of Tango, but Vettriano and His Secrets surprisingly comes in a close second. And any post about tango shoes is immediately popular. (The classic all-time favorite post is the page about Ruben y Cherie's Tango Lessons.)

[3] My Most Controversial Posts
Woo--ee, I opened a can of worms with this one: Passion, Love, Tango
After this post and my bits on TV's Bailando Por Un Sueno, and  Dancing for Marcelo, I am very careful not to use "those" words that people are Googling at 3 a.m. Call me crazy, but I don't want "those" people to come to my blog for the wrong reasons! (Why do I care, right?)

[4] My Most Helpful Post
Probably my most practical post was Tangofoot, but since I just republished that one, I'll pick another. Actually, looking back through so many posts I think all of the ones on the etiquette and codigos in Buenos Aires have been most helpful, judging by the comments. But I'll list this one as also useful:
Seasons of Tango.

[5] The Post Whose Success Most Surprised Me
What Happens in BsAs Doesn't Stay in BsAs

[6]  Posts I Feel Didn’t Get the Attention They Deserved
Mucho Macho
I Blog Therefore I Am
Piropo

[7] The Post That You Are Most Proud Of
Hero Worship/False Idols

And here I'm going to add another category: the posts I had the most fun writing. And guess what? They are all about Ruben!
Hoppy!
The Face of Pagliacci
El Negro y La Novia
Secrets of a Milonguero 
The Milonguero Way
Timing is Everything! Part I


Excuse me for indulging myself, but then you only have Katie to blame!! Gracias, linda, for giving me a reason to ponder and review so many years of blogging!

And now the part where people hate me for tagging them. I nominate the following bloggers to carry the torch, if they feel like it:

Elizabeth http://elizabethbrinton.blogspot.com/
Candice http://notes-fromabroad.blogspot.com/
John http://tangocommuter1.blogspot.com/
Ampster http://ampstertango.blogspot.com/
Irene http://ireneandmanyung.blogspot.com/
Mark http://tango-beat.blogspot.com/
Patricio http://lamilongadel126.blogspot.com/

Summer Sunday

To all who know him, Ruben Aybar can be bigger than life--personality, energy, jokes--he can take up a lot of space in a room. Basically, believe it or not, he is a shy man who's motivation is making others around him happy.

View of Boedo from the Terrace by Sergio Stellato

This is never as true as when he is the host of a gathering, whether it's at a milonga or at home.

And it's also true that he likes to show off his cooking. So these qualities work really well together, and especially for me, because when we have people over, there is really very little for me to do until I do the washing up afterward.

Last Sunday began very hot and humid. We arose early to prepare for the "Bloggueras Barbecue" we had planned for that day. Lunch was for 1:00, and so the fire must be started by 9:30.

Photo by Sergio

While I dithered around looking for tablecloths and enough glasses and making chimichurri, Ruben was swabbing the terrace with detergent and cleaning the parrilla. Steam rose from the tiles and the hot metal grill even before he put any charcoal in it. Then he brought out the patio table and chairs, which I wiped down, and lowered the awning.

An Argentine's parrilla is sacred and quite scientific; the charcoal is lit in one location and added to the barbecue as needed; the grill is raised and lowered appropriately, and attention is constantly paid.

Just as the coals were beginning to blaze, a huge wind came up, blowing sparks all over the terrace and onto Ruben, who was working in his shorts. He got a few burns but paid them no mind.

He can scrub the vegetables while I'm just thinking about it, and he hurried to get them on the grill first, as the potatoes take the longest to cook.

Photo by Sergio

Everything was ready as scheduled and we sat down to enjoy an asado of beef, pork, chicken, chorizos, provolete (barbecued spiced cheese), red and green peppers, onions, potatoes, and a new item since our trip to Brazil last year, grilled fresh pineapple.

Photo by Sergio

The gale wind died down, but in its place were dark clouds. All of a sudden, like at picnics around the world, the sun was gone and the sky turned black. Then the hot steaming skies released buckets of water. The three men moved the table indoors and lunch continued while Ruben tore through the salon pushing the barbecue on wheels over the polished hardwood floor out to the quincho. He returned with more platters of food.

Photo by Sergio

The awning filled with water and tore, releasing another waterfall. Ruben remarked that he was glad he had watered the plants a couple of hours ago.

Conversation in three languages flowed like the wine without a break as we cozily watched the downpour outside.

Photo by Sergio

Photo by Sergio

Photo by Katie Metz

Photo by Katie

Ruben and I had a great time, although he never ate anything. He says that when he cooks, he gets filled up with the aromas.

By the time we had danced, eaten ice cream, drank coffee, and the last guest departed, it was a gorgeous clear evening, beginning to get hot again.

The blogs represented are SallyCat's Adventures, Seashells and Sunflowers, and Tina Tangos.

Blogger Endorsements

If a tango blogger gets invited to attend a milonga for free and then writes a rave blog post about it, is it necessary to disclose the getting-in free card? It just might be as of last December 1st under the new FTC Disclosure Guidelines.

And every time a tanguera bloguera gushes over her new Comme Il Fauts, does she have to clarify that she paid full price for them? Well, no, I guess she would only have to disclose if she got them gratis.



From time to time tangocherie reviews books, movies, concerts, videos and theater events that are of interest to the readers of this blog. I hope it's obvious that nothing but my honest opinion will ever appear here.

I reviewed many many books for publication in professional journals during my career as a librarian in Los Angeles, and critiqued theatrical dance events for the local newspaper. The traditional pay is one's salary and often a copy of the book, or of course, a pair of house seats to the event, "product in kind." Attempts to throw the fight for cash are rare because the stakes are too small and the integrity of librarians and dance-lovers too high. A critic, or blogger, or columnist, has to uphold his ethics or his "opinion"--his bread and butter-- is worthless.





Most of the books I've reviewed on this blog I've bought myself. One was sent to me with a request for review by its author, and when I posted honestly that I had problems with it, he proceeded to demand that I rewrite the review and when I refused, he harassed me for several months. I don't think my negative review hurt his sales at Amazon, though, just his ego.

The truth is, aside from that one disgruntled author, few people care what a small blogger thinks about a major product, and if readers disagree with the review or blog post, they can express themselves in a comment. But now the FTC is clamping down on payola, ("pay to play" in the music industry.)

But star-powered endorsements sell, and big blogs with high traffic can sell a lot of product, especially if there's a convenient purchase button on the same page.

The FTC can now, as of a couple of weeks ago, fine bloggers up to $11,000 usd for false claims and endorsements paid for by sellers if the financial relationship is not disclosed.

This naturally only applies to those blogs "published" in the U.S., and enforcement seems impossible.

You can read more about it on Mashable: the Social Media Guide (one of my favorite sites.)

Louis Gray.com offers some helpful hints to bloggers about how to disclose.

But don't worry--there's no schwag bag in the life of tangocherie!

And there is never any free lunch! (Unless Ruben is making his famous Empanadas Tucumanas.)


Disclosure icons by Jeannine Schafer

Three Years of Tangocherie

Today marks the third anniversary of tangocherie.

After writing more than 440 blog posts, which I started doing almost by accident, I have to say how much I've enjoyed blogging, how the blog and my fellow bloggers enriched my new life here in Buenos Aires.

Thanks so much to my followers, my fans, my readers, my commentators, and yes, my critics.
You all are treasured by tangocherie. You will never know how much.



And today, March 8, is also International Woman's Day.
Not quite sure why 50% of the world's population needs a special day, but here in Argentina, it celebrates the day women were able to finally vote in 1947.




Feliz Dia a Todas!

Generation Y in Cuba

Currently running on Argentinian TV is an "expose" of life in Cuba, initiated perhaps by the timing of Argentina's El Presidenta visiting Cuba and chatting with Fidel on Obama's inauguration day.

I have an especial affinity in my heart for Cuba. Ever since I left the theater after The Buena Vista Social Club and bought a ticket to Havana, I feel connected to the small island nation that has had so much trouble with the U.S. I was thrilled to receive a license from the U.S. Treasury Dept. to conduct tours there.

I devour anything on Cuba, as many of you know, and have visited the island six times since 2000. (You can read here my 2007 post on dancing in Havana.)

And so last week I learned from Argentinian TV about the award-winning Cuban blogger, Yoani Sanchez, who writes for cyberspace, somehow and against all odds, from Havana. Her eye-opening and heart-tugging blog, Generation Y, is available in English, and is required reading for anyone interested in this amazing 500 year old country, 90 miles from Miami.

Especially poignant is her post, Come and Live It, for all travelers who would like to know what life in the "real" modern Cuba is like.

Help, I´m in the cybercafe and I can´t get out!

Over a week ago my MAC could no longer connect to the internet. Finally when a Fibertel technie had time to help me, we assertained it was my computer and not the connection. Okay, so I took my electronic umbilical cord into the McDoc and am waiting for the prognosis (holiday weekend.)

But what I want to say is that the cybercafe won´t let me connect to my own blog! (Or to La Nuit Blanche.) I don´t know about hers, but I can guess it´s because of a few "naughty?" words on my ShowMatch post, or some of the comments there.

Maybe I won´t even be able to post this, we´ll see.

But I miss everybody, and I miss my blog! Hallooo from the dim dark back of the cybercafe!

Hasta pronto! (I hope.)

Word Cloud Fun with Wordle

Thanks to Johanna for finding a new blogging playtoy.
This one makes customizable word clouds of a web page or text.
You can check out hers here. She enjoyed that her largest sized word turned out to be one; mine is loss.
Here's the collage of words from my recent posts--the Word as art, design, and ... thought.

Another Favorite Blogger Goes Private

As a follow-up to last week's post on why people blog,
I'm very sorry to say that NY Tango Pilgrim has gone undercover.
I'm sure his reasons are excellent, but still it's a shame to lose him from the tango blog pool.
I just hope he doesn't quit blogging as several of his predecesors have done: Caroline, m i l e s, La Planchadora, just to site three. Maybe blogs have life-cycles, who knows?
Here's my post last January on Hitting the Wall.

I Blog, Therefore I Am!

Blogs (or web logs), have become an important part of our culture in the last few years. Almost everyone writes one and/or reads several, and blogs sometimes actually make money with advertising and referrals. Some bloggers, like the young and quite tatooed Emily Gould, have even parlayed personal blogging into high powered jobs. In her article, Exposed, in The New York Times Magazine, (May 25, 2008), Emily recounts her leap to fame, profit and celebrity-dom via her blogs, and the resultant exposure of her personal life.

Tina posed the eternal question, Why do you blog? She wrote: I keep this blog so that I can have an outlet to write and so that I can share my experiences with friends and family (and you!) as I learn about life down south…

Elizabeth responded for all of us tango-bloggers when she said,
The blog evolved along with the dance journey, and when I began to get comments, it lead to some real in-person friendships, to Buenos Aires, to a great group of dancer companions.

As for me, it was an accident. A friend asked me to write some posts as a guest blogger on his tango blog, I clicked the wrong button, and Lo! I was a Blogger! The first six months I only posted occasionally, but when I fell and broke two ribs and was then housebound, writing for my blog gave me a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and after two months of almost daily self-expression on the internet, I was hooked.

Emily Gould wrote of her experiences with blogging: I think most people who maintain blogs are doing it for some of the same reasons I do: they like the idea that there's a place where a record of their existence is kept -- a house with an always-open door where people who are looking for you can check on you, compare notes with you and tell you what they think of you.

Blogging is natural for expats (God, how I hate that word!) We are far, far from home and it's a way for us to feel connected. I am grateful every day for the internet, and for the faithful readers and commentators of this blog. Yes, like Elizabeth, I've connected with some wonderful real-life people who have become my friends. Some were already here, living like me in Buenos Aires, and some come here on occasion to the Mecca of tango from around the world and often we personally meet to continue our friendship begun in cyberspace. And I have to admit, the "record of my existence" aspect is kind of a part of my blogging too. While tangocherie is not the Great American Memoir, still it's nice to share some things I've learned on my tango-loss-cancer-love Life Journey.


Emily wrote for a lot of us when she said, The will to blog is a complicated thing, somewhere between inspiration and compulsion. It can feel almost like a biological impulse. You see something, or an idea occurs to you, and you have to share it with the Internet as soon as possible.

Hmm, biological impulse...sounds a bit like tango!

The More Things Change...

Only a short time ago, it took me an hour a day to catch up on reading new posts on my favorite blogs. Since so many have gone private, or stopped allowing comments, or have gone by the wayside, I now whip through the list before I finish my first cup of coffee.

I miss them. Already I'm looking back with nostalgia at 2007, the Golden Age of Tango Blogging!

I learned years and years ago on the Tango-L, that there are people sitting behind their computers all over the world just waiting to take out their frustrations and anger on innocent posters.

My first flame (and not the romantic kind either) had to do with my coming back to L.A. from Denver's first close-embrace weekend and posting to Tango-L about how great it was. I received long, long private letters from two organizers of L.A. tango, calling me every dirty name in the book, and alluding to my having a bad moral character. I mean those letters were masterpieces of sarcasm and nastiness.

I'm still on the Tango-L list, but I watch my back and rarely post. I've heard it all anyway over the years. I'm also on a Yahoo group list, BANewcomers, which is a fantastic source of information and helpfulness. Still, there are the flamers, those who are so ready to take offense at the least little thing. (This week was a flame war over a woman's post that expressed her frustrations in living here. I mean, really hot flames of racism and name calling.)

So I understand why, after putting your heart, soul, and life out there for all the world to see and criticize on a blog, some people have decided to pull in their heads and tails.

Yesterday I had some extra time and I posted to a new forum about buying tango shoes, and where to go to a tango cena-show. I was a reference librarian; I like to help people with information. Hoo boy!! I got my head taken off for the trouble because my responses were too late for that particular tourist's trip to Buenos Aires. The thread wasn't closed, and the questions were classic, so I thought someone else might find the answer useful.

But I learned my lesson.

So far I've been really lucky with my blog, and the only negative comments I've ever received in two years of tangocherie, were about my post on the nudity in Melina Brufman's tango show. I got a real kick out of the argument that ensued. So, so far I appreciate every comment and publish them all. But I suppose if I were harassed and hassled over and over, like several blogger friends have told me they were, I'd reconsider my options.

Tangocherie's Blogworld

Who hasn't Googled themselves at one time or another for curiosity and/or ego fuel? While not Googling myself but checking my blog stats, I found a few blogs of other internet Cheries. So then I searched for more just so I could see the graphics with my name on them(!), many of which I copied and put in this post. Why? Just to see more graphics with my name on them, I suppose. These other blogs are a country singer's fansite, family, a bakery, Christian, everything but tango (thank goodness!)

While pursuing this worthwhile enterprise, I noticed that the favorite logo colors of other internet Cheries are pink and blue.

This black one is kind of special because my youngest son is named Jason and I guess I like how our names look good together. (My oldest son is named Adam and I sadly didn't see any Adam & Cherie blogs.)





























Do I have too much time on my hands or what? Actually, I'd rather be dancing!

So Many Stories!

SO MANY STORIES!

What a lovely surprise to see by chance tangocherie
selected on the So Many Stories blog as outstanding!
That's great praise from anyone, let alone a general, not a tango, blog!

Here's what they say about us:

I stumbled across this blog through Wordless Wednesday. When I first looked at it, I thought I was just looking at someone’s family blog. The first photo showed a group of smiling people and, to be honest, really didn’t grab my attention. I had made a promise to myself that I would be good with leaving comments, not just pop in, look and go, so I read the description and that caught me. Cherie is a dancer, a tango teacher and a writer. Her descriptions of the dance competitions and the places they are held are fascinating and full of flavor. She writes with compassion but also enough of a distance so you feel as if you are getting a written snapshot. Her latest entries are about Cuba and the day to day lives of its people and once again I am reminded that it’s the little details that bring things to life.

Muchisimas gracias, somanystories.com! I'm glad you like my stories, as I've got so many more!

Truffles Take a Holiday

The hardest time for expats is the holidays.

So it's no wonder that sometimes we crawl into a hole, refrain from blogging about our so-boring-to-everyone-else pain, and just try to survive until it gets better.
This is kinda related to my previous post about hitting the wall; it's no accident, I'm sure, that several blogs went inactive recently. It's that tough time of year. Or maybe blogs have a predetermined life-span of their own, like relationships.
What I do when I'm down either physically or mentally and most often it's both at the same time, is read.

So I've been hitting the books.
A couple have been absolutely fantastic: Water for Elephants and Suite Francaise.
And a couple others have started me thinking along different lines, not always a good idea.

Flashback: several years ago when I lived in Mexico, I met another expat who also danced tango. She had written a book of correspondence between herself and her boyfriend, who lived in the States. She used to sell it on Valentine's Day at autograph parties. I was impressed with the romantic and beautiful writing of her boyfriend, who I had met and truthfully I didn't think he had it in him.

Well, one day she let it slip that he hadn't written those letters at all; that she wrote what she wished he would have written! (Nowhere in the book or on her website did she state this little fact.)

Flashforward: so I've been reading a lot, as I said. And it so happens that many of the titles were very similar: lush memoirs by American/Australian ladies of whiling time away in Europe with their be-smitten and handsome Eueopean lovers, cooking and eating fabulous food, chatting up the charming locals, and including the recipes to make the rest of us without access to such ingredients drool even more.

Oh yeah, usually these ladies are restoring ancient palacios, chateaux, convents, or barns in which to live. Sigh. Rarely any comments about money worries, or details of the handsome European lovers and how they earn their living, or problems with visas or papers.

So I read Kim Sunee's Trail of Crumbs; Hunger, Love and the Search for Home, (she actually tells us all about her lover, but then Kim is only 25 and gorgeous, which can explain a lot.)

I read Malena de Blasi's The Lady in the Palazzo.



I read Eat Pray Love;One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Of course I've read Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes and all of its clones.

Where was I?
Oh yes, my point is that in these memoirs, the sun always shines in Provence, the buildings are always ancient and charming, it only rains first-pressed virgin olive oil in Tuscany and Umbria, and no one eats anything without truffles--well you get my drift. And you've probably read all these books too.

Guys, too, have written this way, only with fewer recipes, and it all began with Peter Mayle. Tony Cohan tried to pull it off in Mexico (my town of San Miguel de Allende, in fact), but he's just not funny, and the Mexicans aren't French (but almost).

My point is that for bloggers writing away a couple of times a week and then running it up the public flagpole, maybe the truth of an expat life is raw and naked--not perfumed and poetic or polished like the memoirists. There's no time to edit one's life let alone one's daily blog plus recipes.

It's not easy, folks. And whether some of us put ourselves out there when we're down or others crawl into their home libraries, it's just survival. Even if we have a handsome local boyfriend (Yay, Ruben!), even if we manage the language, even if we have a nice place to live and even if it's not ours, even if we can dance tango whenever we want, still we are SO far from home. Especially at the holidays.

Just in: Caroline of Tangospeak, and Miles of TangoBliss, have taken their blogs down.

Hitting the Wall?

Things have changed in blogger-land. Many bloggers no longer keep up their blogs which probably will stay in orbit forever like space trash, if no one hits the delete button and takes them down.

Many other bloggers have initiated passwords and are keeping their writing private for only a select few. Some write the occasional post about the weather for the public, and then save the juicy stuff for those with passwords.

A very few bloggers have carved deep holes of trouble for themselves by a few sentences on their sites; they've been threatened with law-suits, persecution, shunned in their own communities at the very least by those they've written about.

Someone even said that the internet and blogs have flushed themselves down the toilet.

Is the honeymoon over?

It's true, at the beginning when everyone and his uncle started blogs and blogged about intimate details that few people really wanted to know, blogs were an Open Sesame to the internet and 15 minutes of fame. And some bloggers went berserk, displaying themselves and all their dirty linen to anybody who cared to read about it.

Someone even might say there was too much freedom in cyberspace.

As for me, I've been blogging for 2 years now, and never received spam or comments I didn't publish. The worst I got was my post about Melina Brufman dancing topless tango, but I just got a big kick out of all the defenders (mainly Melina and her staff), and felt good about the power of the word.

I do hope that blogging isn't becoming passé, because I for one really enjoy reading the posts of others and writing my own posts. I have learned so much from blogging. I have a feeling though that soon blogs will be more sanitized and more commercial--much lest venting and vomiting.

When blogging becomes like that--all slick and smooth--some of us will have to find another way to communicate with the world and express ourselves.

What Happens in Buenos Aires Doesn't Stay in Buenos Aires!

I so love blogging! Unbeknownst to me, I was waiting for it all my life.
I try to be discreet in what I write. I know the tango world is small, not only in cyberspace, but also in milongas everywhere.

It's part of the fun of going to a milonga in a strange part of the world and seeing people you know and recognize.

Here in Buenos Aires one feels every tango dancer we've ever known will one day walk into a milonga where we are waiting for them.

And you know how people talk in the milongas; well we have to do something while we're waiting to dance, right? So we chat--about the people in the milonga! What they're wearing, how they're dancing, who is hooked up with who, who went home with whom. It's only natural. The men like to brag about the ladies, and the women try to keep "that" part quiet. But still.

Tango bloggers around the world seem to think that nobody knows who they are, or who they're writing about. But I can't tell you how many times I've read on blogs from Asia to Europe about people I know from the descriptions, and often I've read about myself!

Then sometimes when the authors realize that people know what's what, they sneak back in later and change the archives.

Just remember that what happens here on vacation just might make somebody's blog.
Ojo!

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY




Singing along in Havana!

TopBlogMag's writing theme for this week is colors, and so I'm posting...

A GREEN MEMORY

It’s the end of May and the weather is perfect, but the traffic out of Paris is terrible. The bus passes fields that are rivers of green, of light and dark green undulating like flowing water under the sun, the wind blowing the fields to and fro like ripples of emerald waves. How many colors of green can there be? Certainly a greater palette than the box of crayolas that first taught me the names of colors. (When at last I visited Italy and saw the Tuscan city at sunset, I said, Ah, so that’s Burnt Sienna!)

But the ambient greens outside the windows of the bus range from yellow, blue, gray, gold, brown, and black in the depths of the trees, silver white in the glittering leaves under the sun.
So refreshing to my eyes after dry, dusty L.A., where there is little natural green apart from the color of money.

Super Blogfest 2007

Be there or be square!


Do you want to get to know and meet other bloggers in Buenos Aires? If so, join us on September 1st at the Obelisco at 13:00 (gosh I hope it doesn't rain!) and be part of the Super Blogfest 2007, organized by Todo por 2 Clicks. I’m really looking forward to this gathering, as it’ll give me the chance to get to know other Argentines bloggers a little better. I sure enjoyed the Sugar & Spice cookiefest, and meeting fellow bloggers at my house over Empanadas Tucumanas (hand-crafted by Ruben.) If you’re interested in coming, click on the image above, that will direct you to the info page of the event. Hope to see you there!

Blogging, Memes, Change, Shoes

Natalia, over at her ShimmyBlog, has tagged me for a meme. She wrote that she knows memes these days are "kind of trite," but she's going for it anyway: 8 things people don't know about me.

I dunno, maybe I don't fit in well in this blogging world: there are all these memes and contests and chains and things, and the truth is, I don't think anyone is interested in the last thing I ate today or what music I'm listening to right now.

Many blogs I subscribe to try to make money, and so they are full of tips about optimizing search engines and Google and Link Love and joining stuff to make more people read my blog. But making money isn't what I do (guffaw! Did you see my AdSense way at the bottom?)

Sure I sometimes promote my work with Ruben Aybar as a tango teacher and tour guide, but I want more people to read my blog because I love to write. For me the communication process isn't complete until someone reads it. That's why we bloggers love comments because it's proof that someone out there is reading and has an opinion about what we write.

I'm reading those technical posts too because I wish to heck I could figure out how to do some things with this Blogger classic template. Last week I "upgraded" and worked for a whole day trying to add a blogroll and Favorite Posts and "useful terms to know" on a sidebar, but it just wouldn't work, so I gave up and went back to this format.

I like this template--it's simple and elegant--but it's one column and I do want some other features. And I'd like to use a photo as the header. And anyway, maybe it's time for a new look. Can someone help me? (I have a mac). Hey, I'm talking to you out there who use Blogger, have a mac, and have real cool designs. Please?

But in the meantime, back to memes: I did one--it was the Me, Not Me photo meme, and I had fun with it.

OK, here it goes, I'll make it short. This is for you, Natalia.

8 Things People Don't Know About Me (and probably don't care to find out)

1. Hmmm, I'm thinking. My life has been an open book so everyone knows everything already. OK, here's one: I got hooked on French when I was 3 years old and took my first ballet class; I still remember how I loved the sounds of glissade, assemblé, pas de bourrée, jeté. It was like music or poetry, and changed my destiny.

2. I hope that in Heaven I can eat as much rucula, goat cheese, and raspberries as I want and wash it all down with Cosmos and Mojitos.

3. I cry more when I'm happy or when I see or hear something beautiful than when I'm sad.

4. I had a great relationship with my mother.

5. I was an only child.

6. If I could change one physical thing about me, it would be that I would have a lovely singing voice. I adore to sing, and I can't. I sing in church, but pray that nobody hears me.

7. I play the piano and have a big CD collection, but most of the time I like silence.

8. (only one more...) Even though I have countless tango shoes (the truth is that I'm afraid to count them), mostly Comme Il Faut, and I also still use the Flabella's that I bought years ago, I'm not a "shoe person." (You "shoe people" out there will know what I mean.)

Buenos Aires Bloggers Empanada Fest

at Chez Cherie in Boedo
included Holly [on the far left] from Tango in her eyes, Marce from Pip in the city [Marce baked us two delicious desserts -Thanks Marce], Diva from Buenos Aires through my eyes [under the smiley face ;-)], and me. Nathan was also present from exnat. Thanks again to Alan for organizing the get-together, even though he had to be out of town and totally missed out!!

Ruben was the "guest chef" and served up his famous Empanadas Tucumanas, completely made from scratch--I mean hand-cut beef, homemade dough that he rolled, filled, and pinched, and fried. Yum!Kiki from Buenos Aires Weekly took some great photos, as usual.

It was a beautiful day and from the terrace we could see the world. It's our world, the one that we blog about every day!

I so enjoyed getting to know these fun and creative people a little bit better, and hopefully our working together can make the Buenos Aires Blogosphere even more dynamic than it already is. Or at least create more parties!