Life after Valencia just wouldn't be right without some periodic visits back to Valencia now would it?  We are all so excited that a family trip to Valencia awaits.  And because we have an agency renting our apartment and didn't book it ourselves right away, we were actually without a place to stay for five days.  But lucky, Mitch had the idea to get out of Valencia to our private little beach house (ok - so it feels like ours ok :)) and luck had it that it was available.  Relaxation and beach glass hunting galore!Luckily, we were able to book our apartment for the rest of our visit.   More blogging to come - now that I have an excuse!

Do you want a cheese pizza?  This is a typical New York craving, although native New Yorkers know that you can't find that amazing, greasy, cheesy Queens pizza everywhere. 

Here is the Spanish equivalent.  La pizza margarita - which very often comes with an egg on top!

Is there any peace and quiet during Las Fallas?  Perhaps.  These pictures were taken on La Malvarrosa beach on one of the final days of Las Fallas.  We had lunch on the beach, heard the neighborhood mascleta and walked around.  It was a quiet day on the beach and warm with the midday sun.   This was the time of year when I fell in love with the Malvarrosa neighborhood.  It's so peaceful to walk on the beach during this time of year.  Our apartment is about four blocks from the beach.

And can you see the love I have for my mother and my Aunt Betsy?  My cousin Joseph or his wife Melissa probably took this picture.  I enjoyed their visit immensely and these pictures always bring a smile to my face.

And the neighborhood commission - or Casa Faller marching by.  If you are  visiting Valencia for Las Fallas, please try and experience Las Fallas in the lesser known neighborhoods.  We were so impressed with our walks through Cabanal and la Malvarrosa.  In these neighborhoods, we were noticed to be tourists and invited it for a drink or a snack.  Mind you, have a good excuse if you don't think you would like to sample to fried, salted, pig tongue you may be offered :)

Ben never ceases to amaze me.  I guess that's how we mothers are with our children.  But Ben surprised me yesterday as we drove to school.

B:  Mama, what color is God? 

M:  What Ben?

B:  Is God red or blue?

M:  Gosh Ben, I really don't know.

B:  Is God always in the sky or can he be in the car?

M:  Well yes Ben, God can be around us and very close to us.

B:  Well then what color?

M:  I guess he can be clear.

B:  Like the color of the windshield - that color?

M:  Yes Ben.

Thank you God, for giving me this wondrous child.

Brrrrr, it's cold and gloomy here these days.  I'm missing sunny Spain.  Sure, Valencia gets cold.  As a matter of fact, it was quite cold when we visited in November.  But that sun.  Nothing beats the Spanish sun.  I'm so glad our little apartment has great light.  These pictures give a good sense of that light.  

There is a nice open western view from the balcony which adds a lot of light.

There is a double bedroom with a queen bed and a double bedroom with two twins (or a twin with a trundle)

Valencia anyone???

A year ago today - or almost so - we took Benjamin to ride this great ol steam engine replica train in Burjassot, Valencia. 

Sigh.  Sometimes I miss the excitement of a new adventure every day - the sort that one feels when living in a foreign country with one's family for a time.

Of course, when parenting a little one, there is also new excitement, no matter where you live.  We are back home and much of our excitement, ahem stress, these days comes from debating professional choices, bank account balances and the other thrilling matters.  Ben's hair is a little less white these days and he talks much more (English AND Spanish thankfully :)) 

Tonight he proudly lit all of his candles on his own menorah, ate up more than his fair share of latkes and happily announced that he was not sad at all that Hanukkah was over.  After all, there were no more candles to light after tonight.  It appears that the only sentimental woos in this family is his mama.  Let's hope my nostalgia doesn't stifle him!

What can I say.  Ha lloween has got to be one of the best parts of life after Valencia.  A very exciting time in the U.S. When Mitch was deployed, I was shocked to find myself bawling on Halloween.  Ben was just learning how to say trick or treat and he was so precious.  Last year in Valencia, we went to an American party that was a lot of fun.  But nothing beats the old fashioned door-to-door in costume. 

I made the most of it this year and bought great costumes for the two great men in my life.

Dear Baby.  We still miss you even though you were never born.  We tried so hard not to fall in love with you so soon, but when we saw these pictures, there was no stopping us.   You looked so precious.  We can only dream about what life with you would have been like.

Today, Mitch moved his office to the small bedroom upstairs.  He told me he likes it, although what he really wanted was for a baby to be there. 

Benjamin talked about the baby for more than a week.  "The nene (baby) died - right mommy?"  "Right," I would sadly agree.  "The baby was okay but mommy's tummy just didn't work right.  That's why we adopted you Ben."  By the time I would get to that point he had already moved on.  That's the beauty of being four.  

It's been a bit harder for me to move on.   25 days have passed and I'm finally making progress.   The baby measured 13 weeks when I miscarried.  The cause was most likely the massive subchorionic hematoma in my uterus, but honestly, no one so far can tell me anything for certain. 

So, perhaps this explains why there wasn't much blogging on lifeinvalencia.com or on what could have been lifeaftervalencia.com.  There is a quick trip to Valencia looming.  And after that.  Well, time shall tell.  We certainly hope and pray that another baby, however that baby may find us, will be included. 

 Carmen - 1994-2007

Carmen, it's been a week now since we've said goodbye, but the emotions are fresh now as I remember how precious you were.  I sincerely hope that you no longer hurt, and that you are eating lots of chicken, fish, steak, bones and leftover pizza on the doggie heaven floor. 

Carmen was just 8 weeks ago when she came to me.  Her first name was Dolly and she was the runt - the 9th puppy of a first litter.  Her human breeders, who were leaving for Ireland days later,  tried to convince me to choose one of the larger, wilder, male JRTs that remained.  "It's never a good idea to pick the runt you know," they advised.  "She could have major health problems."  But I didn't.  I chose Dolly, aka Carmen, and for many, many years - five to be exact :) - she was perfect.

Her fancy jack russell terrier pedigree papers showed her mama to be a long-legged JRT and her papa to be a short-legged JRT.  They were racers and in her day, Carmen was very fast. Mitch was the only one to point out that her grandpa JRT and her great-grandpa JRT were in fact the same, Nasty-Ned.  In hind-sight - probably not the best choice, but I'm not in the dog-breeding business. 

Mitch and I began to date just days after Carmen came home with me.  I suppose I will only find out now who the true love really is.  I, for one, was madly in love with my first baby Carmen.  I brought her everywhere and she obliged.  I was getting an MBA at Darden, which had its laid back atmosphere in those days. She slept in my bag during classes, or entertained herself in the library as I worked.  She caught her first squirrel between the library and the old law school.   Much to my mother's absolute horror (I'm also surprised at myself now looking back) I had Carmen walk on the stage to receive my MBA diploma with me.  Given Carmen's history that year at Darden, I don't really know how shocking it was to administration. 

It took a year for Carmen to bark and become territorial, but it happened when I moved to Baltimore.  Given that Carmen was such a small dog, it always seemed amusing to me.  She made fast friends with a dog named Ashes, who according to her owner Mini, had no other friends because she was so mean.  This became a constant in Carmen's life.  Owners would say to me in shock, "gosh, your dog is the only one my dog doesn't bite.  How odd."   And in keeping with the business school trend, Carmen would accompany me on late nights or weekends to the office. 

It's been actually quite healing for me to reminisce about Carmen's early years.  She really filled my life with such joy.  She needed to be walked about 3 miles a day in her younger years so I was much skinnier then too!

Carmen lost sight in one eye due to glaucoma at age five and suffered from high pressure in both eyes after that.  It was painful, but she adjusted, and the $80 a month Xalatan medication was a bit painful for us.  She was almost ten when she lost total sight in her other eye, and the doggie ophthalmologist recommended that we remove her lenses.  Shocking as the concept was, she did seem to be much relieved of pain after that, and gained some of her confidence back.  She would still occasionally chase squirrels and cats although she really never stood a chance. 

Moving to Spain with Carmen was an ordeal.  It was expensive and there was one particular vet at Friendship animal hospital didn't want to certify her papers because he couldn't assure us that she was in good health - I mean she was TWELVE!  We needed to escalate those papers to a head vet at the USDA - no joke. 

Carmen was a joy on the flight -as she has always been since she traveled with us in the cabin from a very young age.  Only when the flight attendants stated beef or chicken, did the aggressive JRT awake from the bag beneath the seat.  FEED ME NOW she barked. 

We noticed Carmen's total deafness on arrival in Spain.  There were fireworks almost every night back then and she didn't stir.  Even during Las Fallas, which really sounds like incoming artillery confirmed by Mitch, she was silent and calm.  It was only during meal times when she became increasingly aggressive.  Had she been a bigger dog, we really think she would have learned to tie us up and steal all of the food. 

Despite her obsession with food, and our weakness for giving it to her, Carmen died a mere seven pounds.  She had lost almost half of her body weight in a year due to massive liver failure.  She became increasingly incontinent and when she began to show pain, we knew we had to make the difficult decision. 

In Spain, we were blessed with a very kind and competent vet (Richard) on la Avenida del Puerto.  I know that Richard, the owner and the vet, wanted to keep Carmen alive as much as we did.  He didn't think she would survive the flight home, but was all for us trying.  However, he assured us that most dogs with livers like that would not still be alive.

I'm sure that all of us dog owners want our dogs to go peacefully in their sleep when it is their time.  That was not our luxury.  I hope Mitch won't be embarrassed that I share that we both bawled our eyes out as she went.   We fed her tons of biscuits which she still ate and I tore myself up inside by the fact that we were putting her to sleep when she still had one source of pleasure left in her life. 

Good bye my dear Carmen.  There is a big part of you within us all, and there are so many that loved you.  Your name was Benjamin's first word (CA) and despite his ability to say dog, doggie, perro and perrito, he still prefers to call dogs CAs

Carmen, we will miss you always.

I was going through my pictures last night, found this one from April and smiled.  I remembered why I took the picture.  When I saw these three drinking their wine, right out of the bottle, I knew in an instant where they were in their lives. Three American college students during their junior semester/year abroad.  One studying in Valencia (the girl) and the other two visiting from London.  (Those facts were indeed validated!)

My historical imagination however also ventured to guess that one of the guys has a thing for the girl.  But he won't work up the nerve to say anything about it until a lot of time....or alcohol....or both happens.  He convinved his friend to come along for this visit.  Will the girl wait for him to decide, or will she let some foreign guy who has a lot more dating confidence sweep her off her feet?  We can't really say now can we?  Perhaps one of my writer friends can expand on that.