Being Mexican

This morning, I became (at least temporarily) Mexican. While I was waiting for my pesero to work, a man actually stopped his car and asked me for directions to the Copilco metro station!!!!! (When I told them this, my work colleagues nearly spit their lunches out with laughter. I had to reassure them that I was the only one around for the man to have asked.) Joyfully and accurately, I gave the man directions to his intended destination. I was seriously proud of myself for now only knowing where it was that he wanted to go, but also for being able to concisely answer his question. Then, about 3 minutes after I boarded my bus, I realized that I had actually sent him to the M.A. Quevedo station -- same line, next stop. Without intending it, I had done something so quintessentially Mexican as to justify me declaring myself Mexicana for the day: I had helpfully given detailed, but woefully wrong, directions to someone who was lost. Fortunately, he was a Mexican himself and was likely using my boss' approach to asking directions in this country: ask 3 people, then average their response. For my part, I'm not sure when I've been prouder of such an idiot moment.

I'm back!

It's official: I can truly call myself a blogger. How do I know that I have officially joined the dubious ranks? Complaints! See the following email, copied in its entirety, from my brother:

Hey, you need to keep up with your blog better. Some of us want to hear about what is going on down there in little people land.

That said, let me quickly review what was going on during my absence. (You know, happening to me. Not like a recap of real news or anything!)

Right after my last posts, Keating and I ran away to Cancun for a belated Holy Week holiday with my parents and their friends Darrel and Jackie. Despite my fears that Keating would be "accidentally" fed to sharks by Dad and Darrel while the boys were scuba diving (boys!), he came home each time with happy tails of undersea life. That's not to say that there wasn't any good natured hazing: turns out that Keating is now affectionately known in some circles as "Chumly" since he vomited just about every time he set foot on the scuba boat. Since I really dislike fish, I enjoyed lots of time poolside with the girls. On the day that we all went to Xel-ha (an incredible natural aquarium. If you get the chance, visit it!), Keating and I worked out a brilliant strategy by which I lounged on top of an inner tube and held on to the (unfastened) between-leg strap from Keating's required lifejacket as he snorkeled -- it was like getting my very own custom lazy-river tour! Keating would occasionally point out interesting fish or rays, while I would point out the cool birds, lizards, etc, to him... and all without me having to actually get too close to the icky fishies. The six of us also enjoyed a trip to see the pyramids and Chichen Itza. In all, we had a wonderful trip. Unfortunately, Keating and I are both camera-impaired and the only photo from the entire trip the features people has us all so small that we're not really recognizable. At least the pyramid looks good! (We're the couple on the right, Mom and Dad are in the middle, and Darrel and Jackie are on the left.)

After Cancun, Keating and I had a little under a week to prepare for our next excitement: Keating's parents came to visit us for a long weekend. They were our first official house guests (Sorry Mom and Dad, but you stayed in a hotel!). My FIL's knee was acting up, so we opted to not do a repeat performance of the borderline elder abuse we committed against my parents by dragging them everywhere on crowded public transportation and taking them on the occasional mini death march dodging traffic frogger-style. Instead, we enjoyed a relaxing weekend in which we took a boat tour of the famous gardens of Xochimilco and took in a performance of Carmina Burana. Unfortunately, I had to disappear on occasion for work and even left town the day before my in-laws; I was scheduled to return to the field. (Note: if you are reading my mind properly, the words "I was scheduled to return to the field" should have been read melodramatically, with building dread, and underscored by an ominous soundtrack. If you didn't get that the first time, please try again.)

My previous field trip was not successful. At all. So I had alternately astronomical and mediocre expectation for this field work. Mostly, I just desperately wanted to get data points this time and not be crippled by a horse. Fortunately, both of these goals were met. Since actual research data is fairly boring, and outside the theme of this blog, let me just share with you some of the highlights from the trip:

1. The field vehicle we ended up with this time did not have AC or a radio. It turns out that that wasn't too bad, despite it being 95 F and 98% humidity. It meant that we could all roll down the windows and plug into our respective ipods for the long car rides, thus saving me from Barry Manilow.
2. Technologically speaking, I have fallen so very, very far. During my PhD, I was writing programs for Beowulf clusters (supercomputers). For this project, I was rowing to the center of ponds in an inflatable raft (labelled a children's toy, for use only in pools and under adult supervision) and dropping a rock tied to a rope overboard to measure water depth (the sonar depth-finder was broken).
3. I got to see a gigantic iguana chillin' in the wild under a mango tree.
4. I got a tadpole stuck between the two smallest toes on my left foot. Think about my love for fish, and then imagine the screaming and foot-shaking that ensued. Honestly, I still shudder thinking about it. Not cool.
5. My boss would argue that this one is worse that the tadpole, but I'm unconvinced. We had just walked down a steep trail to get to another of the ponds and had shouted out to the man net fishing from a "skiff" (really just a few logs tied together Robinson Crusoe-style) if it would be okay if we dragged our inflatable down the hill and took some measurements in the pond. He replied that we were welcome to it and would not disturb us at all. Almost as an afterthought, he added that we should watch out for the crocodiles. At those words, we notice a 4 foot croc slither off the bank 25 feet to our right and skulk away through the murky water. The man on the raft assured us that that one was just a baby and that many of the crocs in that particular pond were closer to 9 feet long. Shuddering, my boss paid the man on the raft to collect our measurements for us.
6. Ticks and other biting bugs. Apparently, this is the season. On the final day in the field, I removed 9-10 ticks from my clothes and 3 from where they were busy biting me. On the plus side, I have been assured that the ticks in that area are merely gross and not dangerous like our wonderful lyme disease carriers in the US. On the minus side, I came back from the field looking suspiciously like I had chicken pox. Fortunately, Keating believed me that they were bug bites and still gave me a welcome home kiss.
7. Ugh!!!! Seriously! A F-ing tadpole between my toes!!!!!!!!
8. We also managed to get the truck stuck, bottomed out on a broken concrete pipe sticking up through a dirt road. I hereby curse you, Nissan, for building a pickup truck with the power of a VW Beetle (original style) and the clearance of a Chrylser PT Cruiser. What the hell were you thinking???!?
9. Accommodations in San Martín Tuxtla were lovely, as before. Unfortunately, they didn't have any availability for some of our nights. Do not stay in Lerdo de Tejada. The hotel was... yeah. There were dead bugs already squashed into the shower walls, greasy head prints on the mirrored headboards, and the bathroom windows all opened into the "lobby."
10. Did I remember to mention that I actually got some data points???? And I wasn't even crippled by a horse! Nor did I vomit even once! Therefore, despite tadpoles, crocodiles, ticks, and car trouble, this field trip was definitely an improvement over the previous one!

Now I'm back in Mexico City and back at my office desk. Keating and I celebrated Cinco de Mayo yesterday with a splash of tequila in our iced tea (aside from school children and union employees, it isn't a celebrated holiday here. They kind of equate it with Columbus Day.).

(I'll try to add more photos later. I forgot to bring my camera in so that I could download my photos.)

Housepets

I'm totally over-posting today. I just couldn't leave for a week without mentioning our new pet. We found him (her?) while packing. Inside the house. Already comfortably moved in.

Fortunately, our new pet is not of the "large hairy spider" or "sneaky rodent" variety. Elmer is a monstrously large snail. (He's kind of sticky, so I'm naming him after the glue. I'm pretty terrible about naming things in general. You must all hope that Keating gets to name our future children so that they don't end up with idiotic descriptive names like "Female" (pronounced fee-mah-lay, of course. It's Italian.) or "Lumpy Loudmouth.") Elmer apparently climbed in through our window from our neighbor's garden and was comfortably chilling in the spare room. We have moved him to the garden, since chucking him out the window back into the neighbor's garden seems cruel. We'll have to wait and see if he's still with us when we get back from Cancun.

Losing weight

In honor of leaving on vacation tomorrow, I decided it was time to lose some weight. After getting home from work and kissing dear Keating, I marched myself down to the salon on the corner and got my first haircut in over 7 months. The end result: the best $2.80 haircut EVER! (And no, there was no sale. That was regular price.)

Vacation!

Mexico City pretty much closes down for Holy Week as people flee the city for the beaches/mountains/non-urban anything. Keating and decided, however, to bank that time off and use it this coming week when my parents will be in Cancun. Like the completely grateful moochers that we are, we will be happily crashing in my parents' suite with them for a week of sunshine and beaches. (And we've begged them to bring us more Swiss Miss. Fortunately, they still love us!)

Have a wonderful week and enjoy a couple of photos my mom sent me from their visit last month:

Us with our new friend the Aztec death god. He is pretty seriously creepy looking and could use a sandwich or something. Just look at those ribs! This creepy fellow lives at the National Anthropology Museum.

Built in the 16th century, thus church in Coyoacan's main plaza features incredible art. The plaza itself turns into a sort of gathering place and street fair every weekend.

And finally, a totally gratuitous shot of my baby (Asher). He has been living with my parents, and I miss him terribly. We would bring him down here, but something in his previous life as a stray has left him absolutely terrified of being crated, making it very difficult to safely move him here.

Grillin' in the garden OR More trouble with fire

Last night, I asked Keating to grill up some spicy sausages for dinner while I made up some spaghetti. Thanks to genetics, Keating is blessed with awesome grilling skills -- I'm pretty sure that a little bit of charcoal and lighter fluid runs through the veins in his family.

Our new apartment came with a small grill, so Keating happily set up shop in the garden while I went to work cutting tomatoes for the sauce. A few minutes later, I hear muffled obscenities floating in from the garden. Keating dashed into the kitchen, looked around quickly with a flustered look on his face, and ran back out. I don't enjoy cutting vegetables nearly enough to not wander over to see what all the fuss was about. As I nonchalantly rounded the corner, prepared to ask if I could help him with anything, I glanced out the garden door. And froze. The garden was quite clearly on fire, with bright little flames jumping up from the grass. I quickly grabbed a pot of water, but Keating had used his previously unknown (by me) locker-room-style towel whipping to put out the blaze before I could get back. (I lamely pored the water where the fire had been.)

It turns out that Keating had been having trouble getting the charcoal to light. This may seem odd, even disgraceful, for a member of his family, but he had a pretty decent excuse: the charcoal was Mexican-style, or untreated. When he tried to put some more lighter gel on the charcoal (couldn't find lighter fluid at the store and didn't want to siphon gas out of a neighbor's car), the gel lit. The problem was that it wasn't just the gel on the charcoal that went up in flames, but also the gel on/in the container. Keating's attempt to put out the gel fire only ended up spraying flaming gel across the garden and igniting a seat cushion and a large patch of grass.

Needless to say, the sausages were cooked on the stove and we are working on figuring out where to get the vinyl seat cushion reupholstered. On the plus side, dinner came out well and we were able to have a long laugh over it all... after a bottle of wine, anyway!

Ovens are still evil.

I whined several weeks ago about doing battle with my oven in an attempt to bake celebratory brownies. Little did I know the true terror of a Mexican oven! I made brownies again, this time to celebrate our move to the new apartment. Thanks to the resulting fireball, I singed off some arm hair and some hair from the left side of my head (you know those frizzies that never go away? Gone.), and my eyelashes on the left side are now half the length of those on the right. Part of what really sucks about singeing your eyelashes is that the burnt ends curl up and work like little velcro bits until they give up and break off, so I had about 24 hours of my upper and lower eyelashes sticking closed when I tried to open my eye.

Keating kindly pointed out that the brownies still came out great and I didn't burn any skin, so all is apparently still well with the world. I think it will be his turn to light the f-ing oven next time.