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clarketomylexa · 6 years

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That’s What Best Friends Do

“I love you,” she tells Lexa in earnest.

Lexa cocks her head, nose scrunched and finger curled into the spine of her book, marking the page. “Why.”

Clarke is taken back. Her and Octavia have been exchanging cheesy ‘I love yous’ since the second grade and there isn’t any real reason for it other than ‘that’s just what friends do’. She shrugs and purses her lips. “I don’t know,” she says plainly, and amends the words Octavia tells her, “that’s just what best friends do.”

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They meet in the first grade.

Lexa is sweet and Clarke thinks she is cool in her own quirky way.

She moves in on a Sunday and she stands on the other side of the picket fence as they talk, in a green sweatshirt with tiny, little pugs on it and one leg of her denim overalls rolled an inch higher than the other, rainbow piñata socks on show underneath scuffed up sneakers. Her hair is braided into a crown around her head—a style that Clarke files away among what Octavia likes to call a ‘fishtail braid’ and how to tie her shoelaces for later—and she has a scar above her top lip that Clarke imagines she got doing something exotic.

She’s so much cooler than the kids in her grade that Clarke almost wants to yell out how unfair it is that she won’t be going to her school in the Spring.

“But Oakside is so far away,” she laments, hands fidgeting with the Barbie doll tucked beneath her arm. Most of the kids her age in their cul-de-sac go to Ridgeview. Privately Clarke thinks Octavia is the only one worth talking to though, because she has it on good authority that Miller picks his nose and Bellamy just tries too hard.

She isn’t allowed to tell people that though so she watches Lexa shrug.

“My cousin goes there.”

Abby calls her from the porch a moment later and Clarke is forced to say goodbye to her new friend to wash up for sinner. She thrusts the topless Barbie over the fence in a form of peace offering—Lexa’s eyes bulge out of her head and Clarke wonders if she’s never seen a Barbie before so she makes a mental note to invite Lexa over to play with them—and tells Lexa with the utmost importance that she will talk to her tomorrow.

“I made a new friend today,” she tells Abby and Jake from her stool by the kitchen sink as she methodically washes her hands like the chart tacked to the wall tells her to. Jake says she’s a ‘sociable child’ which Clarke thinks is adult speak for ‘will talk to anything that moves’ because once she made friends with a duck in the park that had one leg and an eye that didn’t open. But if being ‘sociable’ means she can talk to Lexa again Clarke will accept the title gladly.

When she closes her eyes she can see Lexa’s pretty braid and the way her eyes aren’t quite one colour but not two either. Like what would happen in art class when Clarke mixed turquoise and forest green together on her plastic pallet because she was using what Miss Henry called ‘artistic license’. Maybe God or whatever Bellamy’s new theory on who created the universe used their ‘artistic license’ when they were making Lexa too.

It makes an awful lot of sense when she thinks about it.

“Clarke you’re wasting water,” Abby reminds her, ferrying pasta bake and green salad from the island to the table and Clarke dries her hands obediently and tucks her stool into the scullery to claim her chair.

“Her name is Lexa,” she continues. “She has piñatas on her socks. She lives next door.”

“The Shepard house sold?” Jake asks.

Abby nods. “I met the new owners at the open house last month. She’s a lawyer,” she looks at Jake in the way Clarke has noticed her parents do when they are talking about ‘parent things’. “I don’t think he’s in the picture anymore.”

“What picture?” Clarke pipes up, distracted as she uses the spoon to scrape the cheesy, bread crumb topping from the side of the dish. She likes drawing. Her favourite is when they finish their worksheets quickly on Friday afternoons and her teacher tells them to bring a piece of paper and a book to lean on, and takes them to the playground to draw the plants and the bugs. The boys in her class spend the time throwing sticks at each other but Clarke always finds a corner to tuck herself into and a lady bug to examine.

She likes the colours.

“Your Mom means that Lexa’s Dad doesn’t live with her anymore,” Jake explains. He takes the spoon from Clarke and scoops the stuck piece of pasta bake onto her plate before topping it up with salad and ignoring the way she frowns at the limp lettuce leaves.

Thinking on it, Clarke nods without ceremony. “If Lexa’s Mom’s a lawyer,” she posits, “can she arrest Nate for stealing my gel pens?”

Nate sits across from her in art class and has a habit of stealing her stationary when he thinks she isn’t looking because he likes colouring his notebooks with sparkles. It’s annoying because she refuses to tell on him and Abby says she doesn’t want to buy her more if they are going to continue to go missing so she has to resort to using Octavia’s ones without the good smelling scents.

“I don’t think that’s how it works, honey,” Abby laughs.

“That’s prob’ly for the best,” Clarke smacks her lips in thought, “he sticks them up his nose.”

Clarke invites Lexa over two days later to play with her Barbies and Lexa sits on her lawn in a bright pink long-sleeve with patches shaped like fried eggs on the elbows and socks that have milk and cookies on them.

When she jokes that Lexa is wearing her breakfast, Lexa smiles so wide Clarke thinks the world will split in two.

She invites Lexa to the lake three months later.

It’s a five hour drive to the house that has been in Jake’s family since he was Clarke’s age but it’s one that they take every twenty-second of June when Abby has cover at the surgery. The house is big and old, with a deck and a new paint job and big windows that overlook the lake. If you squint on a clear day, you can see the proud, white facades of the houses on the other side with their boat sheds, trellises and peaked roofs.

A jetty sits in the water and a tree clings to the bank with a tire-swing Jake had fastened to the middle-most branch—against Abby’s better judgement but she never can stop her husband when he has one of his ideas—so that when you stand as far as you can up the bank and let go you can fly out far enough not to touch the bottom of the lake. It’s Clarke’s favourite thing since she learnt how to do a handstand on the side of the garage.

Not that Clarke has to sell it really, because after three months of Barbie Dream house in the front yard Lexa is nodding as soon as she mentions it would mean spending the summer with her. She explains diligently that there is a double bed in the room Clarke usually stays in—because Abby said that sometimes people don’t like sleeping in the same bed as other people—but that they can sleep in the bunk room instead, or Jake can pull the trundle bed out.

Lexa just nods.

She is fairly sure that is she asked Lexa to jump off a cliff, she would walk straight off it, piñata socks and all but then Clarke would miss her too much.

She stands on the Griffin’s porch on the morning of the twenty-second, in cactus socks and second-hand short-alls—the pants cut down to her size—with funky patches sewn into the bib, thumbs working their way under the straps of her backpack as her mom thanks Abby profusely.

She’s a pretty lady, with Lexa’s smile and round glasses who looks both flustered and relieved as she sweeps a hand over her daughter’s forehead and admits in a way Clarke knows she is supposed to pretend not to listen to that Lexa is having trouble making friends. Which Clarke thinks is ridiculous because Lexa is sweet and funny. She wears her hair like a crown and has been rolling the legs of her pants up at different lengths for three months because Clarke said she thought it was cool.

Clarke’s chest aches when Lexa won’t look up from the tips of her shoes and she thinks that Lexa’s mom mustn’t know what she’s talking about.

Clarke has been doing multiplication in math.

She knows that two and two is four, and three and three is six.

And if that’s true then she thinks Lexa and summer must equal something like ‘better than good’—but not ‘bestest’ because Lexa says ‘best’ is already a superlative.

Clarke doesn’t know what a superlative is, but Lexa can define words like ‘diversification’ so she thinks Lexa must be right.

They swim until water rattles in their ears and Jake teaches them to fish off the jetty after they stand on stools to help him pull the rods down from a shelf in the boat house, carefully showing them how to thread the bait onto the hook and cast the line into the water. When Lexa can’t get her hands around the line, face contorting unhappily, Jake heaves her onto his lap and repeats the process patiently until her frumpy frown straightens out.

They go out on the boat on hot days; Jake makes the boat corkscrew so that the water froths out in a V behind them, and when Clarke begs, he flings them writhing and giggling into the water by the strap of their life-jackets and fishes them out again while Abby rolls her eyes.

It’s in the quiet moments though, when the lie on the grass in damp swim suits and sunscreen-sticky skin, that Clarke discovers two very important things.

The first: Lexa does this thing when she is happy where she scrunches her eyes and throws her head back to laugh and it’s so ‘positively lovely’—which is another thing that Lexa says a lot—that Clarke makes it her mission to make her happy every day of her life.

The second: every time Lexa is happy, it makes Clarke feel ten feet tall. It’s a feeling that starts in her toes, ticking the soles of her feet and shooting like growing pains up her legs until her stomach is hot and her cheeks are pink and she feels stronger than before. She is pretty sure that if she were to climb the tallest tree on the bank and let go, she would fly and not fall.

She thinks about it as she sits, chin sticky with lemonade popsicle on the jetty.

Lexa lays sprawled on her back, legs akimbo and arms stretched out into the sky. Her fingers are splayed and her whole face is contorted so that she can squint up at the sky and trap the sun in the circle of her fingers. She has freckles peeking out shyly from the bridge of her nose and when she notices Clarke staring, she drops her hand and smiles. It’s lopsided—like her pant legs and her socks—but it’s whole in a way that makes Clarke’s stomach flip-flop.

“Want to see something cool?” she pokes Lexa in the soft of her ribs with her pointer finger.

Lexa nods, pushing herself up onto her elbows, intrigued, “uh huh.”

She folds her legs and cocks her head. Clarke makes sure she is watching before she picks her way up the jetty, where the grassy verge tangles with the roots and rocks.

The tire swing is tucked over a low branch—at her mom’s request because technically Clarke isn’t supposed to use it without ‘adult supervision’ but Lexa talks like an adult sometimes with her ‘therefore’ and ‘henceforth’, so she thinks it will be okay—and stands on a rock that juts out into the water with one leg, reaching out with the other until she can feel the tire under her fingers. Grinning, she pulls it into her hands and hooks a leg over the rope, taking three steps back and launching herself off the bank.

She lets go when the tire is just about to swing back like Jake taught her and surfaces just out of the shallows, hair in her eyes and heart thumping against the cage of her chest. When her ears unclog, Lexa is whooping and the jetty bends and gives beneath her uncoordinated victory dance.

“I can go higher,” Clarke garbles, mouth full of water.

Lexa’s whole face shoots upwards in disbelief. “Cannot,” she says.

“Can to,” Clarke insists, arms flailing as she doggy-paddles inelegantly to the shore.

Their life jackets are hooked over the railing of the deck and it crosses Clarke’s mind that maybe she should go and get hers, but if she does Abby will see her through the kitchen window and she gave them instructions not to go in the water when she went in to put lunch together.

She fishes the tire swing towards her and steps back as far as the rope will go this time, rooting her toes firmly in the soggy grass. Lexa is staring at her in wide-eyed apprehension but Clarke sets her brow until it furrows above her eyes and her stomach whooshes out from under her as she kicks off the bank, mud stuck between her toes.

It dawns on her when the air is whining in her ears that maybe this isn’t such a good idea.

Her foot catches and before she understand what is happening she is careening back towards the bank, heart stuck in her mouth.

Lexa lets out a sharp yelp, as Clarke’s hand slips. She lands face down in the dirt, the air punched out of her chest, still for a moment until pain blooms across her right cheek and a cry escapes her mouth before she can recognise it as hers. She hears a shout when her ears stop ringing, and rolls with a hard gasp onto her back as Lexa’s head and shoulders swim into her vision, awful worry crunching her face. She pets Clarke’s hair as Clarke blinks up at the sky, voice trembling as she coos ‘it’s okay, Clarke’ and ‘I’m here, Clarke’ in a high, thin voice that Clarke can’t help but think is less soothing and more unsettling, until the thick goo that seems to be sitting on her lungs seeps away and she can breathe.

But then her mom appears—all grumpy line in the place of her mouth—wiping her hands on her pants as she squats on the grass and Clarke thinks she is going to puke all over again.

“Mom,” she squeaks, whining as the right side of her face throbs hotly.

Abby takes one look at her—wet swimsuit and lank hair, blood pooling beneath her eye and Lexa’s hand squeezed tightly in a balled fist—and tsks, tucking a hand under her to sit her up and Clarke sways before falling into her chest, whining ‘it hurts’ into the soft neckline of her shirt.

The first-aid kit is found and Abby asserts that it won’t need stitches.

She gets a talking to about not doing what she’s told—which Lexa stands through too, fingers wound through Clarke’s in a way that makes it hard to focus on why ‘insubordination’ is a bad thing—and she wears a hulk band-aid on the bony jut of her cheek for a week.

Lexa traces it with a feather-light finger as the lie, side-by-side in the double bed beneath the lazy turn of the ceiling fan in the room that has been Clarke’s since she was three years old. She wears llama pyjamas and is unapologetic about not wanting to sleep on the trundle bed Jake offers to make up for her, instead, pressing herself into Clarke to feel for the bump of the scab forming under the band-aid with a frown in the way that makes warmth curl under Clarke’s ribs.

“I did it on purpose,” Clarke says, eager for anything to get rid of the crunch between Lexa’s eyebrows. She wants to reach out and touch it but her hands shake so she doesn’t.

Lexa blinks slowly, “nuh uh,” she says without heat.

“Did to,” Clarke fists her hand under her chin and nudges Lexa’s nose with her own. She smells like bubble-gum toothpaste and the Griffin’s shower-gel and the wonderful notion that Lexa is hers wafts in her mind until she can’t help but smile. “Now I match you.”

Lexa reaches up to touch the shallow half-circle above her top lip like she’s forgotten about it, fingers tapping her teeth for a minute before she shakes her head. “Yours is cooler,” she says definitively, “I got mine falling off my bike,” she explains, “you got yours flying.”

Lexa smiles her world-splitting smile and Clarke thinks that while swimming and the fireworks Jake sets off for the Fourth of July are all well and good, bedtime might be better. It’s a secret she will take to the grave along with how she only pretends not to like broccoli but the stripy wallpaper and floral sheets of the room feel impenetrable and Clarke builds them a fortress out of cotton sheets and shadows cast from soft lamp-light; a place where Lexa is hers.

She wraps her fist around the top of the sheet and pull sit over their heads until they are breathing the same hot air.

“You’re my best friend,” she says wondering why her throat gets hot and tight as she does so. The words have been sitting on her chest since the day they met—a secret locked tight like the acorns she keeps in the sticker decorated box beneath her bed that is so true she feels it in her bones every time Lexa talks.

Lexa’s eyes go big. For a horrible second, Clarke thinks that it was the wrong thing to say and her stomach flip-flops but not in the way she has come accustomed to it doing when she is around Lexa—this flip-flop feels like the warning kind that comes before Clarke has to go in search for her mom in the middle of the night because she ate too much ice-cream in one go and it winds itself into a knot so tight the only way out is up. But then, Lexa mumbles ‘best friend’ under her breath like she wants to taste it and nods, smiling so warmly Clarke wants to wrap herself up in it like a blanket and never crawl out.

“I’ve never had a best friend,” she admits, cowering behind the words like they will change Clarke’s mind. When Clarke doesn’t reply, she peers at her intently and Clarke recognises the look that she gets when she is helping Clarke with her addition and subtraction worksheets. “Is it different from just being a friend?”

Clarke thinks about it for a moment.

“Yes,” she eventually lands on, “and no.” Lexa nods. “It just means more,” Clarke whispers, “it just makes it more special.”

“Okay, then,” Lexa decides. “You’re my best friend too.”

Lexa is soft when she sleeps. With her admission she goes limp like pasta when you put it in the pot and Clarke manoeuvres her happily, all gangly limbs and knobbly joints, until she can tangle them together like a puzzle—the kind that isn’t meant to unravel—and when Abby comes to check on them, if it weren’t for the different colours of their pyjamas, she wouldn’t know where one started and the other ended.

They talk during the year but it isn’t the same.

Lexa gives Clarke a pair of socks for her birthday with tiny little sloths embroidered into them—Clarke knows they cost her whole allowance and for that it means the world. She presents them with as much importance as when she knighted Clarke in the woods behind the lake house with an old plank of timber they found in the shed and she hangs over the fence every day after school with her lopsided smile and embroidered overalls, telling Clarke about the books she reads and her nine-year-old cousins shenanigans until her mom calls her in.

Sometimes, when Lexa’s mom is working she stays at Clarke’s on Saturday nights and on those days, Clarke can almost pretend it’s summer. They stand on stools in the kitchen side-by-side as Jake stirs the pasta sauce and lie in Clarke’s twin bed at night, watching the glow-in-the-dark stars. But Lexa is all angles unfortunately—she looks forlorn whenever someone mentions it to her, but Abby insists that she will grow into her lankiness—and while in summer it provides places for Clarke to tuck herself into comfortably, during the year, the positions she has to contort them into to make them fit clench at her chest.

She presses sloppy kisses to Lexa’s forehead to tries and convince herself otherwise, but Clarke comes to the conclusion that Lexa isn’t hers during the year when Lexa regretfully turns down an invitation to go bowling when Jake offers to take her, Octavia and Bellamy one Friday night.

She stares at her toes when she tells Clarke that her mom said no and she looks so much like the snail that Clarke found on the back path without its shell one morning that she pester her for more information.

Two weeks later, Clarke has to say no to backyard pizza with Lexa and her mom because of Octavia’s seventh birthday party—a slumber party that ends at eight when they all inevitably fall from their sugar highs that Lexa isn’t invited to despite Clarke’s best efforts.

Octavia doesn’t like Lexa. She says she’s ‘too colourful’ with her stripy shirts and rainbow patches even after Clarke explains her theory about ‘artistic license’ and Clarke thinks it’s a horrible reason not to like someone. When she asks her mom Abby tells her that Octavia is probably feeling left out and Clarke thinks that maybe, she isn’t Lexa’s during the year either.

The thought is so distressing, she lies awake with it at night, raggedy Ann doll squeezed under her armpit as she stares at the spot where the wall meets the ceiling. She twists her finger over the woollen curls.

Summer is four months away but suddenly, it becomes the center of her universe.

Clarke is nine years old and Abby has set them loose to play in the thatch of trees beside the house.

They pick through the leaves in shorts and t-shirts while their bathing suits dry over the railing and play catch with the neighbour kids until they are flush faced and breathless. Lexa wears popcorn socks beneath her sneakers and Clarke slips a hand, fingers splayed, over her mouth to mask the sound of her heavy breathing as they crouch in a heavy crush of limbs behind a tree. They are pressed so close together Clarke can feel the rapid pat-pat of her heart and when the Monty and Jasper run past in a flurry of kicked-up leaves and pine needles, Lexa licks a wet stripe across Clarke’s cupped palm with a fierce brand of mischief in her eyes until Clarke squeals away.

They spend the rest of the afternoon as the taggers but Clarke can’t find it in herself to complain.

The next day tag becomes boring and they think of a new game.

Clarke remembers the story book that she packed in preparation for the lazy hours her and Lexa were sure to spend lounging on the grass—a thick tome her grandmother gifted her for Christmas completed with the words ‘For Clarke’ scrawled inside the front cover in her thin, looped writing that Clarke equated to the threads of the spiderwebs that hung from the beams in the shed. It contains everything from fairy tales to folklore.

She lays it on the picnic table and points to the characters illustrated in battle garb, assigning one to each of them.

Clarke is the sky princess, thrust from her cloud-top home—Olympus, Lexa corrects her quietly, pointing to the illustration of a tall, columned building gleaming atop the point of a high mountain. Her inspiration comes from a short story about a boy named Hercules that Clarke knows nothing about except for the fact that she dimly remembers watching a Disney movie about a boy who was half-god and half-human and had an angry goat instead of parents. She drapes a strip of gauzy fabric over her shoulders rummaged from the depths of the house, a dress-up left over from her aunts’ childhood summers, and threads flowers through her hair, feeling suitably wispy and ‘effervescent’, which Lexa tells her means ‘like air’.

Lexa is the warrior queen whose territory Clarke falls unwittingly into. Clarke thinks it suits her—she peers at the illustration of the woman with braids and leather armour, riding a horse with a sword in her hand and battle-paint on her skin and the slight downward turn in the corner of her lips is so similar to the way Lexa’s face contorts sometimes and she congratulates herself for putting two and two together. Ignoring the short yelps when she mistakenly tugs a stray curl, she clumsily threads Lexa’s hair into a braid the way Octavia taught her at recess. The outcome is less than good. Lexa bears more resemblance to the mangy cat that stalks the neighbourhood begging from scraps than a warrior-queen but she smudges wads of dirt over her eyes to fix it ignoring the way everything inside her goes warm and melty when she smiles—like the s’mores the make in the fire-pit at night in when Lexa is in pyjamas that smell like the Griffin’s detergent and socked feet.

Jasper and Monty grow restless, encroaching on the bubble Clarke has built for them with bored whines and Clarke thinks it’s lucky that Santa Claus never gave her a baby brother for Christmas two years ago because she got Lexa instead and Lexa smells much better than a boy. She assigns them characters anyway; the palace guards, and they search the ground for suitable ‘spears’ wielding gnarled sticks with as much menace as nine-year-olds can.

She kneels before Lexa’s throne—a fork in the twisted branches of a tree—with a circlet made from daisy chains in her hair, head bowed and launching into a wistful monologue of her harrowing journey to the ground, complete with fierce dragons, and a sea-witch who tried to barter unsuccessfully for her voice, while Monty and Jasper level their sticks at her in mock-fighting stances.

Back straight, Lexa blinks at her behind her crude war paint and Clarke thinks time stops.

Later—after they are called into lunch by Abby—they lie, sprawled out in the grass in the sticky heat of the day. Lexa has her bathing suit on beneath her shortalls instead of a t-shirt and her hair has dried in soft corkscrew curls around her hairline so that if she wasn’t peering so intently down at the book she has spread out before her, Clarke would reach out and wind one around her finger.

Instead, she feels like her body is humming with energy she doesn’t know what to do with.

Jake always likes to explain his work to her, he sits her on his lap and draws out maps of electrical circuits, explaining the mechanics of them and Clarke feels oddly similar to an overloaded circuit right now. Like she is plugged in to too many things and it’s making her unable to sit still.

Fingers splayed on the grass, she kicks up into a handstand, grinning at how Lexa looks upside down and the way she mouths the words she’s reading like it will help her remember them better. When she stands back up, the blood rushes back to her head and she peers over Lexa’s shoulder.

“What does ‘fealty’ mean?”

The word sits on the top line of the page in neat, Times New Roman font and it tastes so elegant rolling over Clarke’s tongue she can’t help but ask.

Lexa cranes her neck to look up at her, squinting one eye against the glare of the sun. A swathe of sunburn tints her cheeks red. “It’s like a promise,” she poses like a question, grappling for the right explanation, “or a vow.” Clarke cocks her head. “It’s like when you make a promise to someone,” she tries again, pushing herself up onto her knees so that from her angle, Clarke blocks the sun, “like, ‘I’ll love you ‘till the end of time’.”

Clarke has to rally herself against the sudden burst of dizziness that hits her in the chest with the force of the tee-ball bat in gym class. Lexa kneels in front of her, freckled-nose and braided hair, and if Clarke thought time had stopped before, now it ceases to exist entirely. The world has become just them; this sticky-sweet moment that has wound itself so eagerly around her chest.

Fourth grade science class has brought rudimentary explanations of the universe—how everything they touch is made up of things called ‘atoms’ and how when she looks up at the sky, she has to imagine the biggest thing she can possibly comprehend and then quadruple it and it won’t be nearly a one billionth of what is really out there. To Clarke it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense, the vastness of it all makes her head spin but the one thing she does understand is how the earth rotates around the sun because it’s similar to the way she thinks she rotates around Lexa.

“I love you,” she tells Lexa in earnest.

Lexa cocks her head, nose scrunched and finger curled into the spine of her book, marking the page. “Why.”

Lexa doesn’t come with them in the summer between sixth and seventh grade.

With help from a contact at work her mom gets her to the top of the waiting list for a sleep away camp in the Maine and Lexa pulls up the website on the Griffin’s computer in the kitchen on Saturday night, scrolling through page after page of girls in tennis whites and soffe shorts, playing field hockey and toasting marshmallows around a campfire.

“I don’t really want to go,” Lexa says quietly, nose wrinkling at Clarke’s silence. Behind them Jake dices vegetables for tacos and a bespectacled Abby checks through Clarke’s book report for spelling eras but the comforting familiarity does nothing to stop Clarke souring at the blindside. “My mom thinks it will be good for me.”

Clarke is getting tired of what Lexa’s mom thinks will be good for her.

The woman is sweet and kind. She has heard her parents talking about how she ‘does her best’ for Lexa which she knows is what adults say when they are commiserating the hardships of single-parenthood but in her worst moments Clarke wants to shake the woman until she understands that Lexa’s quirks don’t make her ‘unique’ in the way that people talk about people who are different, they make her special.

So what if Lexa likes books better than people? Clarke likes girls better than boys and nobody is up in arms about it.

Sometimes it feels like Lexa’s mom aches for her to fit in more than Lexa does.

She can’t stop Lexa from going though, and the morning before they would usually leave for the lake sees her standing on Lexa’s front porch instead, with a horribly permanent pout on her mouth that she can’t shake. Lexa stands before her in sneakers, navy shorts and a tee with her camps logo printed on the front in bold white letters, her hair in two, tight braids and she looks so startlingly un Lexa-like stripped of her embroidered socks and circle of braids that when Clarke winds her arms around her neck in a dramatic goodbye, she finds herself mouthing a silent prayer to whomever is watching to put her best-friend back together again.

Hooking her chin over Lexa’s shoulder Clarke makes her promise to write weekly, hating the tears that seem to be squeezing their way out from beneath her eye-lids, and Lexa swears a solemn vow to do so, nose tucked into the crook of Clarke’s neck.

When it’s time to let go Clarke reluctantly untangles herself and retreats back to her own front yard, pressing herself against the white fence and waving vigorously as Lexa’s mom loads her and her trunk into the car and the Sedan inches its way out of the driveway.

“You’ll see her in August,” Abby reminds her, arms tucked over her daughter’s shoulders, “we can buy some stamps and you can write to her whenever you like.”

Clarke nods dumbly, trying not to let the whole affair feel like an awful betrayal.

When they make it to the lake two days later after a near silent five hour drive, it rains for the first time in as long as Clarke can remember.

In lieu of her best-friend, Abby has extended the invitation to her sister-in-law and her kids and Clarke stares at her cousins—five-year-old twins and a nineteen-year-old who is more interested in her boyfriend who insists on calling Clarke ‘squirt’ at age twelve-and-a-half than she is in Clarke—wondering how she is supposed to bestow the honour of her summers on people who are so clearly unqualified.

She wallows in the absurdity of it all as she is relegated to the bunk-room, watching with her stomach churning and a hot, angry thing she doesn’t care to understand clawing at her ribs as her Eden is invaded by her cousin and her Air Jordan wearing boyfriend with his stupid, unbrushed mop of hair. And even though Clarke is relatively sure a five story drop onto concrete wouldn’t do any damage to the twins—they’re dim-witted at the best of times and they paw at the t shirt Lexa bought her for her birthday like it’s something they are allowed to touch—her aunt decides it’s best if Clarke takes the top bunk, despite the fact that puberty is beginning to bring her her promised growth spurt and folding herself into the top bunk is a feat worthy of a contortionist.

The bout of water-logged days mean the boat stays in the shed and the twins grow restless in the sticky-wet heat. Clarke takes it upon herself to commandeer the role of ‘moody teenager’ two years too early and sprawls out on the wooden floors near the closed glass doors and punches the buttons of her Nintendo DS until Mario stops obeying her commands as the rain beats at the window panes. She thinks it’s pathetic fallacy, or whatever her English teacher had said when she explained the way authors use the ‘external environment’ to show a characters ‘internal emotions’, because if she could peel back a layer of herself and peer into her soul, she is sure the unhappy, slate-grey of the lake is what it would look like.

She hopes it isn’t raining on Lexa too.

They cut their trip short and Clarke is sitting with her chin in her hands when Lexa returns.

Her ponytail sticks to the nape of her neck where it is secured with an elastic, remaining stubbornly in her t-shirt and shorts even though Aurora invited them around for pizza and too cool off in the Blake’s pool—even the promise of seeing their newly acquired black Labrador puppy wasn’t enough of a bribe to get her to give up her post.

Her and Lexa have been exchanging letters once a week without fail over the eight weeks of Lexa’s session, detailing each other in on the smallest things. So much so that Clarke thinks she is the one who has been rotating through six activities a day and sounded off to sleep by Taps at precisely nine-twenty but it hasn’t been nearly enough. It’s stupid, but she needs to see Lexa again with her own eyes, as if to make sure she hasn’t disappeared into thin-air like a product of her imagination.

“Clarke!”

When she looks up, Lexa is standing three feet away from her, tanned and slightly breathless. Her mom’s Sedan is still inching its way into the drive, which means Lexa took a flying jump from the passenger door while the car was still in gear to find her. She’s wearing tiny, navy running shorts and her camp tee—slightly faded from almost daily washing and eight-weeks’ worth of sun—hangs off her teenage frame, knotted at her hip so that the hem rides up to reveal a long triangle of skin that makes a hot, aching thing build in the pit of Clarke’s stomach. Instead of deciphering it, she propels herself from her crouch on the porch to fling her arms around her best-friend’s neck, instantly recognising the way Lexa seems imperceptibly broader and stronger in her arms. Her shoulder blades flex beneath the press of Clarke’s hands as she draws her desperately closer and when Clarke prods a finger at the offending strip of skin at her waistband—teasing her mercilessly about her bare midriff—gone is the softness Clarke usually finds there when she curls into her in their shared bed at night.

Instead she is long limbs and lean muscle, her cheeks are dusted with sunburn and her hair is lighter, but the worst? Her freckles are on show and this time it isn’t Clarke who has put them there, but a girl by the name of Costia who’s neatly printed name is in the center of those scrawled on the back of Lexa’s shirt in permanent marker.

They lie on the mesh of Clarke’s trampoline after Lexa has hauled her trunk up to her room—her mom gave her four hours before she had to return next door and sort out her laundry—with cans of diet coke sweating in their palms as Clarke recounts the story of walking in on her cousin and her boyfriend being more intimate than strictly necessary on a family-friendly vacation.

“I almost barfed,” she giggles heartily, “I wanted to end it all right there but my mom talked me down from the ledge.”

“Oh, the dramatics,” Lexa sighs, grinning. She takes a sip then looks at Clarke seriously. “Was it really that bad without me?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Clarke says softly. It wasn’t bad so much as it was empty, completely void of all of the things that made summer summer and Clarke has been left with the odd feeling that she is returning to school having not had a holiday at all.

Lexa screws her nose up and nods, “if it makes you feel better camp sucked too.”

“No it didn’t,” Clarke laughs, curling onto her side, “but thank you for making me feel better.”

Lexa piques a brow. “Are you call me a liar?” she accuses, feigning a hurt look. When Clarke shrugs, she flings a leg over her hips and pins her to the taut mesh of the trampoline with her arms by her ears and Clarke tries not to gasp at the electric shocks that skitter across her skin when they touch. Instead, she collapses into laughter, tipping her head to the side as Lexa knees her beneath the ribs, demanding ‘take it back, take it back’ in a low, teasing voice.

“Fine!” Clarke gaps, writhing against the assault, “fine!” She paws at the smooth length of Lexa’s thighs where they sit nestled against her waist. “I believe you.”

Clarke has a hard time pinpointing exactly what happens next.

Somehow she raises her head and simultaneously, Lexa goes to lower hers. The result is a cacophonous collision of foreheads and noses; Clarke opens her mouth to whine in pain and finds a mouthful of Lexa’s bottom lip instead, eyes bulging as her pulse skyrockets to a speed she thinks surely signals a cardiac arrest.

Lexa makes a noise that resembles something close to an ‘oof’ then her fingers come to Clarke’s cheek in concern. “I’m sorry,” she smiles ruefully—it’s the same lopsided, word splitting smile she has always had and it does something to quell the stagnant uneasiness that has taken root in Clarke’s spine, if not the smouldering build up of who knows what in the pit of her stomach—and runs her thumb in a practiced motion over the short, white scar beneath Clarke’s eye.

“It’s okay,” Clarke whispers. She fiddles with the edge of the tie-dyed bandana that is wrapped and knotted around Lexa’s wrist, trying not to focus on the impending sense of doom she feels as her body betrays her.

#clexaweek2019 #day 3 #only one bed #clexa fic #childhood friends #clarke griffin #lexa

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tarjetasimprimibles · 4 years

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DIY Las mejores piñatas para tus fiestas

Si querés sorprender a todos los invitados de tu fiesta, ésta es la oportunidad! Con estas increíbles piñatas para cumpleaños el éxito está asegurado. Hay de diferentes formatos y temáticas, para niñas o niños, pero de algo estoy segura, te van a encantar!… (more…)

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schnitzelwithnoodles · 2 years

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Country #13 Mexico

It’s daddy’s birthday this week and we are celebrating with his favorite food, tacos!!! We already love Mexican food and movies, so this is already a fun filled week for us. Can’t wait to learn more and eat delicious foods! Another fun thing, grandpa is coming!

What we learned:

• Amigo means friend (boy) and amiga (girl)

• Mexican wrestlers are luchadores

• Adiós means goodbye

• Hola means hi

• Frida Kahlo was an incredibly brave and talented artist who used art to show the world who she was

• There are lots of yummy foods: tacos, burritos, agua frescos, tortillas, churros, etc

• The hairless dog originated from Mexico and it’s body temperature is warmer than other dogs. People would put them in their beds to keep warm.

• Ancient Mayans or Olmecs invented the number zero!

• Mexico resides on the ring of fire - an area along the Pacific Ocean where of lots of volcanoes and earthquakes occur

• Ancient Mayans played a ball game

• Cacao comes from Mexico

• A cochineal beetle found on a prickly cactus was used to make red pigment by the Aztecs and was highly sought after in Europe and around the world

These are the books we read:

• ¡Vamos! Let’s Go Eat by Raul the Third

Colors by Elaine Bay

• I am Frida Kahlo by Brad Meltzer

• Illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos

• The Piñata that the Farm Maiden Hung

by Samantha R. Vamos Illustrated by Sebastià Serra

• What Can You Do with a Paleta? By Carmen Tafolla Illustrated by Magaly Morales

• Mexico by Jessica Rudolph

• Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto Illustrated by Ed Martinez

• Mi Aubuelita by Tony Johnston Illustrated by Yuyi Morales

• The Piñata That the Farm Maiden Hung

by Samantha R. Vamos

Illustrated by Sebastia Serra

This is what we watched:

Coco! We also watched Ballet Folklórico de Mexico perform.

This is an activity we did:

We made flower headbands like Frida’s out of pipe cleaners and cupcake liners.

This is what we cooked:

We made shrimp tacos! Yum yum yum. We all love us some delicious tacos.

We also got to eat at a Mexican restaurant in our town. Jean you already had pizza but you had some corn, tortilla chips, and tried the salsa. However, it was really cute watching you and Cameron dance to the music while we ate!

Meal Takeaways:

Daddy made an awesomely delicious salsa verde and I just want to swim in it. Our tacos perfectly paired with the salsa, queso fresco, hot sauce, shrimp and crunchy corn tortillas. Jean you walked into the house saying it smelled so yummy and really enjoyed eating the shrimp!

Jean’s Corner

I’m an artist Ike Friday Kahlo but I want to be a scientist when I grow up.

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wigglingpandaboi · 6 years

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Well De, this little piñata… Isn’t. Taking. Shit. Who the fuck is your boss? Who is that little prick of a cactus? Imma bash him... No one should treat you like that. No. One.

"N-NO!"

" D-Dont p-please..I....I made a d -deal w-with him"

" h-he o-o-owns me"

" i-it w-was s-stupid o-of m-me but h-he kept h-his p-promise"

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hectoraraujo15-blog · 7 years

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Coco es un regalo de pixar para la cultura mexicana.

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Antes de iniciar creo que es necesario decir que no soy un critico de cine ni mucho menos, solo un mexicano amante de las películas y mucho más de las animaciones.

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Coco, como todas las películas de pixar con una que otra excepción, es un deleite para la vista del espectador, creo que desde el primer momento puedes apreciar los colores y detalles que Pixar tomo para la realización de esta además del aprecio regional al ser una película sobre la cultura mexicana.

El día de hoy les compartire los diferentes puntos de por que para mi Coco es un regalo de Pixar para México.

1)no es otro cliché Hollywoodense

Antes que todo, se tiene que admitir que desde siempre se tiene esta imagen de un charro hecho y derecho dormido en un cactus hasta el sombrero de ebrio, y después de tener una película como "El libro de la vida" dirigida por señor Guillermo del Toro donde al fin se le da justicia a la imagen mexicana, lo primero que pensé fue que Disney volveria con los clichés y la gente olvidaria la obra de arte que fue El libro de la vida, sin embargo, olvidé un punto clave para esta opinión tan apresurada, Disney es Disney, desde que sabes que la película lleva más tiempo en realización que Toy Story 3 entiendes que no es un proyecto que solo sacaran para generar ingreso, si no uno hecho con amor y calidad que siempre llevan las películas de Pixar.

2)cada detalle importa.

Para algunos los pequeños detalles son lo más importante, y Pixar se tomo el tiempo para poder investigar esto, con saber que hicieron 3 viajes de larga duración al país mexicano por esto mismo, es hermoso ver desde la chancla que usa la abuela para amenazar al protagonista hasta las piñata de los personajes de emblemáticos de la franquicia, pasando por todos los personajes de la cultura mexicana que esta película hace referencia, estos detalles hacen que tanto propios como extraños se les salga una pequeña sonrisa por la alegría que genera al darte cuenta de todos estos pequeños detalles que hacen que la película sea especial.

3)la animación

No solo supieron llevar bien los buenos detalles, también las grandes escalas fueron llevadas con excelencia, el pueblo donde inicia la película, los altares de las familias, todos los personajes y comí olvidar la ciudad donde viven los muertos, es en sencillas palabras una obra de arte que juega con la pupila del público, en momentos oscuro y en muchos otros colores vivos y llamativos, supieron llevar todos los colores de manera perfecta, además del impecable diseño de personajes y paisajes.

4)la historia

Que puedo decir de esto último, muchas personas tuvieron la idea que sería una copia mal hecha de la película ya antes mencionada "El libro de la vida" pero no, esta historia toma un giro completamente diferente, que tiene que ver más con el amor familiar y con los sueños y aspiraciones personales, no hay momentos aburridos pero si muchos felices que generaban risas y sonrias y también los momentos de suspenso y más importante los de tristeza, creo que es una película que te hace sentír de todo donde más de uno, sin importar niño o adulto, dejaron caer lágrimas, simplemente es impresionante como generaron una historia tan linda y original que almenos a mi ya me dieron ganas de comprar la película y guardarla para mis hijos, para mi esta película siempre será un regalo para todo el pueblo Mexicano y, admitamoslo , las enormes ganas que te dan de poner un Altar después de ver la película son invaluables, por último y para cerrar, quiero agradecer a Pixar por todo lo que hicieron para esta película que siempre quedará en mis recuerdos más añorados cuando de películas se trate.

#pixar #team coco #méxico #animación #español #películas #crítica #coco #cinéfilos #cinépolis #cinéma

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learninglcom · 5 years

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For just $2.90 DETAILS Cinco de Mayo Clip Art Fiesta! This collection of festive Mexican cinco de mayo graphics includes 90 individual images: sombreros, maracas, chili peppers, piñata, string lights, cocktails, cactus, and more! Each image is saved in PNG format with transparent background at 300 dpi resolution. The download also includes editable EPS, SVG and Adobe Illustrator vector files of the set. You must have vector editing software in order to edit these. Thank you for looking!

#Illustrator #Vector #piñata #StringLights #Mexican #Cinco #ChiliPeppers #cocktails #Clipart #sombreros

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starkravingcat · 5 years

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Happy Cinco de Meow 🎉 Chica Crystal is ready to fiesta! Catnip Piñata, Party Favors and Catnip Cactus - gonna be a great pawty! ・・・ @mochikit : What else do I need for Cinco de Meow? #catnipcactus 🌵🌵 + #catnippartyfavors 🎉🎉🎉🎉 + #catnippinata 🍬🍭🍸🍸🍻🍾 from @starkravingcat . . Cinco de Meow! 🎉 SAVE $2 on any Catnip Piñata (or any cart total of $30): use SPRING2019 at StarkRavingCat.com or in our Etsy shop 🎉 Including #catnipsugarskulls #catnippartyfavors and #catniptunatini 🎉🍸😸🌮🎉 . StarkRavingCat makes hip gifts and piñatas - unicorn, bull and donkey - for cats and catlovers. 🦄🐂🐴 For your #catbirthday, #starkravingcat. Send a #catnip #cattoy to a #catlover, #catlady, #instacat, from #Austin #ATX #txhillcountry #etsy #etsyshops 🦄😸🦄😸🦄😸 #unicornpinataforcats #catnippinata #unicornpinata #pinataforcats #cincodemayo #cincodemeow #cats_of_instagram #siameseworld #catsofworld https://www.instagram.com/p/BxFTfkghPq5/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=nnt8q66jj03

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alexa-andrea · 5 years

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Diseño e inconformidad

¡Hola amiga!

Espero que este inicio de Semana Santa lo estés disfrutando, porque ya vamos casi a mitad de semana. El fin de semana fui a Querétaro a ver a mis tíos (a la hermana de mi abuelita y a su esposo). Fui con mi mamá, mi Oma (abuelita en alemán) y con mi perrita. Mis tíos son muy agradables, son súper alegres y a pesar de tiene 83 y 85 años son súper independientes. La familia de mi Oma y mi tía es de Papantla, Veracruz y la familia de mi tío es de Los Mochis, Sinaloa; así que en su casa siempre hay música, ya sea marimba o la tambora, jaja una combinación muy alegre. Lo mejor de esa combinación es la comida. Mi tía cocina delicioso. En esta visita lo que más me gustó fueron los pulacles. Son tamales típicos de Papantla, se comen específicamente en cuaresma, ya que son de calabaza, chayote y frijol, no llevan carne. Cenamos y desayunamos pulacles todo el fin de semana y los podría seguir comiendo. Son algo súper sencillo, pero se aprecian los sabores de la masa y de las verduras. Aprendí que se utiliza masa nixtamalizada, manteca vegetal, aceite, y los ingredientes que quieras para rellenar el tamal. Me llamó la atención que el proceso de nixtamalizar el maíz es hervir el maíz con cal, para después molerlo. Esta masa es la que compras ya preparada en las tortillerías, se usa para las tortillas, tamales, sopes, en fin, todo lo que comemos.

Esto de la cocina me lleva a contarte otra cosa que disfruto mucho es cocinar. No sé si te había contado, pero antes lo odiaba. Nunca creí que pudiera ser buena para eso, o mejor dicho nunca me había dado la oportunidad, pero creo que era por llevar la contraria a los comentarios que hace la gente o a los estereotipos que hay sobre las actividades que tenemos que cumplir las mujeres de ser “buena ama de casa”. Pero un día decidí preparar mi propia comida y así fue como descubrí lo relajante y divertido que puede ser cocinar. Al final da igual si dicha actividad es típicamente estereotipada o no, lo que importa es lo que a ti te aporta y lo que tú haces con eso. No significa que si como mujer cocinas vas a ser sumisa y solo te vas a dedicar a “atender a tu esposo”. Igual que si eres hombre y cocinas eso no te hace “menos hombre”. Porque algo que me llama la atención es que las mujeres siempre nos quejamos de los estereotipos que sufrimos y que nos impone la familia o la sociedad. Sin embargo, no somos las únicas que sufrimos. Los hombres también sufren estereotipos que son impuestos por la sociedad. Deben ser los fuertes (en todos los sentidos), los que trabajan, los que imponen las reglas, los que sólo hablan de futbol, los que no son delicados, que no lloran, etc. Si te das cuenta son atributos, que hoy en día las mujeres buscamos que sean para nosotras (obvio yo también), los pelamos y nos apropiamos de los que pensamos nos definen individualmente y grupalmente. Sin embargo, (de corazón) ¿qué piensan ellos? Esto es algo que me intriga. Como sabes tengo un hermano y siempre hablamos de esto. De los estereotipos que hay para hombres y mujeres. De cómo la lucha de uno afecta al otro y en realidad el problema que hemos visto es que no hay una verdadera comunicación entre personas, entre individuos. Cuando se llevan los estereotipos al colectivo, se pierde el mensaje de comprensión y empatía que se puede generar entre individuos de diferente género, orientación sexual, creencia religiosa, afiliación política, en fin, cualquier tema.

Regresando a uno de los primeros temas que vimos con Reneé, lo que nos falta es comunicación. Creo que los canales de comunicación que utilizamos hacen que se distorsionen los mensajes y que la comprensión por el prójimo de lo que decimos sea mal interpretada. Personalmente creo que no se trata de hombres o mujeres, de homosexuales o heterosexuales, de creyentes o ateos, de izquierda o derecha, sino de individuos, todos completos, todos con derechos, con una historia personal, con anhelos y metas.

Sobre lo que comentas del matrimonio, por lo menos yo pienso de manera similar, pienso que es algo que no quiero tomar a la ligera. Pienso que es algo que no te debe tomar por sorpresa, es algo de lo que hablas con la persona con la que estas, que debe ser algo en lo que crean los dos y que la línea de pensamiento sea similar y hacia las mismas metas. Si no, obviamente no se va a poder trabajar en una meta en conjunto y el significado del matrimonio se pierde y se convierte en algo efímero, en algo que se puede deshacer si se desea.

Personalmente me gustan las cosas duraderas, las cosas que sé que me van a ser útiles de por vida. No creo en un consumismo de desechables. Esto engloba desde el matrimonio hasta los zapatos que compro. No estoy de acuerdo con cambiar tu sala cada año, en comprar platos desechables por la flojera de limpiar, en los globos y piñatas jaja. Pienso que las cosas tangibles que hago que me rodeen tienen que ser para toda la vida, por lo mismo el consumo que procuro hacer es consciente. Eso que ves en el aparador y te gustó ¿cuánto tiempo va a estar contigo si lo compras? La respuesta debería ser, toda la vida. O por lo menos toda mi vida, ya que la vida de un objeto, ya sea prenda de ropa o termo es más larga que la nuestra. Y si no va a estar toda mi vida conmigo, la pregunta es ¿en qué se va a transformar cuando ya no esté conmigo? Lo mismo pasa con una mascota o con mi pareja. Mientras compartamos tiempo el pensamiento que está en mi cabeza es que sea para siempre, no pienso en las relaciones para pasar el rato, o en mi perro sólo por entretenimiento. Por lo mismo no comparto el diseño que hace Andrés Lihma, ya que para que un objeto me parezca atractivo a lo largo de los años no debe ser un cactus, debe ser algo que sin importar en qué parte lo ponga tenga una utilidad y vaya en armonía con el resto de objetos del entorno, de preferencia.

Siguiendo con algunos puntos de inconformidad en esta carta, haciendo honor al tema de la clase del jueves. La Ibero. Personalmente no me quejo de la universidad a diestra y siniestra. Esto por mi bagaje personal. Esto sé que ya lo has escuchado mucho, jaja pero sigue saliendo a colación. Antes de entrar a diseño estuve estudiando medicina en otra universidad (probablemente se pueda sospechar cuál al leer lo siguiente), sólo 5 semestres. Por lo general no digo la universidad, como dicen “se dice el pecado no el pecador”, y tampoco la mencionaré porque creo que se va a entender igual que si la mencionara el porqué no me quejo de La Ibero. Otra cosa es que esta es mi experiencia PERSONAL, mi perspectiva de ambas universidades, no es algo objetivo, ni pretendo que lo sea. Tampoco estoy diciendo que la Ibero sea la mejor, sólo que mis creencias y mi filosofía de vida empata un poco mejor con la visión de La Ibero. En contraste con mi experiencia en la escuela de medicina de dicha universidad, en La Ibero me siento libre y no me siento observada o vigilada. Esto simplemente por los espacios de las instalaciones. Aquí hay espacios abiertos, grandes, con pasillos amplios, escaleras donde cabe más de una persona tanto de subida como de bajada. En la otra universidad los salones son pequeños y la cantidad de alumnos que entra en ese salón, al menos en medicina, es por lo menos el doble, las escaleras son de un solo sentido o doble si te pegas a la pared. En todos los salones hay imágenes de santos o cristos, aquí hay ventanas. Aquí, al menos en diseño, en las clases hay diálogos entre alumnos, y de los alumnos con los profesores, allá el profesor da la clase sobre una tarima y tienes que apuntar todo lo que digan, porque lo más poco significativo para tu vida profesional es lo que será preguntado en el examen. Aquí no hay exámenes. Aquí pasan todos los alumnos, allá también, dependiendo tus contactos y aportaciones. Aquí puedes opinar o criticar y no cambiará mucho, allá no puedes opinar. En fin… Cuando me cambié de universidad y de carrera vi a La Ibero como la educación del futuro, aunque ahora nos quejemos de que es obsoleta.

En cuanto a la conferencia de VUHL, me gustó su historia como marca. Sin embargo, no la conferencia. Fue lenta y no me enganchó. Aun así, es interesante ver como unos hermanos se propusieron algo y lo lograron. Creo que su historia es un claro ejemplo de cómo nuestro bagaje influencia lo que hacemos, hacia donde nos dirigimos y cómo nos definimos. Me llamó la atención, ver como hay cierta rivalidad entre los hermanos, a pesar de que los dos conforman su marca. No sé si lo notaste, pero había pequeños comentarios y ademanes que evidenciaban esto.

Durante la clase antes de la conferencia mencionamos aciertos de los profesores que en verdad nos motivan en las clases de diseño y creo que estos los deberíamos de tomar, no sólo para proponer un cambio en nuestro departamento, sino para nuestra vida como diseñadores o como cualquier profesional, son importar a lo que se dediquen.

Los aciertos que mencionamos son:

Generar interconexión

Fomentar la colaboración

Estar actualizados

Brindar retroalimentación

Buscar motivar

Exhortar a la participación activa y positiva

Pienso que, si reflexionamos sobre estos 6 aciertos, podemos decir que el poder del diseño está en las interacciones que se forman durante el trabajo de diseño y entre usuarios. Como te decía al inicio de la carta, lo que importa es el individuo que genera contenido para mejorar la calidad de vida y cómo nos relacionamos entre otros.

Disfruta las vacaciones.

Espero tu respuesta.

Andrea Bravo.

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pinatashandmade-blog · 5 years

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Cactus 🌵 Cómo te gusta? Tu eliges como lo quieres..... @pinatashandmade @ingridrivasconesa #pinatas #piñatas #piñataspersonalizadas #piñatastenerife #pinatastenerife #minipiñatas #piñatear #handmade #cosasquemolan #cosasbonitas #detallesqueenamoran #detallesquemolan #partykids #party #fiestaspersonalizadas #fiestasbonitas #fiestas #happybirthday #cumpleaños #santacruzdetenerife #cactus (en Santa Cruz de Tenerife) https://www.instagram.com/p/BbhI5Pkgx0c/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1j52z6n3pu7mx

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montrosemavens · 8 years

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La Mexicana: Family-Style Tex-Mex Done Well, But Not Perfectly

By Connor Morley and Iris Ayala

La Mexicana, located on the corner of Montrose and Fairview, has been in its exact location since 1982. The food, although slightly marred by a few duds on the menu, has consistently been considered a staple of the Montrose area due to its helpful and kind service, delicious food, and family-friendly atmosphere.

The restaurant's interior design and decoration.

As we walked into the large restaurant, we were immediately and swiftly welcomed by a waiter, with no hassle. He turned out to be quite helpful, which is something that you need to be, especially at a family-style restaurant where you constantly need to seat large groups of people. In our case, we had nine, but that didn’t affect service in any regard.

Our drinks were served all within the span of five minutes or less within ordering. Most of our group had the standard fare of Coke or water, but there were orders of cantaloupe juice and horchata to bring home the authenticity of the food and atmosphere. While waiting for our food, we noticed that the horchata tasted artificial and was too sweet. It was not up to the standards of the family horchata that we are used to and this was made obvious by the simple fact that it was a accompanied by an overpowering sweetness and had no hint of rice being used in the brewing process at all. The jugo de melon was like the horchata in its sweetness-factor, but the texture was fine. Overall, not remarkable.

La Mexicana did manage to nail another Mexican restaurant essentiality, however: chips and salsa. The chips were warm and seemed to be homemade. We enjoyed their crunchiness with two different types of salsa: verde and roja. Sadly, the salsa was slightly to cold when compared to the warm chips. However, it did contain a good amount of spices and you could taste each spice as one delectable blend, all together in a fabulous condiment of perfect consistency, which rendered the slight coldness “not a big deal”.

While we were sipping down our drinks and anxiously awaiting our meals, we took the time to survey the interior of the restaurant. Papel picado and piñatas adorned the ceiling, and historic photographs of families, workers, and locations of Hispanic and Mexican origin plastered the walls. It was a little tacky, but exactly what you would expect from a family-style Mexican place located in Texas. The music in the background complemented the atmosphere as it added to the Hispanic decorations in the restaurant.

The food was delicious and flavorful, and the spices could be tasted in each dish. We ordered: chilaquiles, enchiladas, quesadillas, nopalitos en Salsa chipotle, and guisado de puerco.

The chilaquiles (tortilla chips sauteed in salsa rojo until they are soft and then served with Mexican cheese on top) were spicy and the tortilla chips were soft yet firm. These folks know good chilaquiles when they see it: the cheese was not overpowering in the slightest, and rather than masking the flavor of the rest of the dish, it actually managed to be a wonderful contrast and brought out the overall spiciness of the dish even more than it would have if the cheese wasn’t even there.

Chilaquiles with fresh cheese and beans.

The espinacas con Pollo (spinach & chicken) enchiladas were decent, but not fantastic. The spinach was thoroughly sauteed and there were small flecks of white chicken meat throughout the enchilada filling. The enchiladas were crispy on the outside from the cheese which provided a nice contrast with the filling. However, the enchiladas were cold and fell apart easily, and they were in a cilantro cream sauce yet we couldn’t taste the slightest hint of cilantro in the dish. The enchiladas were accompanied with borracho beans, which did not help the plate at all. The beans were too salty and the spices and vegetables only added to the chaos. A little disappointing, to say the least.

You could notice the true authenticity of the quesadillas after spending years of eating in several other restaurants serving this flavor of Mexican cuisine. I can give only two words for those restaurants: watered down. But here, the perfectly cooked, flavorful chicken came in a delightful melted cheese blanket. The textures of soft, melted cheese in contrast with tender chicken and crispy tortilla all blended perfectly, and, like the rest of the dishes here, was obviously made by hand with the utmost care.

The nopalitos, in English known as sliced cactus, were dipped in a delicious red warm salsa. However, the salsa was much too greasy. The sliced cactus was accompanied with delectable homemade tortillas, though. They were soft, warm and held together well, so if you were to order the meal by itself, at least you would have the tortillas going for it.

The guisado de puerco (pork stew) was crafted with the exquisite care of a Mexican mother. The pork was not simply doused in red sauce, but rather was embraced by it and the gooey redness filled every nook and cranny of the rich meat. The beans (which, thankfully, accompanied every meal) were quite simply phenomenal. They cascaded down the tongue and were accompanied by a bold aftertaste quite unlike anything we have ever tasted before. The rice was also obviously homemade, as it stuck together rather than being separate and clay-textured like some mass-produced template. It tasted delicious when accompanied by diced vegetables. The sauce itself was slightly too salty for our tastes, but this measured to be a minor inconvenience when compared to the rest of the dish.

Once our stomachs were full and ready for dessert, we ordered flan and sopapillas. Sadly, our naivety did not expect the utter dreadfulness of the flan. Its texture was entirely too firm, which, if prepared right, should be light and fluffy. It left a bitter aftertaste that almost single-handedly took everything good we had to say about the rest of the meal away. The lime haphazardly placed on top of the ugly, brown mounds didn’t help in the slightest.

The flan served at La Mexicana.

Luckily, the sopapillas were tasty and well-baked. The powdered sugar atop the plain fried dough gave it some sweetness and the honey you could drizzle atop it or pour inside of the pastry made it one of the highlights of lunch. The dough was light, airy, and not overly sweet which paired well with the intense sweetness of the drizzled honey and light dusting of powdered sugar. The feeling of biting into the primarily-air sweet was not unlike that of biting into a cloud. Because of this, the meal ended on a high note.

One of the desserts, the sopapillas.

As we left the restaurant, we thought about our experience. Although some items on the menu were less-than-flattering, we could tell that the chefs of La Mexicana knew Mexican food, and knew it well. Everything on the menu was authentic Tex-Mex, and most of it, even after finishing, still left our stomachs wanting more and our mouths watering with a feverish craving. We would recommend La Mexicana, especially the guisado de puerco, chilaquiles, and sopapillas. However, it might be smart to steer-clear of the enchiladas, nopalitos, and the flan. If you happen to choose the right things on the menu, for $15 per person, your stomach will cry “this is worth it!”

Ratings:

Food: 8.5

Service: 8.5

Atmosphere: 7.5

Overall: 8.5

Price: $15 per person

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celiampcopy-blog · 4 years

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GUION spot móvil

Cartela: Todas las imágenes que vas a ver a continuación fueron grabadas con un Samsung Galaxy A7 que se entregó a todos los asistentes a esta fiesta.

Vemos un DJ dentro de una casa muy grande llena de gente en una tarima improvisada. Se acerca una chica y le dice algo al oído. Comienza la música.

Una ráfaga de fotografías se sucede. Son fotos de gente divirtiéndose, caras muy de cerca, con movimiento, con diferentes filtros, manos al aire, humo, luces de neón.

Por corte, vemos un vídeo de una chica en la piscina que se hunde en su colchoneta de flamenco mientras todos le hacen fotos. Se suceden 3 fotos de ese momento desde diferentes ángulos.

Corte a un skater que cae a la piscina desde el tejado, el momento en el que salpica el agua se ve a cámara a lenta. Vemos fotografías de una chica posando en el borde la piscina con el fondo difunido. Aparece la sobre impresión “EFECTO BOKEH”. Se suceden fotos de la misma chica cayéndole el agua encima.

Hasta aquí son fotografías con luz de día, la mayoría escenas de exterior con mucha luz.

Vemos otra ráfaga de fotografías del mismo estilo que las anteriores: gente joven mirando a cámara desafiante, una chica intentando hacer pool dance.

Vídeo de la misma chica cayendo de la barra al suelo.

Más fotografías: un beso apasionado que mira de reojo a la cámara, un skater haciendo trucos en mitad del salón, gente disfrazada.

Por corte, vemos a dos personas peleándose con dos cactus gigantes, un trozo de la planta sale disparado.

Corte a dos personas en trineo tirándose por las escaleras. Una de ellas lleva puesto un casco de moto en la cabeza.

Vemos dos fotografías del momento de la caída de los del trineo desde dos ángulos distintos.

Por corte, vemos un grupo de gente golpeando una piñata con forma de unicornio de colores, cuando cae el contenido (preservativos, confeti, tubos de neón) todos se lanza a por él. Se ve un plano general del salón lleno de gente. Se ve una sobreimpresión “ULTRA WIDE 120º”

La música va en aumento, a medida que la música sube el ritmo de las fotos y los vídeos aumenta. Son escenas en las que ya está anocheciendo, se ve que la gente está más eufórica.

En el momento justo antes del subidón cuando la música se para vemos a tres personas que tiran una escultura de hielo, el momento de la caída se ve a cámara lenta y cuando cae al suelo y se hace añicos es el momento en el que rompe la música.

Vemos una ráfaga súper rápida de fotografías: el pene de la escultura de hielo dentro de la copa, más gente besándose, risas, movimiento, break dance.

Por corte, vemos un cerdito que corretea por el salón, varias fotografías de gente achuchando al cerdito.

Vídeo de una pareja debajo del montón de abrigos que se tapa con ellos mientras ríe,se para la imagen y se sobre impresiona “FOTOGRAFÍAS CON POCA LUZ” una chica cantando eufórica encima de un piano.

Fotografías de gente comiendo pizza pero posando. Un grupo quemando nubes de azúcar en una hoguera. Fotografía de las nubes chamuscadas.

Se suceden vídeos muy rápidos de una persona dormida a la que le están haciendo twerk en la cara, una chica untando el taco del billar, un pogo con un chico en muletas, alguien haciendo llamarada con un spray y un mechero.

Vemos una sucesión de fotos desde un ángulo parecido de la casa llena, la casa después de la fiesta y por último un vídeo de la casa después de la fiesta casi vacía con la gente saliendo y la lámpara que se descuelga del techo.

#spot #guion #script #advertising #publicidad #anuncio

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topfygad · 5 years

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A Guide to Riding on a Trajinera Gondola

As you might have heard before, Mexicans are especially good when it comes to fiestas. The party spirit runs through their souls–with just about anything requiring a full-blown celebration of dance, food and drinks. Mexico bursts with a vibrant colorful atmosphere that is, simply put, contagious.

Now imagine this: there is a quintessential network of gorgeous canals that reflects a rainbow-like assortment of colors. Beautiful trajineras (gondolas) donned with unique names glide gracefully along the Xochimilco canals, with musicians, vendors, and a gleeful vibe all around.

Honestly, going to Xochimilco is one of those things you have to do if you ever visit Mexico City. The Floating Gardens are insanely popular amongst tourists and locals, and for good reason! I can tell you from personal experience that this will be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience that is impossible to recreate anywhere else.

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About Xochimilco Mexico

Xochimilco lies 17 miles south of Mexico City, and it is mostly known for it’s large body of floating gardens that run through a vast lake and create the popular Xochimilco canals! The gardens don’t really “float” per se, but they are only held together with a few roots of tree that are man-made through natural resources.

The Xochimilco canals (Xochimilco directly translating to place where flowers grow) is a destination more than anything else—a Sunday escape, a floating fiesta of trajineras, a picnic and the Venice of the New World. The chinampas there (which are the floating gardens), are recognized as an UNESCO World Heritage site and are actually still used for cultivation up to this day.

What is a Trajinera?

“Trajinar” which is a Spanish verb, directly translates to carrying goods from one place to another. And that’s originally what the “trajinera” boats were for. Porfirio Diaz, the former president of Mexico, used the “trajineras” to give guests a tour of the quintessential Xochimilco and it grew to become one of the main pastimes for Mexicans.

Most trajineras seat as many as 20 people on wooden bench tables, but you can even find bigger ones, usually called lanchas colectivas that fit over 60 people. And although you can pretty much take a “trajinera” ride anytime, the best time to do so is during Sundays. This is the best way to experience it as a local.

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The Experience of Riding Trajineras in Xochimilco

Arriving at the Xochimilco canals is like seeing an explosion of Skittle colors — a rainbow piñata of boats. Rows and rows of trajineras (gondolas), stacked back to back and side by side, waiting for hundred of passengers which would no doubt be arriving shortly. Each doned a unique name; Viva Lupita, Margarita, Carmelita—Ms. Julietta was the name of my ride.

You know what a completely normal scene is like on the Xochimilco canals? Let me tell you what it was like for me. If you think the experience only entails being on a trajinera and gliding through quintessential greenery, then you’re wrong. The whole experience is a multi-sensory one where a lot of different stuff happens at the same time. A traditional family sing together, a passing group of rowdy young people, snacks all around, floating singing mariachis, floating taco stands, colorful ponchos and sombreros everywhere and much more (including photographers taking pictures of you!).

Brightly colored gondolas, dozens of people, huge groups, good food and music—what more could you ask for? As you float down the canals back and forth, you’ll also get to pass boats that sell food, drinks and even souvenirs. I’m talking corn on the cob, sombreros and lots of beer! Honestly, if you ask me – it’s quite the picturesque way to spend your day.

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Instead of just going on your usual boat ride, you actually get a multi-sensory experience that everyone can enjoy. As we were on the boat, a lively mariachi band actually pulled up to our side and “serenaded” us with some good old Mexican folk music. Other vessels passed us along the way, some carrying families who were celebrating a members cumpleaños (birthday) and some packing college students enjoying a day away from studying. There was dancing, singing and laughing aboard them all.

Plenty of canoes filled with vendors and souvenirs glided by, selling everything from blankets to flowers to libations. Of course, when you’ve been on a boat for a while, it’s hard to pass up a delicious Micheladas (a beer Bloody Mary) and elotes (grilled corn slathered in a creamy chili and lime sauce with cheese, it’s a classic Mexican street food or in this case ‘water food’).

Though you can buy food on the water or bring your own, our lunch was catered by a local restaurant and brought on board prior to departure. Mariachis played in the background as we ate soft tortillas frilled with refried beans, peppers and cheese. A plate of very addictive chicharrones (fried pork rinds) was passed around and cervezas were plentiful.

After you’re done on the water, return to the dock where souvenir shops in the mercado area wait. I skipped the shopping and headed straight for the the Danza de los Voladores (dance of the flyers) show that was happening in a courtyard nearby. This Mesoamerican dance ceremony, consists of flyers climbing to the top of a 30-meter pole. Secured by ropes they then launch themselves to the ground, mesmerizingly spinning around the pole all the way to the bottom. I got dizzy just watching.

A trajinera trip along the Xochimilco Canals is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to actually experience the local life first-hand. You’ll get to see the eternal fiesta enjoyed by Mexicans all the time, and you’ll get to have a different type of sight-seeing other than normal guided tours.

Essential Tips for Visiting the Xochimilco Canals

Xochimilco Canal Tours – You can take a tour with GetYourGuide that will take you through a tranquil boat trip along the water and a visit to Frida Kahlo’s house (Casa Azul). You’ll also get to explore the quaint streets of Coyocan after a hectic day on the water.

There’s also another tour by Viator that will take you through the streets of Coyocan, the National Autonomas University of Mexico to see murals of Diego Rivera and more, go to the Frida Kahlo Museum, and then float on a trajinera down the Xochimilco canal! An expert guide will tell you all about the interesting history surrounding you.

If you choose to find your own way to the Xochimilco Canals and not book a tour, you can negotiate with the boat owners upon arrival or arrange your trip through your hotel. If you do not make prior arrangements, arrive early as they tend to get very busy. A boat ride should cost around $500 Mexican pesos ($26 USD) per hour for the entire boat, not per person.

What to Bring – You won’t need to bring much – just make sure you have cash. If you’re not wanting to spend money on food and drinks, then I recommend packing up on some snacks for the ride!

Other things to do Nearby – To keep with the once-in-a-lifetime theme, my top recommendation is a visit to La Isla de las Muñecas. The Island of the Dolls is something straight out of a horror novel—an entire island dedicated to old dolls. There are hundreds of old dolls (deteriorating too) that are creepily hung over the trees. It’s no surprise that people actually think that this place is haunted.

Other Things to Know

It can be quite crowded, especially on the weekends, so if you are looking for a more tranquil experience try visiting early in the morning on a weekday.

It’s best to book the trajinera for at least two hours. This way you’ll be able to venture further away and explore more.

Make sure you bring cash with you, they do not take credit cards.

A trip is best enjoyed with a large and lively group!

Pack a cooler full of beer and snacks if you can.

Bring speakers! If can then liven up your gondola with your own music. Check out these portable travel speakers.

Semana Santa, Holy Week, is definitely the busiest week of the year.