Where has she been?

Fighting the Mexican drug war waged by the president Felipe Calderon? Nope. She hasn't seen, heard, tasted, felt, or even casually sniffed nor snorted anything to do with drugs or wars. Mexico City's mellow, man.

Binging on tacos and guacamole in the company of old friends? Not really. She's had her fair share of tacos and avocado in all the forms the designer intended (including murky, greenish drinks that promise to make your hair and nails grow twice their usual speed while also making you thinner, richer, and able to speak a dead language) and she's had plenty of opportunities to catch up with amigos and amigas who all seem to have procreated while she was gone, leading her to attend quite a few birthday bashes complete with candy filled piñatas and wine for grownups (after the kids are done smashing up the property and anyone smaller than themselves in lieu of aiming for the Hello Kitty or Spiderman hanging from the ceiling), but there have been plenty of tacos consumed in the privacy of her own bedroom while watching reruns of Mad about You.

Waiting for her stuff to arrive on a boat from South Africa? Well, yes. Among other concerns. She's still not entirely sure where her furniture, and 100 of the 130 pairs of shoes she owns, currently are, and the only thing she knows for sure concerning the huge honking shipping container that houses her and the Viking's life at the moment is that at some point someone forgot it in the Bahamas and didn't tell her until much later. But that's not it.  

Saying a final farewell to her single remaining grandparent in the winter of freezing Finland? Sadly, yes. Almost exactly a year after her grandmother's passing the love of her grandma's life, the grandfather, the healthiest man anyone had ever known, decided to end it all with a lightning cancer and go spend eternity with the love of his life, her grandmother. She inherited his special coffee cup and likes to think of them together somewhere, in an ethereal coffee house, loudly complaining in Finnish about the quality of the brew. While still drinking liters and liters of it.

Getting her Mexican residency paperwork in order? Yes. Partly. Although that's mostly just meant she had to fly to Los Angeles, shop for a long weekend, see Hollywood and Venice Beach and stalk the pregnant P!nk in a casual and unthreatening manner, visit the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles and receive grossly preferential treatment because she kept maintaining her lawyer had made an 'appointment', and then sit around some more in the Mexican immigration in Mexico and again receive preferential treatment thanks to some lawyer trick she'd rather not know about. But although trying to stalk P!nk kept her on a high for weeks, that's not it either.

What then? What the hell have you been doing for weeks and weeks on end?

Well, now that you've mentioned Los Angeles, I do seem to recall something having its beginning on that journey. And I'm not talking about P!nk's pregnant belly. I'm pretty sure that was already there.

Unlike mine.

However - and this is a pretty fucking humongous however - things are not alright.

The little person growing in me, the person I and the Viking finally decided was meant to be born into this world and call me äiti and the Viking far, will not exactly be like you and me. Instead of having 46 chromosomes, this little person will have one more or one less, if this person is ever even born.

I hope so. The Viking hopes so. We're ready. Us and Mexico. Come what may.