Update from Argentina

Perhaps this post is too personal, but I received this email from Nick down in Argentina last night and his format made me chuckle. Life has been reduced to the checklist of critical shots for the assignment, and lists are on his brain, proven by his email-manifesto (what a fun email format for an update, I love it!)...

On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 6:30 PM, Nick Hall Photography wrote:

Hi Baby,

1. Fuck me it is cold here

2. The landscape is one of the flattest, treeless places I have every been. It is almost like being on the ocean; flat, horizon, massive sky

3. A herd of beautiful horses came galloping up to us today and checked us out. It was amazing.

4. The food here is so down to earth delicious

5. My assistant is doing great

6. Everyone is lovely and kind

7. We made some great photographs today, but this assignment is definitely going to be difficult to find the killer shots. I am excited about the challenge.

8. We are going to eat steak everyday

9. I love you and the children

10. I've seen Ria's (small ostrich) and Guanacos running across the landscape totally exotic and other-worldly
11. As of this moment, I prefer Chile to Argentina but the trip is still young

And my response...

Hi darling,

1. It really does rain in Seattle. The past few days prove it. And our porch still leaks.
2. Our bathroom looks amazing. Everyone who has seen it thinks so and I can't wait for you to see the finished product.
3. Papa babysat the kids while I went to a parent-teacher conference. He fed Poppie fish roe from chopsticks and she didn't cry when I left.
4. Finn ate two chicken legs and a cup of broccoli for dinner and declared himself a meat- & plant-eating dinosaur. I'm going with it.
5. We might have to take Finn out of preschool for maturity reasons, but we are going to work on it the next couple of weeks. (More on this later.)
6. Argentinians are amazing.  Reason #4 on my list of why I want to take an extended sabbatical there (see answer #11).
7. I had no idea being a stay-at-home-mom was going to be so difficult at times, especially with you gone so much, but I am up for the challenge. My friends think I am amazing for being a quasi-single mom for half the month, which makes me feel sorry for myself. For a second.
8. If I am going to: a) get the bathroom primed, painted, stained and finished; b) put up a Christmas tree and all the outside/inside decorations; and c) still have a functioning household, then d) the kids and I are eating breakfast-for-dinner every night. Enjoy your steak, baby-licious.
9. We love you more than the sun and the moon. And there and back x 1,000,000,000,000. And miss you too.
10. There are a trillion construction dust particles floating in the air of our house. I bet they look amazing under a microscope.
11. I still want to move to Argentina. Maybe you are in the wrong part of the country.

J xxx