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.