adios

Just leaving to go to Mexico City.
wish me luck.

15,000 heads bobbing

There's this pretty obscure singer called Sting from this little no name band Called the Police that has had some pretty good songs recorded over the years, some of which have changed the course of my actual life... and then

I SAW THEM LAST NIGHT AND ALMOST WET MY PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!

Cindy called last week and told me she had a little ticket just for me so we went and, after Elvis Costello opened, this dude came out and started ringing this giant gong...
and then he was there.

Sting.

Actual Sting.
Actual Sting in a long sleeved translucent black second skin tight t-shirt and 3 days of stubble and his ancient bass.
Actual sting singing actual 'Message in a bottle' and actual 'Roxanne' and actual 'Don't stand so close to me'.
I just kept thinking to myself....I'm here, I'm here, I'm screaming, 'there's a little black spot on the sun today, it's my soul up there'.... WITH STING!

it was definitely not to be rivaled in the near future or recent past....

it's like somebody put Sting in a bottle in 1993 and he looks exactly the same only with more muscles...
I told Cindy...I just hoped he wouldn't disappoint, you know...like we get all the way there and he sounds all old and lame live or something.

yeah.
not so much.

pretty much perfect.
We had such a good time.

Thanks so much Cindy. there's no one with whom I would rather observe overly drunk people and almost run out of gas and eat a 3 foot long bag of kettle corn with than you.

the eyes have it

ahhh, ocular apparati...don't get me wrong, I'm totally glad I can see, it's just the madness of the whole thing that gets me.
Yesterday I'm standing in line at snoasis (shut up naysayers) and some teenage girl was in line ahead of me with her friend and her brother and she was pretty loud and vocal saying, "OH MY GOODNESS, YOU HAVE THE COOLEST EYES! YOUR EYES ARE AMAZING! LOOK AT HER EYES!"
I'm not one to turn down compliments in any form but this was a smidge embarrassing for some reason. Maybe I thought I liked being the center of attention and I actually don't. Maybe It's just when I'm the center of breaking the sound barrier adolescent attention that gets me.
This past Christmas when I was in the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert, people came up to me every day saying, "what's wrong with your eyes? are you alright? have you been crying? I have some visine if you want..."

that pendulum swings and swings people. sometimes you're up, and mostly you're down or falling downward.

I went to the eye doctor this week and was telling him how frustrated I am by the redness of my eyes and the dryness (of my eyes) and the overall wishing I didn't have to be at the eye doctor and that I could have laser surgery already (on my eyes).
After lots of 'which is better, 1 or 2, 2 or 3, 3 or 2...what's the smallest line you can read?', he gave me information I had long suspected and now am positive of....I am a freak.
He's pulls out a pad of pre-printed eyes on paper so he can show me the position of every other human being's eyelids and then tells me, "you see how the lid normally covers a little part of the colored circle on the top and the bottom?....well yours don't...your colored circle is totally all exposed to the air at all times which would definitely cause them to be dryer than normal."

The word normal was used twice in that sentence to describe what I am NOT.

awesome.
question 513 in my life list of questions. "why is it impossible to take a good picture without looking like someone's coming at me on a secluded road at night with their brights on?"
mystery solved.
I can't imagine that there are any of you who have failed to notice this anomaly but feel free to stare next time you see me to gain your own witness.
As if being legally blind and unable to live or function without contacts or glasses wasn't enough...

NOW I'LL NEVER BE A TEEN MODEL!!!
the humanity.

My one consolation is that my offspring seem to have gotten nicely hued eyes minus the side-show factor...Gabriel has just informed me that if he were writing about his eyes he would do it in two words, 'round and brown' and that I seem to be writing an awful lot...he thinks he's such a poet..so funny. hilarious.
men.

So I'm going to Mexico City on Wednesday with my husband who is exceedingly handsome with his new erinsanchezcutsmyhair haircut. He has business for half of one day and then we're staying 5 more days to have a celebration of the fact that we have been married for five years (on the 26th).
My parents who are so nice are coming to take care of the girls and, whereas last year I got all squirmy to leave them when we went to Puerta Vallarta (again for Gabriel's work but pretty convenient for vacating), this year I feel a strong sense of the get on the plane and look forward toward rest and mental health vibe.

I'll say hi to Frida and Diego for you and make a sacrifice at the Aztec temple on your behalf...don't even think I'm joking.

the shopping spirit

many times he has led me, many times I have had success...very seldom do I actually achieve shopping nirvana like I did this early afternoon at the Sandy DI.
If you couldn't care less about this you probably shouldn't read on cause that's all I'm going to talk about.
Perhaps I was worthy of my prizes because I had just taken my sullen, bored children to the park like a good mother where they walked around like they had no idea what to do with themselves and all the play equipment and beauty bark. Finally after 40 minutes Dellah said, "mami, why's the park gotta be so hot?". My reply was that there is no roof on the park and the sun can just touch you everywhere. she decided that heat was not conducive to whining at full wattage so we left so she could whine in air conditioned peace about how she smelled like 'sunthing' (screen).

Then we went across 94th south to DI. At first it was like every other time...the attic-y, fluorescent light, children screaming vibe. Then I walked down the toy isle and saw a Fisher Price Little People Tudor style house..hm, ok..I already know the one I played with as a kid is at my parent's house so I just thought i would get it to have one more thing to add to our Ferris wheel, our parking garage and our sesame street clubhouse (all vintage fisher price) We don't however have any of the little round bodied folks that go in the toys or any of the cars for the garage but the girls like putting other stuff around to play with them...

then what to my wondering eyes should appear but a piece of clear packing tape from the front to the rear (of the little Tudor house). and what was that tape holding the house together for? you ask...
oh, I don't know, MAYBE A GALLON SIZED ZIPLOC BAG OF LITTLE PEOPLE AND CARS AND HOME FURNISHINGS!!!!

YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS.

i don't know if you've ever looked on e-bay or in stores for little people toys but they are weirdly expensive and you can hardly find the people....and here they were...in all their plastic no arms, no legs glory inside the Tudor house for $3.

I will let that sink in.

three dollars.

the price of a large snoasis with extra cream.

12 quarters.

I have looked for 4 years and here they are.
feelings like this seldom come but they are so so energizing.

Then I proceeded over to the clothes where I found (among other, less illustrious finds) a $2 Catimini Dress that is brand new and a $3 juicy couture hoodie for Dellah that is also not even used..
Look it up if you wonder what the big deal is about that...just look it up.

So, then, people, I went to get a large coconut snoasis with extra cream and my girls got their xs snoasises and we came home at 1pm.

It is now 2:28 in the afternoon (two minutes before quiet time) and my girls have been playing downstairs with their little people and all their accouterments and locations FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF!

THANK YOU SHOPPING SPIRIT!** no, seriously, thank you so much. seriously.

**( i mean no disrespect to actual Deity as i know a real shopping spirit cannot exist in the realm of Mormon theology, nor does the actual Spirit of Mormon theology participate in shopping excursions. but, I think in ancient Egypt they could have wrangled up a creature to represent uncanny consumer experiences, therefore my tongue is in my cheek and I am not unbelieving, inactive, blasphemous or lightminded, ok? ok.)

!viva el espiritu de compras!!! ai, yai,yai,yai!

That fresh feeling...

You know that song by the eels, 'fresh feeling'? I'm minorly addicted to that song at this moment and also Leona Lewis. Ruby's always saying, 'mami, I wan beeting lub'
I put on 'bleeding love' and then when it's over we repeat it 47 times until I'm allowed to listen to the fresh feeling song again. The other song my girls like is 'irreplaceable' by Beyonce. I have to say that watching very very small people sing, 'you must not know 'bout me, you must not know 'bout me, I could have another you in a minute, matter fact, he'll be here in a minute, baby' at the top of their lungs is at once disturbing an hilarious. You know what? They'll be fine. At least it's not that one week where they were hooked on All American Rejects, 'I'll keep you my dirty little secret' and Dellah sang it in Sacrament meeting...

It's one of those times when it's been so long since I've written I might as well just ignore following up on any of the past and start with a fresh feeling as it were.
that said, I should say we haven't heard back from the neurologist about Ruby's test and my in-laws are leaving in 6 days and coming back here for two of those bringing our grand total up to 29 days of them in my house....There are so many bricks in my mansion in heaven by now I could probably move right in...or maybe there are just holes in my tongue from biting it for 2 months.

what EVER!!!!!

moving on to blatant and shameless consumerism:
yesterday I went to target and spent some ridiculous sum of money on whatever the blank I felt like buying. I mean I bought necklaces and earrings and ribbon and cool buttons to make little girl hair clips out of and Boggle and Sorry and an eco-friendly un-lined journal printed on recycled paper and illustrated with vegetable dyes and etcetera and so forth. Before that I went to DSW and bought some chocolate brown above the ankle Michael Khors riding boots for 80% off of $168. After that we met Gabriel at Noodles and Company and ate pasta and After that I went to Snoasis and got a large coconut with extra cream and ate it and ate it and ate it some more.

I have to say that there is a strange feeling that the actual universe owes me something lately. I'm not proud of it but I just think, 'There are 7 or 9 things about my life right now that totally suck and I'm doing my best and I'm pretty sure I deserve material possessions which I will never be able to take to Heaven if I make it so I'm just going to recognize myself for all of my efforts to keep it together.
Is that spoiled and entitled enough for everyone?
OK, moving on.
We have this big hardbound Disney princess treasury in Spanish that Ruby carries around like it doesn't weigh 5 pounds by the front cover and throws it off of high places to watch it splat on the floor. I got out my glue gun (which I had never opened in 3 years) on Sunday night to fix the cover of that poor book which had given up and fallen away from the pages and the cover of my 'Memoirs of Cleopatra' by Margaret George and then I thought to myself, "why don't I just fix that one hair clip while I'm at it?"
That was all it took. Erin-obsessively-find-something-basically-useless-to-expend-most-of-your-energy-and-time-on Sanchez was then enlisted in the making of hair clips for my children. I had a box of metal clips from Sally's and there was just no end to the things I was gluing to those poor clips. How liberating to put clothes on your child and think, "I don't have a hair accessory to match this" and then think, "stop the press! LET'S JUST MAKE ONE!" Now if only my hair didn't look like I have a penchant for denim jumpers and square toed pumps.
That about sums up my weekend.
I'm back.