The Good Luck "Charm"

This morning I was reminiscing with Livie about something she did as a baby, when we lived in New Mexico.

Okay, so here's some background: Andrew and I were active duty and stationed in the greater Boston area when Livie was born. When she was just about 3 months old, Andrew was deployed for 120+ days.

Then, a month after he deployed, I got orders for a new assignment just about 2000 miles away, in southern New Mexico! Livie was almost 4 months old when she and I moved across the country!! (Luckily, the military took care of packing, shipping, and delivering my household goods. My mom was my travel companion, helping me and Livie during our cross country travel by air.)

We ended up flying from Boston's Logan International Airport to the El Paso International Airport, as this was the closest major commercial airport to Alamogordo - which was where my new assignment was. (I'll have to tell that story another day.)

My maternal grandparents lived in El Paso, so we would stay at their house for a couple days before heading the 70-80 miles to Alamogordo. This was nice, because my grandparents were able to meet Livie, their great-granddaughter, for the first time.

Anyway, because we were just over an hour's drive north of my grandparents' place, my mom ended up coming out to visit once a month for about a week or so at a time, while Andrew was still deployed. She'd fly into El Paso, stay with my grandparents, visiting them for a couple days. Then she'd head north to visit me and Livie for a few days (helping me as I got through my 4-month "solo parenting" stint). Then she'd head back to El Paso for a few more days before heading home. This was a really nice setup.

This is the view of the Sacramento Mountains from our back yard. This is one reason why I miss New Mexico.

 

During one particular visit that summer, she was on the floor, playing with baby Livie, enjoying her down time with her first grandchild. See, as soon as this particular trip was over, she'd be racing around all stressed out, packing and heading out for a ballroom dancing competition (she and her coach are competitive ballroom dancers). So she was really enjoying doing nothing else but spending time with Liv.

My mom was down on the floor with her, just out of view of the camera.

As I was doing something in the other room (I think unpacking groceries?) I heard her "yelp"! I went in there to see what was going on. Apparently, a gummy, teething Livie felt like she needed to chew on something, and chose one of my mom's arms, just above the elbow. She went for the closest thing and chomped down!

Well, guess what?! The four little teeth that'd already come through had left a little bruised imprint on my mom's arm!

This outfit is similar to what she'd been wearing when she was bitten - short sleeves made her arm a tempting teething target, I guess!

My mom, knowing that her ballroom dancing dress wouldn't cover that part of her arm, could only laugh and say, "That little bite mark from my favorite person will just have to be my good luck charm!"

And you know what? It was a good luck charm! She ended up winning a good number of prizes at that competition!

After telling Livie what she had done unintentionally to her Abuelita, she smiled and told me what a great story that was. She then wondered if Abuelita remembered that incident. So I explained that once in a while, when I think of that incident, I'll ask Abuelita if she remembers, and she always smiles and says, "Of course, I remember."

Ballroom dancing part 1 - it's great exercise

Here's my latest article for Examiner.com. Please click on the link to check it out: Ballroom dancing part 1 - it's great exercise

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It's painful!

I've been suffering from a bout of writer's block today. Ouch!

The construction across the street very distracting - heavy machinery is LOUD! Plus, it causes my house, my desk, my head to vibrate. Even if I listen to my ipod, I can feel my desk shaking every so often. Besides, today is not the day for me to listen to music while I try to write. I'm even distracted by my classical music. Normally it helps me focus. Nor does my Native American flute music help. I just feel too scatterbrained today and music is just not helping me "recover" from this latest bout writer's block.

I've been looking for a couple photos that I want to scan for tomorrow's "Memory Lane Friday" post. Guess what? I get distracted while flipping through my physical photo albums . . . and the online albums.

Some of these photos make me miss El Paso. As I look through these photos, I feel saudade for my grandparents' home. For the wonderful times I spent in El Paso. And even the not so wonderful times. Like when Livie came down with coxsackie and thrush and wouldn't nurse, wouldn't drink from a bottle, and Oma and I drove in the night, in the pouring rain, to William Beaumont Army Medical Center at Ft. Bliss.

So I sit here daydreaming about El Paso. About how I haven't ever gotten the chance to take Andrew (or Livie for that matter) to Viva! El Paso. About how nice the Ft. Bliss PX is. How I took my grandparents to Mass on base once (for Christmas, I think, when I was stationed in Tucson, and I'd driven to El Paso to celebrate the holiday).

Then I find the photos from Las Vegas in '04, and I want to go back and re-live the fun Andrew and I had while we were there - including our day trip to the Hoover Dam. You know what? They had this snack bar place there (on the NV side, I believe). I remember getting an ice cream cone. Soft serve. Vanilla. Nice and cold on a hot, cloudless October day in the Southwest. I remember going on and on about how good that ice cream was, and that I want to go back to the Hoover Dam, not only for the spectacular views of the Dam itself (and the engineering feat) but for the ice cream, too.

Of course, then I find photos from when Andrew and I were stationed in the greater Boston area. I miss going for seafood on a regular basis. I miss heading to Maine for a long weekend. Or how we were into ballroom dancing for nearly four years. And I miss the Minute Man National Historic Park in Concord, MA. And how Livie was born in Concord. I miss Bedford Farms ice cream, Bertucci's in Lexington, MA, that movie theater across the street from Bertucci's, where we saw March of the Penguins in October 2005. Natick, MA, where I had my wedding dress altered before our church wedding in December 2002.

I'm just easily distracted today. And I can't even blame it on the rain. It's sunny, though a little hazy today. Yesterday, I just felt blue, a little sad. It was rainy pretty much all day yesterday. All I could think of was that the weather dictates my moods. That shouldn't be the case! But now that the sun is showing itself, I still feel a little melancholy, like I can't quite shake it off completely, like it's lingering around after yesterday's dreary weather on purpose.

Of course, that's not true. Maybe I'll just go empty the dishwasher, because I think I heard the end-of-cycle beep. Perhaps some mindless chore will help snap me out of my writer's block.

But then again, looks like writing about it for the sake of complaining has helped a little bit, now hasn't it?

Keep your brain healthy - try ballroom dancing!

We all know that regular exercise is good for your body. Ballroom dancing (or Dancesport), for instance, is a good workout - just try getting through a 40 minute cha-cha lesson without breaking into a sweat. But ballroom dancing is also good for your brain!

Dancesport can actually help reduce the effects of dementia-related issues later in life. It has something to do with one's involvement in both the physical activity and mental thought processes at the same time, somehow continuously creating new neural paths in the brain. Not only do you have to physically do the steps, you have to think about lots of things at the same time, including but not limited to: what step comes next, which foot you're on now and how do you get your feet where they need to go next, posture, where your hands are, what your partner is doing, remembering to always keep the proper tension in your frame, and having to keep to the beat of the dance (such as quick-quick-slow for Rumba, or slow-slow-quick-quick for foxtrot).

Check out these articles: Dancing Makes You Smarter

. . . and Dancing Your Way to Better Health.

By the way, here is a photo of Carlos Gutierrez and Christina Iannelli, (you may have to scroll down a little), our dance instructors, from when Andrew and I took ballroom dancing in MA (2003-2006). They taught out of Carlos' dance studio in West Newton, MA.