Sunglasses Always Fit

I am back in California! woooo baby yeah. I won’t be coming home for another year, so I am going ALL OUT. I’ve been to a Giants game, I’ve drank salsa from the jar, I made a White House cookie and frosting house, I’ve been on swan and unicorn floaties, I have downloaded Pokemon Go, drank all the craft beer, visited Target and Trader Joes every other day, realized I left my debit card and makeup in Brazil, and decided to get two root canals. Super. Pumped.

Lets break down some of this fun.

Handled one root canal this morning like a champ, and by ‘champ’ I mean I was crying before the specialist even entered the room. By ‘before’ I mean I started crying about this yesterday morning, when I was making the appointment via my cellphone, parked in a Walmart parking lot, still somewhat reeling from the information that my ex whom I had moved across the country for three years ago was now getting married. Somehow in my brain the reason that I don’t have dental insurance because I live in Brazil was suddenly all his fault, and when I was told the price on the phone, I just started crying. I made up for it by going into Walmart and buying several packs of stickers for my students.

This morning at the appointment, I was a right mess. Have you had a root canal? They are miserable. And for some reason, I couldn’t get numb enough, so I had SIX SHOTS into my gums. At one point I smelled smoke and then was silently crying and snotting so hard they had to stop so I could figure out how to breathe through my nose again, since my mouth was completely occupied by a dental dam and a vacuum saliva suction thing and a drill that I’m pretty sure touched my brain at one point. I’ll be back next week to get a crown, another root canal, and another crown. Yippie ki yi seriously considering a kickstarter  campaign to just replace my entire mouth.

I’ve also gotten a haircut and an eye exam, both super fun.

I went to a Giants game about 24 hours after landing in the States. We had epic Thai food, in a curious restaurant that had framed advertisements for missing cats and dogs as the decor in the restroom. My grandma said that explained all the “chicken” we were eating. I’m so not used to being truly cold that I was completely underdressed for the game and ended up paying like a thousand dollars for a pair of socks, since I had worn my birkenstocks to the game. But it was awesome to be back at the yard and cheer for the boys.

My first meal was In-N-Out. When we got home I immediately went to Safeway for guacamole and Kombucha and some IPAs.

I’ve gotten past the jetlag that had me wide awake at 4am and passing out at 9pm every night. I’ve gone on long walks on the trail again, lingered under the string lights in the backyard late into the night, and spent most of my time with the dog.

Traci came out to play on the Fourth, and we all got up early to go to the hometown parade and watch a million baseball teams, cheerleaders, old cars, vets, and random politicians file by. It was so cute. Then we did bbq and pool all day, ending up on the couch to watch Independence Day. We spent the next day playing card games at dive bars and the next day watching terrible reality tv and eating all the snacks in the house the way you do when you’re so entranced by everything in your parents’ pantry because you’ve been living on take-out and ramen for so long. Leave no carb behind.

We had a Saturday afternoon party at my cousins, complete with crazy floaties, Trader Joe snacks, country music, and a solo quest I took to take a selfie with a peacock. Nailed it, by the way.

My parents threw a huge pirate-themed party for my stepdad’s work here at the house, which was super fun.

I’ve had tacos and Coronas to mark the one year passing of my Grandma Great’s death.

I downloaded Pokemon Go, and it made me get up off the couch and walk for four something miles about town, entertaining people on Danville Blvd with my fistpumps as I caught random cute cartoons and stopped teenage boys to ask them how to play. I still don’t really know what I’m doing, but it’s super fun. I’m finding all these landmarks around town I never knew existed?! Very exciting. It’s like a treasure hunt that never ends.

I’ve had a lot of the same conversations over and over – no, I’m not worried about Zika, yes, I’m excited about the Olympics, no, I don’t miss very much about the States, no, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, yes, you can take me out to a meal, yes, I am lactose intolerant but I need extra sour cream and extra Ranch and extra all the condiments. Thanks.

It was Winter in Rio when I left, which is about 65-80 degrees F. Here it’s much hotter, it’s summer, but I still find myself in pants and sweatshirts, complaining its too cold. I have to take a sweatshirt everywhere. I’m terrified of trying the movie theaters here because I’ve so acclimated to Brazil temps.

And I hate having to drive a car to get around – I’m actually kind of nervous on the road. And I’m still overwhelmed by so much English around me, and by all the food in the grocery stores, and how fast everything is. And not kissing and hugging every person I see.

And yeah, through some unfortunate Facebook rabbit trails, I found out my ex is getting married. Which . . . I don’t know what to do or how to feel about that information. It doesn’t hurt, exactly. It’s not jealousy, either. I can’t explain the emotion that made me somehow feel happy for him and yet also feel like I’d been punched in the gut. But that’s too much to process in an already long and probably boring post.

tl;dr – I’m happy to be with my family and my dog, it’s very weird to be in the States, I’m eating everything, I’m feeling a lot of stuff, my teeth are putting me in debt, Pokemon.

If you didn’t hear it today and you needed to – you just read over 1,000 words! Seems like we only read listicles these days. Not a single gif to be found on this blog. Well done, you.