Daily Life - un trago

Between grand adventures in gastronomy and recording, what the heck am I doing? Well, I'll tell you it's varied and (I fear) a bit less blog-worthy. So as to not leave you without blog posts for weeks, here's a little rundown.

First, as many of you know I'm on the downward slope of my grant period here in Oaxaca. I've got three more months until the Visa and the funds run dry. (Can you believe six months have already passed? Me neither.) So the inevitable "what next?" comes to mind. I'll get to that; I promise. But to start I will say that I've been busy with a combination of the what next and the finishing-up of what's already happening. That means a LOT of time sitting at my computer reading, typing, reading, editing sound, reading, sending emails and reading. It means less time out in the pueblos meeting people and recording stories. It means bloodshot eyes.

However, I do, at times, take breaks from sitting hunched over at my desk, or hunched over on my couch, or hunched over on my porch to do other things, to at least recuperate a bit of my vision. Here are those things, observations, distractions, in no particular order:

I hustled up to my friend Josh and Lynn's house in the San Felipe neighborhood to eat a bit of comida. Lynn was making a Chinese-influenced meal of noodle soup, vegetable tofu curry and mung bean dessert. It's so fun to have food from other countries! Don't get me wrong--Mexican food is a lovely taste explosion. But I miss the variety of NY, where every block is home to food prepared from a different corner of the world. After lunch Josh bailed to nurse his belly, while Lynn, Suzanne (another poet friend in town on sabbatical from U of Chicago with her husband), Suzanne's dog Tubo, and I headed for the hills and rivers of San Felipe's forest reserve for a hike. Here's a shot of the overheated pooch with his mama.


Another really fun hobby of mine is the constant, never-ending battle to kill all of the mutant bugs that have overwhelmed my house now that the warm weather is creeping into sweltering hot weather. At first I thought these guys were ants. But on closer inspection they turn out to have this funny butt with yellow stripes. So then I'm thinking, "Ah no, they're bees, or wasps!" But the weird thing is they don't behave like bees. They don't seem to long for honey and sun. They come out mostly at night, hang around light bulbs and live in my bathroom.


This is an unsuspecting horde before I kill them all with a broom. Feel bad, if you like. But these little jerks grow into huge things with wings in less than two days. They leave their tiny baby wings behind all over my toothpaste tube. So they should die, really. Turns out, they're termite ants, of some kind--if I'm translating correctly. They've been stashing away in the small wooden shelf in my bathroom that sits below the mirror. Leave it to these guys to find the one place where there's actually wood (my whole house is made of concrete). Someone gave me some spray--so they're now on their way out. I am now officially an asesina (assassin).

Sometimes I only have enough time in the week between errands like paying my light bill (I have to do this in person, which is common here!)--to notice something beautiful and totally unique to Oaxaca, like this lil' gal standing vigil in the hutch on the side of an ordinary building...


I was enchanted by that herby lemonade Holly and I tried at Itanoní; I attempted to make it for myself the other day. Here's what I learned.

1. It's hierba buena, not hierba santa in the drink. VERY distinct difference!
2. It's still delicious. Yum!
3. If you don't finish in the first day you make it, it fades to this nasty spoiled-vegetable green.
4. One woman, 5'2" in stature, cannot drink a whole pitcher of this lemonade in one sitting. It's not possible.

Other days I have a bit of time to marvel at the luminescence of the peaches, and the bright red vines of swiss chard I just bought from a lady at the market. Or I reflect on how the more Spanish I learn, the worse my spelling in English gets. Truly. I look over emails I've sent and find that I'm frequently misplacing here for hear, or there for their, or constructing sentences in an unusual order. If you've noticed it in this blog, or in emails I've sent your way, please forgive me. Please forgive me and my English degree. Uh oh. I'm considering the first step towards true fluency in Spanish. Guess I'll have to return to the States, though, eventually, to recuperate my mother tongue!

This past Sunday I attended the 50th birthday party of a friend named Jorge. Jorge is the husband of Ísabel, the director from my K College study abroad program here in Oaxaca 9 years ago. They are both very sweet and very busy people. I can drop by at any point in the day to their shop in town center and they kindly usher me through the back to have a glass of aloe juice in the courtyard of their home. Here's a look a the delicious and healthy starting course (Jorge's a naturalist doctor; so no surprise that the meal is good for you as well as pretty!)...


I hitched a ride to the event with Azucena and Rafael. We'd all forgotten about the time change and arrive an hour late (along with half of the guests at the party). Mexico just changed her clocks this past week. Why do they do it out-of-sink with the U.S.? Some kind of tiny rebellion to the country up north that dominates and overshadows them? I don't know. They also just started changing their clocks at all. There's so much sun here all year long, they don't really need to do it in order to conserve energy in the winter months. But I think after years, they have finally capitulated to American pressure.

Jorge was surrounded by many friends and family. He and Ísabel have three kids, each with their own gaggle. Food was served. Music played in the background. People made speeches, one complete with a video montage strangely taken from the late Heath Ledger's "hit," A Knight's Tale. But the part that got me thinking I'm a cynical asshole is when Ísabel made a toast telling us all at the party that we were their closest friends, with whom they wanted to share this special day. And here we are... All 150 of their VERY close friends. After that, I couldn't take any of the kind toasts seriously. I mean, I don't feel very close to you in the company of your 149 other best best buddies.

On the way home from the event we passed this amazing feat of gardening. I made Rafael reverse up the street so I could jump out to snap this. This tree...or trees, is out of some Dr. Seus book, don't you think?!

I will leave you all with a montage of my favorite signage here in the city...


This one says: Don't put your disembodied foot on our plants!


This one seems to say: Don't skateboard on someone's back, especially if they are roller blading. That's rude.



And this one seems self-explanatory--perhaps TOO self-explanatory.


Alright, I leave you for the night. More later on my return from the Mixteca.