Joshua Zamrycki’s Weblog

As my cousin Marli has astutely pointed out, according to Wikipedia, a calçot is a variety of scallion, and the most traditional way of eating calçots is in a calçotada, a popular gastronomical fiesta held between the end of winter and March or April, where calçots are consumed massively. Last week, we had the pleasure of having Marli stay with us for a weekend (she’s a fantastic house guest) while she had the pleasure of attending her very first calçotada. Emily celebrated by ditching the top of her baby carriage and making the public debut of her big-girl stroller.

Happy to see what’s going on

This particular calçotada was organized by Too-Tall Dutch Ed. This was Jan and my second annual Ed-organized calçotada. They go something like this:

1. Take the train half an hour up the coast.
2. Meet an assortment of Dutch, German, Spanish, and Argentinian people at the train station.
3. Get in a car and make your way up to the base of a mountain.
4. Climb said mountain with food, drink, firewood, children, and dogs in tow.
5. Find the hut at the top of the mountain.
6. Men build fire, women drink.
7. Laugh, make an absolute mess, eat too much, and drink (yes, in that order).
8. Play with children and dogs.
9. Drink.
10. Admire surroundings.
11. Watch the sun set.
12. Clean up.
13. Make your way down the mountain before it gets too cold (much easier than climbing up).
14. See you all next year

I can see the sea

My favorite part of any calçotada is the filth inherent in the event. These long, thin onion-like roots are charred over an open flame and then left to roast inside a bulk of old newspapers. The resulting husk looks more like charcoal than onion, but underneath that black flaky exterior is a soft sweet morsel just waiting to be smothered in a thick delicious almond and garlic sauce. Nobody wants to get their hands too dirty while they’re peeling back the first calçot, but after the third or fourth, everyone’s got soot smeared all over their hands and face and nobody seems to mind. They just taste too good!

Go get ‘em, Ed

Happy 372 month birthday, me.

Yes, today is my birthday. (372 months) / (12 months/year) = 31 years (months cancel each other out, you see). I’m not feeling any older than I did at this time last year, but looking back on the past 365 days, I’ve sure been through a lot:

After a very difficult winter, we announced that we were leaving our tiny attic love nest and were looking for a new flat. I don’t think anyone else knew at the time that it was because we were pregnant. That was a secret up until last year’s birthday.

Circumstances beyond my control had forced me to cancel the play I was producing, but that left me free to spend time with my beautiful wife and pursue many other job opportunities.

My favorite pastime, of course, was counting down the days until Little Girl was to arrive. With our days of freedom numbered, we made sure to make the most of it while we could.

Summer was drawing near and Jan wasn’t getting any smaller. We finally found the perfect new home to start a family in – and it only needed a little work!

Little Girl’s big day was fast approaching and we were giddy with excitement. We took advantage of the quiet before the storm to make all the finishing touches on our new home.

The big day had come and gone, quickly teaching us that our Emily was one of those ladies who knows how to make an entrance. September 6, as far as I’m concerned, is now the most important day of the year.

The next few months were a flurry of excitement, sleep deprivation, and general freaking out. Milestones were passed and experiments were performed. Since then, we’ve celebrated every single month with pomp and circumstance.

I’m currently enjoying the precious time I get to spend with my family – a commodity now that I finally have a real job.

I look forward to the future and all of the adventures that my next year is sure to bring.

One big happy

Thanks to a week-long sniveling bout with a cold and a morning full of singing and dancing children’s theatre followed by an afternoon full of voicing action-packed cartoon episodes yesterday, I am sadly without voice.

I didn’t mind wearing a yellow Post-It Note on my sweater all day today at the office that said “estoy afónico”, but I did mind missing out on the veritable avalanche of acting work that decided to shower down upon me as soon as Lady Luck and her twisted sense of humor discovered that I was unable to perform. Damn you Lady Luck! Why must you taunt me?!

Yes, in a period of just under 48 hours I have been forced to turn down the following work:

• two performances of The Lemon Thieves for a theatre full of kids
• dubbing one of the lead roles in a Spanish live action/animated feature film
• voicing and directing a series of six corporate videos
• providing voices for a Simpsons animated short at a Danone corporate event

Missing out on fun projects hurts, but missing out on the subsequent payday really hurts. Putting my degree in Mathematics to good use, I’ve added up all the money I won’t be making in the next two days – let’s just say it’s a lot closer 1000 than it is to 100. Now you know I really mean it when I say I can’t afford to lose my voice. Grrr…

Happy five month birthday, Emily.

The word for this month has been “sturdy”. No more flopping around, bouncing her chin off her chest (well, not as much). Our little girl is standing tall… from a decidedly sturdy sitting down position. So, what tricks did Emily have in store for us this past month?

• Giggles aplenty. And nothing makes me smile more than that hefty laugh of hers.
• It used to be that Emily would attempt to grab anything that happened to find its way into her hand. Fate would decide. Well, Emily is The Decider now. If she sees what she wants, she will have it. And if you hold anything grab-worthy in front of her – like Mr. Hoppity, B-B-B, (Not)Bagpuss, or her pacifier – Emily’s eyes and arms open super-wide and her body begins to convulse like an electroshock patient. Yes, she is a woman who knows what she wants.
• Emily is a great appreciator of the finer things in life – specifically, momma’s milk. It is this longing for food that has kept her waking up every three hours all through the night for a feed. We have recently implemented a sleep/feeding regimen in an attempt to get her to sleep more at night, and consequently allow Jan to sleep more at night. So far, so good. We are proud to say that Emily now regularly achieves an unprecedented five hour stretch of sleep – usually from 1am to 6am – and thus has lengthened all of our life expectancies by more than a few years.
• She’ll sleep for hours without food, but if that pacifier falls out, we are frequently requested to kindly replace it in its proper resting place. And sometimes it doesn’t really fall out – I see her pull it out herself in her sleep. Sabotage! But it was only recently that Emily has developed the fine motor skills necessary to then put the pacifier back in her mouth all by herself. I see her practicing this at night before she goes to sleep. Whereas she used to spend all evening staring at her hands in wonder, she now meticulously studies the mechanics behind removing and reinserting the pacifier in her mouth. It doesn’t look unlike a baby taking a roadside sobriety test.
• Our little Weeble-Wobble has discovered that if, when sitting up, one holds on to their feet, there is a much smaller chance of falling over to one side.
• If the hungry-cry appears, we feed her. If the sleepy-cry appears, we put her to bed. If the pain-cry appears, we make sure nothing heavy is on her. But there has since appeared a fourth and not so easily squelched cry. We fear it may be the teething-cry. We’ll provide more updates on this matter as they arise.
• Finally, it looks like we’ve got an opera singer on our hands. Sometimes sustaining a single nails-on-the-chalkboard screech for upwards of seven minutes without taking a breath, Emily apparently loves the sound of her own voice. I came home late the other night to discover all of the sheets had been removed from our bed and Jan asleep on the living room couch. She was later quoted as saying, “I just couldn’t take it anymore!”

B-B-B + L-W-G
(Big Brown Bear and Little White Girl)

I think I’m spreading myself too thin.

The job at HP is going great. I’m very comfortable with my role and I really like everyone on my team. It’s been more time consuming than I had originally anticipated, but the more familiar I am with the job, the better I’ll be able to manage my time in the future. I’m probably averaging about 35 hours a week at the moment and I’d really like to get that down to about 25-30. I was just recently approved to have remote access to the company’s server so I’ll hopefully be working more from home and only going into the office two or three days a week. I know the ladies at home will appreciate that.

Anyway, in addition to my job at HP, I’ve somehow been managing to keep my hand in the old acting game. Just this past week I did some voices for two different cartoons, recorded an ad for Movistar, and acted in three different children’s theatre plays. I wish I could say that all this craziness is behind me, but it looks like it’s just the beginning! Before the end of March arrives, I’ll be working on two more cartoon series, performing in tons more children’s theatre, recording voice-overs for a few corporate videos for HP, and directing more episodes of Little King Macius – all the while trying to keep up with my work at HP and then get home in time to see Emily before she goes to bed at 10pm (which I don’t always accomplish). I’ve become a master of juggling three balls at once, but I’ve never learned how to juggle seven!

I know I should probably turn down some of this acting work when it pops up, but I’m finding that rather difficult. The children’s theatre is a commitment I made at the beginning of the year (which I can’t get out of) and I really enjoy working on the cartoons. What’s a boy to do? I did manage to say no to DrimTim when they called me last week to revise my role as Dialog Coach on their next film, but that was a no-brainer – it would have been physically impossible to work a film’s 12-hour day and still hope to keep my job at HP! Well, I guess I could always take my laptop with me on set and then… AGH!!

I say that this should all calm down by the end of March. This is because I should have completed by then two of the major cartoon series and the bulk of the children’s theatre. That is, of course, the same time that rehearsals will be in full swing for the next play that I am planning on directing. What’s wrong with me?!