Viva España

Hello internet. My name is Deb and you have clicked on my blog, Deb in the City. Do you use the word blog in Spanish? Probably El Blog, no? Or La Blog? Blogs are girls or boys? No se.

Anyway, Deb in the City is my new coping mechanism since my doctor said I should stop eating churros. See, I never expected this but now I have moved to Spain and I live in Salamanca. It’s fantastic here but a little stressful because my Spanish is so terrible and everyone here speaks such a pure Castellano. It’s embarrassing because in the United States a lot of people speak Spanish and I only know enough to negotiate the laundromat. It’s pathetic, no? OK, don’t answer that.

But I live in a fantastic house.

It’s a luxury green farmhouse. Green means it’s friendly to the environment. The water of the three jacuzzis is recycled. Very ecological. This house balances out the other house, the one in Mallorca:

We go here on the weekends with all the other Americans and waste a lot of water together. It’s comforting for us.

Salamanca is probably the most beautiful city I have ever seen. So well-made and old. Everything here is really old to me as an American.

The new cathedral for instance, is older than the United States. Salamanca and Spain have profound history. The United States has “classic” rock.

And Salamanca has many many religious and folkloric traditions which I hope to see. Like El Colacha near Burgos.

This man, dressed as the devil jumps over babies to cleanse them of their evil. Because babies are so evil.

Sadly, I came too late for Holy Week this year so I will have to wait. But the Virgen de la Vega festival is coming

so I will get to see my first procession and my first Virgen. Spain has a lot of different processions and a lot of different Virgens.

And the Spainsh are a balanced people and so that everything in Salamnca is not all just virgen, virgen, virgen there is also llunes de aguas festival which is after Easter, to commemorate when the prostitutes are invited back to Salamanca after being exiled across the river for Lent.

I hope that maybe there is a festival and procession for nannies or at least a patron saint of nannies that I can pray to here in Salamanca.

This is Deb saying goodbye from Salamanca, Spain la ciudad dorado, the Golden City.

Goodbye, Columbus

With God all things are possible.

This is the motto of the state of Ohio and though I am not very churchy, I am willing at this point to go with God because I am at the end of my nanny rope.

The Child has become officially impossible and her deadbeat dad is off roaming someplace and has left me hung out to dry with a difficult little buckeye on my hands. But, she is just a kid and as Woody used to say to me when I was sitting on the bench, paralyze resistance with persistence.

So in the spirit of persistence, I went out to Morse road to try and find something to make peace with her. And I found this amazing store.

They sell just about everything from Mexico and pretty instantly I found what I was looking for.



Fresh cactus, right off the tree, bush, vine, whatever. But, the thorns were still in place and I don’t know how to deal with them but lucky for La Gringa, safety cactus comes harmlessly tamed in a jar. I cannot take the child to her dad in Guadalajara but I can bring a little of Mexico to her.The Mexican supermercado is muy fantastico and this shrine to the virgin of Guadaloupe that is next to the produce section says it all. When I was wandering by the meat counter I started chatting with this woman, Margaret who was buying spicy chicken to grill.

Margaret is from Cameroon in west Africa. She told me that she can get any African products she needs here in Columbus, right at the supermercado, actually. Margaret said she misses her parents but otherwise she loves it here.

Next door to Michocana is another store, the Jubba Halal meat market and it is run by this fellow, Farrah.



Farrah is from Somalia and I bought some amazing coconut cookie bars from him and we chatted about the complicated politics of his country. He too said that he loves it here, and the "USA is the best country in the world", which kind of surprised me, considering our recent history with his homeland. He told me he was from Mogadishu and when I asked him what he missed about Somalia he told me “I miss walking for miles and miles in my city. And playing soccer.”

This is Deb in the City, globetrotting on Morse Road from Mexico to Cameroon to Somalia in Columbus, OH.

Sporting Fools

Deb in the City here. OK, not to dwell, but Columbus is crazy for sports. There is a lady football team, OK? The Columbus Comets are a pro women’s team and I can’t wait for their season to start so I can go watch Chelsea and Whitney and Ashley and Ebony dominate on the gridiron. Behold their awesomeness:But it’s not all contact sports, there is also Columbus’ native son and legend of the links, Mr. Jack Nicklaus. He has his own fantastic museum over on the OSU campus and though not directly related to the Golden Bear or his gift shop, I did notice that I can also go to my final resting place with a golf theme.This casket is called the Fairway to Heaven and even though I don’t really get golf, the thought of being buried in this makes a passion for the links burn in my heartplace. New hobby, here I come!

So today I was walking around looking at insurance company buildings (very impressive array) and I came upon this park downtown. From the street, it looks kind of regular but once I passed through the gates and walked in a bit, it was like a trip to the Louvre in Paris or something.

OK, it’s hard to tell because my lousy snapshot does not do it justice but this is a topiary recreation of the Stephen Sondheim musical, Sunday in the Park with George! Seriously! I could not believe it. It is incredible. Look at the shrubbery lady walking her shrubbery dog.
I don’t know what kind of bush clipping genius took on this beautiful notion but it is truly amazing and I think the bushes themselves speak to the majesty of this vision.

Maybe it’s just me but cenral Ohio seems to like things that are made to look like other things. Bushes that are shaped like dogs and buildings that are just amazing. This is the corporate headquarters of the Longaberger Basket Company in nearby Newark and I cannot say enough about the basket passion that made this possible. Longabergers are highly collectible, handmade baskets and they are sold through a shadowy network of 45,000 basket agents around North America. Perhaps it is possible to be buried in a human sized picnic basket, for devotees of the basket cult.

Besides a good cult, I really like a good hall of fame and the OSU campus has a couple of excellent ones. I headed over to the Fisher College of Business, wearing my buckeye necklace to blend in with the crowd, looking for the accounting hall of fame there. I was bummed to find there is no real hall with plaques and it’s just an award given to the titans of accounting. Personally, I think this is a rip-off for the winners.

Then I wandered into the Agricultural Engineering building where I found this first-rate hall of fame.
Yes, this is the Drainage Hall of Fame and it recognizes the visionaries and innovators in the field of agricultural drainage. Humble water, the giver of life, has to go somewhere after it falls out of the sky and these gentlemen have made it their life’s work to figure that out so all the rest of us don’t have to. Personally, I’m pretty happy about that because I would not know the first thing about draining a field, though I bet I could flood one if given the chance.

This is Deb in the city, saying so long from Ohio, where the state insect is the ladybug, the state rock song is "Hang on Sloopy" and the state beverage is tomato juice. And the state tree is the buckeye. But everybody knows that.

High in the Middle and Round on the Ends

Hello out there wide world of webs. My name is Deb and you have clicked on my blog Deb in the City. OK, I know, I know, it’s not really a blog, it’s a vlog because it’s video. But seriously, do I have to use the word vlog? It sounds like some part of the Starship Enterprise that Chekov might refer to. (with bad Slavic accent) "Captain, the vlog accelerator has reached maximum!" It’s just too hard for me.

Anyway, Deb in the City is my little coping mechanism since the economy has gotten rotten and I’ve had to curb my discretionary spending. So, no more Precious Moments collectibles and I am trying to deal with the fact that I now live in a fabulous new city, Columbus, Ohio.

I get to live in this fantastic house.

As you can see, they sort of ran out steam on the lawn there. And landscaping is not in my nanny job description.

The house is in a community with its own name, Marble Cliff Crossing.
Here’s the marble cliff, which according to the Google is technically made of Columbus Limestone. The cliff has its Crossing as I mentioned and its own gate and community center and concierge service. Oh, and self-watering lawns. Sweet!

When I first got here, everyone kept telling me about Buckeyes and how they were so great and I looked into it, once again, on the Google and it did not add up for me that everyone was so devoted to a nut off a tree that you can’t even eat. It’s poisonous, actually. What's with worshipping this killer nut?

But the locals were really kind with my misunderstanding and set me straight that the buckeye is just the symbol for the people that live in Ohio. And that the real site of worship, the cathedral to buckeyes past and future is this edifice.
OK, this buckeye worship is a very well developed cult and I’ve discovered that living in Columbus and becoming a buckeye is essentially a cradle-to-grave deal, literally. Start here:

With the Buckeye pacifier.

And end here:











It is possible for me to get buried in high Buckeye style with an Ohio State University memorial casket or if I decide to go with cremation, my ashes can sit on a shelf in a handsome OSU licensed urn. As a domestic worker I like the idea of leaving a legacy for somebody else to dust.

This is Deb in the City, singing off from Columbus, OH where Cristopher Columbus parked his ship after he discovered America with the Pilgrims.

SANTA MARIA?

From Mexico to Viet Nam

I am Deb
Deb in the City
wtf?
I feel so...shiny

World wide webs, please hear my desperate cry for help. OK, I am loving my new SoCal lifestyle, including my retirement to Champagne Village but I am really really getting fed up with my tiny responsibility, the reason I came here at all, The Child.

I want to stick with this job and all but she’s in a bad place. Her deadbeat dad is off globetrotting and I am here hung out to dry. But she’s just a little kid and so I went on a mission to try and broker peace with her. And I found what i was looking for in Old Town.

Fresh cactus, right on the bush but I did n't think it was right to just steal it out of the parking lot and I wasn't sure if it was the right kind.

So I headed to San Ysidro, down Mexico way. OK, it is fantastic there, and the streets are lined with stores that sell all things Mexican. I figured out a possible solution to my parent trap pretty soon in a fabulous supermercato.



Edible cactus, fresh and con espinosa, which I realized were a bit beyond my cooking skills. Ouchy. But lucky for La Gringa, safety cactus without the espinosa comes in a jar.

I cannot take the child to Guadalajara to see her father but I can bring a little bit of Mexico to her.

Wandering back north and once again taking the wrong exit, I ended up on the service road behind what turned out to be an entire strip mall that was Vietnamese. A huge beautiful supermarket awaited me there too, like a giant Ralph's but this one was full of all things Asian. Check out the instant noodle mesa.

And those were only the ones on sale. There is a whole noodle canyon down one aisle.

I wandered in the meat department which was huge and full of all parts of the animals. There were lots of feet.

They might want to consider calling it the Feet Department.



The produce section had all kinds of stuff I’ve never eaten.



This is a jackfruit. It looks so familiar to me, I have a feeling it must have been used as a prop on some low budget sci-fi movie I saw as a kid.

Lingering at the jackfruit I struck up a chat with an older asian woman, dressed casually for shopping. She was very shy spoke no English and I speak no Vietnamese.
She wore beautiful rings I tried to ask her about them but we only managed to exchange our names with the universal language of pointing. When she said her name was Fanny, in sort of husky voice, I realized she had not been born as Fanny but became her at some point.

Fanny the tranny. She gave me a sweet shy smile and took off. Jackfruit and Fanny, my strange, beautiful fruit of San Diego.

This is Deb in the City, surfing the diasporas, saying goodbye, adios and tam biet from San Diego, California

Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget

Deb I am
Deb in the City
I'm superbad
and looking pretty.

Wow, I just cannot get over the whole paradise aspect of this part of the country. It’s like paradise improved though, with on and off ramps everywhere you’d want to go.

Was out by Escondido today and came across a window into my future. That is, if the whole stimulus package thing works out and the world economy doesn’t skewer us all and if my employer is indeed paying into my social security like he claims.

Yes, at the corner of Champagne Drive and Lawrence Welk Boulevard, is the Welk Resort and Champagne Village, where I can easily see myself in about 25 more years. OK, ten. The village has all the amenities I could want for my retirement:


the Fountain golf course, the Canyon restaurant for fine dining and a Pizza Hut for a quick breakfast. But more impressively it has a Lawrence Welk Museum, located in the lobby of the resort’s theatre!



Yes, friends, that is a giant champagne glass made out of crystal made for the 25th anniversary of the LW show’s broadcast. Speaking of broadcast, it’s possible to stand in beside the man himself and be on his show.
I’m no Lennon Sister but I’m looking forward to a bubbly, time-shared future in genteel southern Cali style.

So then I was back in town and I missed my exit but there was a pot of gold at the end of the concrete rainbow. The swap meet! Now, I’ve been to a lot of flea market, swap meet, yard sale type things and San Diego knows how to do it right.

They sell everything from 12 pairs of tube sox that say USA on them to cell phone chargers to Mexican cowboy outfits to genuine junk dragged out fo someone’s basement to Tickle Me Elmo pinatas. Amazing. I had the most delicious snack.
Watermelon, cantelope, jicima, coconut, cucumber and orange slice, served in a plastic baggy and covered with lime juice and chili powder. Que delicioso! And for only three bucks. So good.

On the way out I bought a 20 pound bag of fresh oranges for three dollars. I am really getting used to the bounty of the Golden State.

This is Deb in the City, saying adios amigos from LaJolla California, movie home to Top Gun, Some Like It Hot and Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle. I feel the need, the need for speed.

David Hasselhoff, Where Are You?

Hey there world wide webs. My name is Deb and yes, I am part of the blog revolution and you have clicked on my brand new blog, Deb in the City.

Deb in the City is new coping mechanism since I quit going to bingo. I’m trying to manage my stress without doing harm to myself, and I hope that’s not going to take all the fun out of it. I have just moved to a brand new place and OK, I didn’t ever expect this but I now live in LaJolla, CA.

It’s incredible here though, paradise with easy access of the 5, the 81, the 78 and the 1. See, I can talk California already. And I get to live in this incredible house.

The house is brand new and everything works inside, all five bedrooms and five and a half baths. It's not quite finished yet and as you can see it's what we call "shovel-ready" nowadays. If anyone out there has a shovel, please feel free to come on over.




Before I got here I thought about southern California as this sort of life-sized set for Baywatch and I expected to get here and find everyone talking about grabbing their buoys. There is beach and surf culture, no doubt. And there’s the zoo of course, the other thing the world knows about San Diego. And Sea World and the Wild Animal Park. It’s all about the surf and turf here, but before it gets to your plate. San Diego loves its wildlife.

Yesterday, I was driving up in the hills on a tiny two lane highway in the beautiful high chaparral countryside when I hit a traffic jam in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. The reason:

Yes, those are camels and they live right here in San Diego County. They reside at the Oasis Camel Dairy (http://www.cameldairy.com/) in Ramona, the only camel dairy in the US. Oasis is run by these wonderful folks, Gil and Nancy.


They have a couple dozen camels that they milk and turn the milk into incredible soap.


The camels are also in show biz and do a brisk business around Christmas time, playing to sold out crowds at several nativity pageants around the area. Gil and Nancy can set you up with the whole nativity scene too, since they have pigs and donkeys and all sorts of exotic birds. Oasis going to start camel safaris in July.

Camels are herd animals, like children, so I plan on taking a safari to try and get a little horse sense about the pack mentality. As a nanny, I feel this will give me a nanny edge when I’m at the playground, confronted with a swarm of eight year olds. Head ‘em up and move ‘em out.

In case you’re wondering, and I know you are...



They are truly sweet creatures, toes and all.

This is Deb in the City saying so long from the Oasis Camel Dairy in Ramona, CA where every day of the week is hump day.