Off to the field

I am so excited. I'm finally getting to head out to the field and get some "real" work done. (So far, I've been doing plenty of statistics and data collection from aerial photos and digital elevation models). The team leaves Monday, and it sounds as though we will have a grueling week. So far, the plan involves staying at a hotel with a pool in Veracruz and renting horses to go up the mountain. Not bad!

In truth, no field work ever goes quite as planned. In 2007, I had to sew my backpack back together after it was partially gutted by a bear who found the apple I had forgotten from the previous day's lunch; I also got locked out of the field vehicle miles from the nearest paved road, and my PhD advisor had to smash out one of the back windows with a sledgehammer that just happened to be conveniently sitting in the truck bed. In 2008, my adviser and I ended up stuck on a small island in California without any means of making fire, one bowl, a fork, and a whole lot of soup and rice packets -- then the winds really kicked up and it looked as though we wouldn't be able to get off the island in time to catch our flight home. 2009 was the year of the black free-range cow on a moonless night. I'm glad that a) I wasn't driving lead van just then and b) I didn't have to explain to the insurance company why they were going to be buying a cow. In short: I have no idea yet what will go wrong on this field trip, but I'm waiting to be impressed.

Trapped on Negit Island, 2008. There weren't any bears, but the whole island is infested with mice or, according to my adviser, "evil robo-hamsters."

Keating, meanwhile, will be here in Mexico City. Despite being invited along (Have you seen him??? He can carry LOTS of rocks!!!), he opted to stay behind. He felt bad about leaving his students to a substitute so soon after starting teaching and worried about how it would look to his employers. For the record, when they found out about the field work his employers told him he was crazy to be staying behind and promised to find subs for him next time (he only mentioned it to them during his meeting on Friday, so there wasn't enough time to find subs for this trip).

Completely unrelated, unless I decide to interpret it as an omen: I noticed my first earthquake today. That was before I read the news about Chile and my paranoia level jumped by a few levels. My earthquake was nothing like theirs: I didn't even feel it, I just noticed that the clothes in the closet were swaying in the nonexistent breeze. To be fair, I suppose it could have just been a ghost. We have daily quakes here in Mexico City, as I recently discovered when I finally asked my boss what the obnoxious alarm sound over the building intercom was. It goes off at least once a day and sounds a bit like the high-pitched tone that immediately preceded all intercom announcements in elementary school, but everyone pointedly ignores it. It turns out that it's an alarm that sounds every time the in-building seismometers record an earthquake and serves to signal the seismologists on the floor above us that they should go check their machines. I'm giving myself another month to either a) adjust to the horrible noise or b) start a petition begging them to use an email announcement system or use a Lady Gaga ringtone instead of that beep. She's been stuck in my head for the last two weeks, anyway.

Brownies and Banks

In keeping with the plan, Keating and I made brownies last night to celebrate being given 3 months of pay. (Apparently, I'm so cool that they decided I started work in December even though my visa wasn't even approved until Dec 3 and I didn't arrive in Mexico until Dec 14, only to find out that everyone was already on Christmas Vacation.) We were a little nervous about how the brownies were going to come out since the box specifically told us to not use the only size of oven-safe dish we own for the high altitude version. Fortunately, the good people at Hershey's Brownie Mix are sissies and our brownies came out great!

That left me with one challenge left in the paycheck saga: how to actually get my bank to accept my cheque. From a cynical American perspective, this seems easy enough -- I mean, don't banks want our money??? It turns out, I was wrong. It took me three banks before they would accept my paychecks, and by bank 2 I was getting nervous that maybe my brownies were a little preemptive.

The first bank, which I visited yesterday, wouldn't accept my money because they won't deposit cheques from other banks after 3 pm. It was 3:05 pm. Argh! My boss was along for this since he said that particular bank, located inside of the university megastore (the school owns its own Walmart-equivalent), wasn't terribly safe. Disconcertingly, one of me boss' friends (an adult man) was apparently mugged in the parking lot in broad daylight. Despite the current travel warnings to Mexico, this sort of thing is still considered absurd. My boss did his best to convince the guy behind the counter to take my money, but was told that the computer is actually set to prevent him from doing this after 3.

The second bank branch, visited this morning, asked me to hang out while they figured out why their computers weren't working. Admittedly, that should have been my sign to flee. One woman there was kind enough to tell me that there was another branch only 3 stoplights up the road, but I have been in Mexico long enough to know that walking that apparently short distance would be a bad idea. First, Mexicans all seem to lie about distances when giving directions. "One block" in Mexican is the equivalent to "maybe a mile?" in English. In addition, she specifically said "stoplights" and not "blocks," and I can only imagine what that distance conversion is. Finally, she grimaced when she said how far it was, further convincing me that the bank branch in question might very well be located in Texas. I sat there for about an hour being told that it would only be a couple of seconds longer. When the computers were finally deemed to be functional again, the woman behind the counter told me that she couldn't deposit my cheques because I had only brought my bank card with me and she needed to know my account number which only exists on the paperwork that the bank gave me when I first opened the account and is now locked safely away with my other documents I'm hoping not to lose. Oddly, I have not memorized this number. Adding to the frustration, Bank Branch 1 had explicitly told me at 3:05 yesterday that all I needed was my bank card.

In the end, I wound up back at Branch 1. My boss figured that I'd be safe if I went before noon, since the local criminal element apparently likes to sleep in. I waited in line for close to forever (20-30 minutes, which they made more pleasant by making sure it was at least 90 degrees there), but they finally took my money. I get to keep my brownies after all.

My next step? Figure out what I have to do to set up direct deposit. There's no way I'm doing this every month.

Breaking news!!!!!

I have finally been paid!!!! And they even gave me my own ID card that lets me into the building! Living the high life now!

I'm off to pick up brownie mix and wine. Keating and I might even have real food for dinner, too. I'll think about it. Tomorrow, we're off to a nice restaurant to celebrate my paycheck and his final exams.

Cheers!

Theft

Yesterday, I almost stole a dog. I was thisclose. I mean, c'mon! It tried to follow me to work! Had it been following me home, I might be posting pictures of my new mutt....

On my walk to the bus stop yesterday morning I followed my normal route, cutting through a closed-street residential area. On this closed street, it isn't uncommon for people's dogs to be taking themselves for sunny little strolls. Petting one of these dogs would be like petting one of their owners while they were happily mopping their sidewalk (another favorite pastime); you just don't do it. I was surprised, then when a perky little Jack Russell Terrier came trotting right up to me. He was very friendly, but worried at first I might hit him and backed away timidly when I offered my hand. Once he realized he was safe, he more or less started head-butting my hand, trying to get to to scratch that magic place just behind his ears. He walked with me for the next couple of blocks, pausing every so many yards to see if I'd scratch his head again (I did). We continued like this al the way up to my bus stop, where he waited with me for a little while and then wandered off in search of other ear-scratchers. He had no tags or collar, but he looked too well fed to be homeless. Also, I can only imagine calling in to work to say that I won't make it that day because I've stolen a dog and want to make sure he doesn't eat my landlady's couch. (It's quite possibly the least comfortable couch in the world, but I still don't think she's appreciate it.) All the same, when I told Keating about it later, it was with the suggestion that we take a pork chop and wander the neighborhood. Keating sounded like he would have been all over it, except that we didn't have any chops in the house. He's been going into fuzzy-withdrawal even worse than I have, in part because I get to occasionally play with the department dachshund.

It made me really want to give my Asher a hug. He's living in Michigan, alternately tormenting and entertaining my parents. I miss my dog. (Don't worry, y'all. I kind of miss the rest of you, too! *grin*)

The Dance Recital

I have been remiss. In fact, I have been a Very Bad Wife. I forgot to bring my camera along for Keating's dance recital on Wednesday. I've been trying to stall about writing about it (I'm , like, really busy...yeah) until Keating can get a copy of the video from one of his classmates, but you'll just have to settle for a written description for now instead.

The dance recital included performances of traditional Mexican dances, the Cumbia (Colombian), some strange Brazilian dance, hip-hop, and a farcical skit that roughly 10% of the audience understood sufficiently to really enjoy (the rest of us were relieved that there was plenty of physical comedy that helped us to know when to laugh). I am suspicious that the choreographer for the traditional Mexican dances was a former member of Stomp -- the dancers, armed with heeled shoes that had had small nails pounded into the soles, managed to shake the small auditorium. In Keating's group, the girls took very seriously their direction to come dressed as sexy nurses, and wore the most amazing collection of white ultra-mini dresses that I think I have ever seen, paired with dizzyingly high, stripper-style stilettos. The men were in black button downs and jeans, with the last minute addition of red-markered gauze taped on their faces so that there might be some relation to the girls in the white minis and nurses caps. At the end of the song, the men formed a circle, picked the ladies up on their linked arms, and rotated in a circle. During the final rehearsal (roughly 30 second before the show and on the stage where we could watch), this last move was a real struggle. Half the nurses couldn't seem to settle themselves on the men's arms; one gave up entirely, and another was nearly launched off the stage, screaming all the way. Frankly, I'm a bit amazed that she didn't break an ankle when she landed in those shoes! For the actual performance, however, all went well and not one dancer was thrown into the audience. Keating was saved from his arm-twisting partner, who pulled out of the performance at the last minute and got to dance with one of the Russians instead. He did a wonderful job up there. His dance teacher has invited him to continue attending the salsa classes in the next 6 week term even though he won't be enrolled in the Spanish program at that time, and he has been pushing for us to go dancing this weekend.

Wednesday was also Keating's first day of teaching English. The program he teaches for is based around guided group conversations, and the first lesson was about appearances. In a crazy twist, the women in his class used the conversation to discuss their utter abhorrence of makeup. This is Mexico! The very same day, I actually watched a woman apply mascara for 8 stops on the metro (more than 20 minutes!), and she already had several layers of the stuff on before I boarded the train. (I must admit, after about 3 minutes I started watching in rapt fascination and timing her. Seriously -- how much could she put on??? Then again, her foundation was so heavy that it completely obscured her natural skin tone and made her look kind of creepy, like something out of a horror movie with flesh-eating diseases and stuff. I'm hoping that she was applying stage makeup for some other dance recital or something. She wasn't wearing stripper shoes, though.) Keating now teaches aver Wednesday and Friday morning and is looking to add more hours soon. So far, he really likes it. Then again, he doesn't wear any makeup.

In completely unrelated news, I finally have the dates for my first field work! *raucous cheering* I will be hiking (and possibly horseback riding to the less accessible parts) around the Tuxtla Volcanic Field in Veracruz March 2-7. Be jealous! Hopefully, the weather will be warm again by then -- it's been chilly enough this week that Keating decided to wear a suit today for the extra layers.

Valentine's Day

Happy belated Valentine's Day! Keating and I had big plans for this year: we were going to go horseback riding in on of the monarch butterfly sanctuaries with another couple. On Friday, though, Monica and I made the Team Executive decision that butterflies are not nearly so much fun during a torrential downpour like the one predicted for Sunday, and that we should wait a week. As it turned out, the rain never actually arrived; Sunday was beautiful, sunny, and in the 70's (take that Buffalo snow!). Keating and I were sitting in our pajamas that morning trying to think of a new plan, when suddenly he was hit by inspiration: Baskin Robbins! I am on a more or less continual search for BR, home of the bestest ice cream ever (Jamoca Almond Fudge!!!!), but it has more or less eluded me for a few years. The ones in my part of Michigan all went out of business years and years ago. There was one on Niagara Falls Blvd in Buffalo for a while, but then the Dunkin Donuts it shared the building with expanded like an evil blob monster and took over the space. I don't even like doughnuts! Or coffee! How could they do this to me???? Keating, however, had spied a BR right here in Mexico City last week on that same fateful walk in which his shoes were force-polished. Even better: it was across a plaza from a McDonalds. We celebrated Valentine's Day this year with BR ice cream, Mc Donald's fries, and a split street-food cheeseburger. It was AWESOME! Best Valentine's Day ever.

One Semester of Spanish Love Song

This video was shown to me by my officemate, a PhD student from Belgium. Keating and I were laughing so hard we nearly cried watching it, as well as its follow up. Keating was very proud of understanding all of the words. It will be very reminiscent for any of you who studied Spanish in high school. Long live Spanish 101!

Pesos, dance recitals, and shoe attacks

I fell a little guilt at times that I spent so much of the space here writing about Keating's adventures. Then I think about it for a minute and realize that since I really do love my husband, I'm not exactly using him: it's not like I brought him down here with me for the express purpose of humor. That, and his life down here is WAY more interesting than mine. (I spend to much time at work, I guess.)

That said, let me tell you about his day yesterday. It started off simply enough, with him waking me up before he left for the day to ask if he could raid some money from my purse. It was cute of him to ask, but he's very lucky that I woke up enough to actually hear the question and not just roll over mumbling "no, the green bunny is mine..." since he would have then been left with either a) feeling like he's stealing from me or b) having no way to pay for his bus fare. (Side note: I'm leaning towards "b" since he's still incredibly creeped out by going into a woman's purse. I'm not sure what he thinks I keep in there, but it must be BAD.) Money obtained, he bought himself a juice box on the walk to the bus so that he would have correct change.

Up until about 1 pm, Keating's day was pretty basic. The commute was uneventful, as were his Pronunciation and Spanish classes. He paid back Odin, the guy with the snacks kiosk at the Spanish school, for a bottle of water he had been given the day before. (Never having met Odin, I'm envisioning someone who looks like a tan, short version of the Norse god.) Then he went to Salsa class. It turns out that, at the august age of 33, Keating will be performing in his very first dance recital. As the salsa class was divided into two performing groups, Keating looked around nervously. He figured that if he was going to be in a dance performance, he wanted to make sure that he at least had a decent chance of being paired with a partner who had a clue. He watched with dismay as the random "1-2" count-off placed the best female dancers in the other group. This dismay was nothing, however, compared to what he felt when he was told that they would be dancing in costume. In the other group, guys would dress in jeans and a button-down while the girls would have to wear little nurse's outfits. (I'm not making this up, I swear!) In Keating's group, the girls would wear long dresses and the boys would wear slacks and shirts...and luchador masks. (There is a widely publicized sex show coming to town next month, with pictures everywhere of people in kinky costumes. Could this be related???) I'm unclear on how he accomplished it, but in his desperation Keating successfully managed to get into Team Nurse. Once there, he was paired off by height with one of the Russian girls, a good dancer. He breathed a sigh of relief. Moments later, however, Keating's hopes were dashed when the teacher switched the Russian girl with a new girl in the class who didn't know any of the steps. Worse, new girl holds Keating's hands in a death grip when they dance, nearly wrenching his arm out of the socket during turns. He has three days to teach her the choreographed steps.

While salsa class went later yesterday with preparations for the performance, Keating was elated to have an excuse to escape before class ended: he had a meeting in another part of town with his new employers. Sweating profusely from dancing in a hot room, Keating ran for the metro line (which was also stifling), trying to make up for the time he had lost by class running over. After reaching his stop, Keating decided that he could walk quickly instead of running the last 10 blocks and still make his appointment on time. He hit green light after green light, making good time. His luck eventually ran out, and he finally had to wait at a red light. While there, he felt a tap on his arm. Turning, he saw a Mexican man with his hand extended to shake hands.

Mexican (in English): "Hi! I'm Ricardo. I work this street."

Keating (removing earbuds from ears): "Uh, hi."

With that, Ricardo released Keating's hand and dove for his feet. Keating gasped as he realized that Ricardo had just smeared something all over his right shoe and was about to start polishing it.

Keating (trying to back up while still having a man attached to his shoe and trying to figure out how he's going to get the mound of goo off his shoe before his appointment): "No! Stop! I am in a hurry. I am late for a meeting. I do not have time for this."

Ricardo: "No problem! It will only take a few minutes!"

Keating: "No! I'm actually late. I don't have two minutes. I do not want you to shine my shoes. I do not have any money on me!"

Ricardo (diving for the left shoe and ignoring Keating's attempts to flee): *whistling* ("finishing" second shoe) "Ok, that will be 45 pesos."

Keating(looking vaguely frantic both over the time and the situation): "I told you that I don't have it! I have almost no money with me! I didn't ask you to shine my shoes, and I tried to stop you."

Ricardo: "How much do you have?? You look nice. I will give you a discount."

Keating (thrusting the 4.5 pesos in his pocket at Ricardo): "Here, just take it."

Ricardo took the money and wandered off, looking irritated at only getting 10% of his price, while Keating took off at a run to make up for lost time. It was only after his meeting that Keating remembered about the 4.5 pesos. It was his bus fare for the trip home, the remaining change that he had snagged out of my purse that morning.

Fortunately for Keating, he found a 50 peso bill (about $4 USD) in his wallet. He bought himself a candy from the corner store to make change for the bus and made his way home. At the end of the day, his tally wasn't so bad:

1) He was no longer in debt to Odin.

2) He had escaped having to dance in a luchador mask.

3) He was now armed with his teaching supplies, including an umbrella, two work shirts, and a collection of pens and lighters to pass out to his students.

4) He had managed to only lose 4.5 pesos on his semi-shoeshine-mugging.

5) He now was the proud owner of one pair of incredibly greasy looking black shoes.

The Kitchen

True story: when I was in the 8th grade, I had to ask my mom how to use a toaster so that I could complete a writing assignment. In my defense, I knew perfectly well how to use the toaster oven in our kitchen and had no idea that we even owned a regular toaster, tucked into some back corner of the pantry. Mitigating circumstances aside, I was not terribly familiar with the kitchen. In fact, I was pretty anti-cooking, which is hard to explain since my mom is a fabulous cook who never seemed to mind cooking family dinner each night. Anyway, I could barely boil water up until I moved out of the dorms and into a rented house after my sophomore year of college. I was suddenly faced with a dilemma: learn to cook or starve (and the follow up: learn to cook decently or suffer from indigestion or food poisoning). I learned to cook.

Since then, I have fallen in love with occasionally experimenting in the kitchen. (Regular meal cooking is ok, but not all that fascinating when I get home late and am too tired to think about it much.) Over the years, friends have been subjected to bananas foster (Sunday dinner crew at Tech), cornish hens stuffed with cherries and wild rice (Abby), stuffed porkchops or chicken breasts (too many of you to count, really), zucchini boats (Keating probably sees these in his sleep), and endless loaves of banana chocolate chip cherry bread (I'm looking at you Marty -- it's just not that same now that I never find old, black bananas in my office mailbox anymore. And no, Mom, I didn't forget the nuts. I intentionally leave them out.), etc. While I love cooking, I will never be at risk of receiving my own cooking show, and all of my meals come with the promise that if it came out plain bad I will be the first to call for pizza (Andy: do you still have nightmares about that lamb stew back in 2003? I do. Note to others: never cook up something that you find in your freezer when you move into a new place, even if it was left there by a kindly older couple.).

Moving to Mexico has provided me with exciting opportunities to try new ingredients and cooking styles. A couple of weeks ago, I made parmesan breaded chicken breasts stuffed with apple and goat cheese. Fabulous! A couple of nights ago I made pork chops with a lime sauce. Edible! For Christmas, I stuffed a turkey with tropical fruits (some of which don't even have names in English) because I couldn't find what I wanted for "real" stuffing. The turkey was awesome, the stuffing inedible. We have been through tacos, quesadillas, rice, and appalling quantities of refried beans.

While I'm enjoying the challenges here, every meal must still be approached as a contest of wills. Every day, I must challenge The Oven.

Mexicans apparently don't like cooking with ovens. Most food around here seems to be prepared in a skillet or something similar. It took me a couple of weeks to even find a mixing bowl for less than the cost of my firstborn child, and oven-safe bakeware appears to be a local joke. Nothing related to oven-use even came with our otherwise fully-furnished apartment.

I have learned why.

The Oven is...fussy. I don't believe the temperatures on the dial (why should I? The burners on the stove operate at "on" and "off" and don't even bother with gradational marks on the knobs). I knew I was in for a battle when Keating and I toured the apartment before we moved in and our landlady showed us the pile of matches she had provided. The Oven must be hand-lit. Instantly, my head was filled with visions of exploding my kitchen, or at least burning off my eyebrows. That Christmas turkey mentioned above? It was pretty much a miracle that it came out ok after I succeeded in launching a fireball 2 feet out of the front of The Oven while trying to preheat. Keating, who missed the fireworks display, had to calm me down and re-fire The Oven.

No meal in our apartment comes without the risk of becoming Dinner and a Show. I think I've mastered the art of lighting The Oven, but I still get a little nervous every time I have to do it. I would give up on The Oven, Mexican style, but for one thing: the grocery store sells brownie mix. Keating and I have committed to making brownies to celebrate my first paycheck down here (yes, that's right...6 weeks on the job and still no paycheck or ID card to allow me into the building). Wish me luck. Because when that paycheck comes in and I attempt those brownies, they'd better come out ok. That's one battle that if The Oven wins will really ruin my day. And I might just have to get even.

Bliss

Keating and I had a euphoric weekend. It wasn't the Super Bowl (we did manage to find a bar to watch it -- imagine if Denny's decided to open a bar in a Holiday Inn). It wasn't any fabulous excursion. We found...cheddar cheese!

I wish I were exaggerating. We spent the weekend totally blissed out over a block of cheddar cheese. Oh, the tangy, yellowy goodness! We've been working our way though the Mexican cheeses, but they are all pretty bland. Ok, they're mostly white and tasteless. You can't even get a pepperjack down here except as a special import item. We've been slowly doling out our special cheese treat, trying to make it last.

Next on our search: tart apples and spicy mustard.

How to get a job, Mexican style.

Before we moved down here, friends and family joked about how Keating would get a job in Mexico. The general consensus seemed to be that he should put on some old clothes and stand in front of a Mexican Home Depot, offering to do handyman jobs, or carry heavy stuff, for cash. (Yes, terribly un-PC. I know!)

About a week ago, Keating was playing chess with friends at the Spanish school when a woman walked up to him and whispered, "Do you want to teach English?" Keating figured this was an odd question, odder for how it was asked more than anything, but responded in the affirmative. The woman slipped him a paper with her email address and whispered something about not being allowed to recruit at the school (turns out she'd already been booted out once before), and then was gone. Keating came home that night bemused, but figured that he would contact the mystery email woman to find out more information. Long story short, Keating has a job! The mystery woman works for an English school that targets businesses, and they figured that the best place to quickly find native English speakers was at a place where people couldn't yet speak Spanish. Keating will be teaching on Monday evenings, starting February 15 (or March 1 since the business who has arranged for the course for its employees hasn't finalized all of the details yet).

While the Home Depot-style predictions didn't come true, I can't help but laugh over how sketchy the reality seems. Either way, huge congratulations to Keating!

Size Matters

Back in the States, I have a pretty average height. As a matter of fact, according to Wikipedia, I am exactly the average height for an American woman at 5' 4.5". In Mexico, however, i am some kind of giantess Amazon. While I'm not the tallest woman I've seen here, consider this: the average Mexica woman (again according to Wikipedia) stands 4' 11.5". Granted, that statistic is for Mexican women over the age of 50, but I'm still claiming it. I have stood in the metro next to adult women who only came up to my armpit. This can make for occasionally awkward situations, since I generally try to not shove my pits into anyone's face, even when clinging desperately to the don't-fall-over-and-crush-someone rail. As for the men? Well, I am apparently an average Mexican male.

I get a little self-conscious at times as I loom over my fellow commuters. This, however, is minor compared to Keating's general discomfort. He is over 6 feet tall and broad-shouldered. He looks like he could be called Gigantor. Poor Keating, though, is not limited to just feeling extraordinarily tall. Nope, for him it gets worse. Poor Keating is too tall to properly fit into the seats on public transportation. Have you ever been on a plane with someone who looks like they could be an NBA player? Have you seen that look of hopeless misery as they try to origami themselves into an airplane seat? Now make it a crowded bus. With chickens (not that I've actually seen any, but I like the image). And a blonde, blue-eyed man whose thighs are longer than the space allotted between rows and whose shoulders are wider than the molded seats. He looks like I should be carrying butter in my purse just in case I need to grease him up to pop him out of one of these miserably small seats. Whenever possible, Keating stands on public transportation.

Keating is too big for just about everything here in Mexico, except his pants. He has lost a fair amount of weight since we arrived, thanks to all of the walking and carrying huge water jugs up the four flights of stairs to our apartment. He's been wearing his shirts untucked to conceal that his pants actually hang from his belt like a curtain from a rod. The belts, thankfully, are in wonderful condition -- otherwise I'd live in fear of one snapping and Keating getting arrested for dropping his pants in public.

As soon as my first paycheck arrives, we're going to the store to buy new pants. I can't make the metro or bus seats any larger, but at least we can make sure that he's not sitting on them bare-assed.