Had a long, frustrating day. Started ok, with hair-washing, finishing laundry, and a drive up above the city (tons of orange poppies; will send pix). Then went to mall. First let me say that people here take their clothing way too seriously. They were things like leather jacket (fitted, women's), long skirt, high heeled boots to mall. Men wear long khaki pants, sweater vests, and long-sleeved button down shirts. To mall. No shorts. No flip flops. I'm not sure I want to live in a culture where people dress for the mall like a wedding. Where are the jeans? Next, I know there are people here who are bigger than me. But the only size that fit is the next to biggest. And all pants are about 5 inches too long. Does everyone use a tailor?

We did find a bottle leash (attaches to stroller and bot) to help with Vivi's newfound game of dropping everything. But when clever girl undid fasteners on stroller end of bot leash, bot dragged on ground for a while in mall. Stuartt put bot on top of stroller, and later, when hungry girl cried, I shoved very dirty bot into mouth w/ out noticing dirt. Felt bad that lbs. of mall dirt are now in her tiny intestines. And we kept her out way too long because we spent way too long looking for giant clothes for ourselves, more warmer clothes for her (best place is grocery store???), and it takes forever to find anything at grocery store, because everything has its own section (bread, fish, cheese, meat, deli meat, water, wine, beer, etc) and I don't know where all the sections are yet. I did manage to order 2 lbs. of pavo pechuga because I thought that a kilo is 1/2 lb. instead of 2. So I guess we're going to eat lots of pavo pechuga sandwiches este semana.

Another odd thing-baby clothes here run large. Vivi couldn't wear 6 month sizes in the US, because they were too small, and here they are a bit big, but adult-size clothing runs small???? Are all the babies bigger than the world average, and then they grow into smaller-than-average adults?

One good thing-there is a store that is a combination of bed bath & beyond, home depot, osh, and a furniture store. So you can get lots of things in one place. Got a food processor to make baby food (why do they put sugar and citric acid in baby food?) and cat food (no fancy feast for poor beastie w/ only 1/2 her teeth). (That will also be a good use for all that pavo pechuga). it's also hard to find juice w/out added sugar, or yogurt w/out added sugar and other stuff.

Sigh. I am becoming a Californian a bit too late. Donde esta Whole Foods cuando tienes eso?