Hell’s Half Acre

We’ve been supremely busy doing nothing. I have been working, Jamie does laundry and cooks, the kids play and mess the place up and steadfastly refuse to do anything we want. On Saturday I headed into town to get blood work done and since it was sunny (again!) decided to try to take some pictures. I headed to my favorite buildings and plazas and found the reason that we’ve seen so many plazas with bleachers and stages setup. There is an International Folkloric Festival in town and when I strolled past the Plaza de Armas I found very very many groups had gathered and were performing impromptu dances and music. It was so lovely to sit and watch and enjoy without being harrassed about how BORING it was and could we LEAVE yet and WHEN could we leave yet and WHY were we here and could we LEAVE and that someone was thirsty or had to pee. So I enjoyed, though guiltily, as I knew Jamie had the kids at the trailer. But I also knew they were using the computer and relatively zoned out. So I enjoyed a bit more and wished I could come and go as I pleased just to enjoy.

The next day I was sucessful in dragging all their sorry asses to town to find out about the festival and see if we’d have another appearance of folklorists. Unfortunately, the performances were to be much later that night but we did happen upon a clown group performing at one of the tiny plazas. The kids weren’t able to follow the whole thing but they did find the clowns pretty funny, especially when Pike and Jesse were called up on stage. Pike left early, frustrated by his lack of Spanish, but Jesse was in LOVE with the limelight. He bowed to all four corners at each applause (bringing more), he played along with the entire skit (with help from Pike who would run up and relay my translation when things got too difficult) and even kissed a boy! I’m almost certain the boy (and many members of the audience) did not believe that Jesse is a boy. He got a clown nose, flashlight thingy and balloon penguin for his efforts. He was so “high” after the performance and it was quite obvious that he fell head over heels for the limelight.

Yesterday, I dragged the entire family into town (AGAIN!) and we watched a couple performances of the festival. The Michoacan contingent performed beautiful dances and ended with 2 or 3 hilarious “danza de los viejos” old men dances. The kids LOVED the dances and were really glad they came. Unfortunately Jesse got a bad headache as we were waiting for the main performance of the night, but I was able to go “backstage” and take many photos of the beautiful dancers and their costumes. After looking at the photos and trying to “fix” them due to the limitations of my point and shoot camera, I’m SO jonsing for a DSLR. I’ve been looking at the Nikon D50 and Canon Rebel and Pentax *st…Way back when I had a Pentax SLR and loved it. Going digital would be even better. But the prices… I just don’t think I can find it in the budget.

I got my blood tests back and my white cell count is coming back, so apparently the first test wasn’t a fluke. Guess I was really sick. I’m feeling much much better these days and would say I’m almost back to snuff.

Oh, I’ve uploaded a video from the festival at YouTube, I’ll see if I can’t post it here (you’ll need flash or quicktime or somesuchcrap). Ok, you’ll have to click this link to see it. I can’t get it to embed.

For those following along; our computer is back in Guadalajara. On Friday I noticed that UPS’s website indicated the address was wrong. I called them and corrected it (IBM had left off vital information) and they said they’d relay the information to wherever it was (San Luis Potosi?) and to call back Monday morning for a status. Monday morning found that they needed more time to find the package and requested I call back that evening. Apparently the package had been outsourced to a private courier as Zacatecas is considered “remote” to UPS. When I called this morning I was told that the package had been returned to IBM in Guadalajara because the private courier didn’t get the correct address in time. After talking to (and admonishing) IBM (who screwed up the addy in the first place) I was told the computer would be sent overnight from Guad and would be here by 10am TOMORROW! So, I’m crossing my fingers and toes. We need to get out of the country soon as all our permits are expiring, but I’d honestly suffer any delay if it meant I could attend more of the folkloric festival.