November 2008

Where oh WHERE did I leave my “sleep til 10am” personna?  I am getting up earlier and earlier and it is driving me nutzo.  I was up BEFORE 4:45, (9yeah, in the AM - I know!  It is craziness!) and finally got up for good at 5am after tossing and turning and deciding I couldn’t get up until there was least a HINT that it was no longer the middle of the night.  Sun is still Not Yet Up and we just are not going to talk about that fact, thank-you-very-much.

Stuff to do
1) decide if we’re going to bring the phones or not. I think we brought them last time and never used them but I forgot to add money to them last night, even after I specifically REMEMBERED at the checkout and then forgot between the beginning of the checkout and the end. I fear for my brain.
2) hang towels on line to bleach bacteria out so they won’t rot while we’re gone.
3) nag Jamie to put washer together and empty cooler (essential to the enjuage cycle) and while I’m at it, nag him about the towels in the recamera
4) clean out trailer and palapa fridges (wait until family is more to the point that it is ok to wake them)
5) find all the G.D. food I bought for the G.D. flights that Sissy must have stashed somewhere.
6) find the GD socks I bought last night for the boys and myself on de plane.
7) backup my school files on my computer and pack the damn thing already
nag Jamie to put washer back together
9) pack up all toiletries
10) pack up arrachera in portion sizes in plastic wrap, sandwich between bollilos which are themselves wrapped in plastic so it looks like we bought them.
11) obsess over US customs
12) decide if we want to bring empty water bottles
13) email Deb
14) pack reference books cause I’m TOTALLY going to study while we’re gone (I think I just swallowed my tongue trying not to laugh)
15) order more Teaching Company videos from Link+ so they get working on it before the hauliday
16) check my Ebay watch list and check fot TTC DVDs
17) nag Jamie AfreakingGAIN to put the GD washer backtoGDether again and this time it’s going to WORK damnit!
18) measure recamera windows and Write It Down and Pack the thing I wrote it down on
19) make more cawfee and silently strangle Jamie for not grinding more of my Cubano roast promise Jamie my undying love for grinding cawfee this morning
20) find and pack Diva cup (where oh where is it???)
21) try and resolve T42 issue via email
22) pack FM3 and passports with eticket.
23) take a shower
24) ask Chadalie to put $ on our phones

I got an email from our realtor that the house in Merida is ready to close. WTF??? Why are WE the ONLY ones on Mexican time down here??? Not only that, but the government offices will close probably just days before we return and we’ll have to delay the closing until next year. Now we’re not chomping at the bit to close because we can’t move in anyway, but (and you knew this was coming) there will be extra fees if we close next year. Of COURSE! So I’m thinking of either asking someone to take Power of Attorney and close for us or I might just fly back and take care of it myself.

I bought 1.25 kilos of HC Monterrey arrachera to bring on da plane. If US customs gives me a hard time, we’ll sit down in security and eat the nirvana right there. I would rather die (me? melodramatic?) than give up my arrachera. I’m toying with the idea of bringing some to my Mom and Dad but that would mean *I* would have to not pig out on my share.  Tough call.  They might just have to come down here to get some.

We found a refrigerator on the road yesterday and since ours (which we stole from our neighbors) is really small (but marginally larger than the trailer fridge) and so quickly frosts that one of Jesse’s weekly jobs is to defrost it (and it could use a defrosting about every 4 days), I convinced Jamie to grab it off the road and drag it into our palapa while I headed off to take Pike and myself to dentist. I am really beginning to like our dentist. When we first started going I always thought he was gouging us (prices) because I was so used to the prices everywhere else in Mexico. But he is very gentle and kind and respectful of the kids and we go months without paying and then settle the bill. But his prices are really high to my mind. Pike and I had fillings yesterday and I ran out of money and told him I’d pay when we got back. Two appointments for Pike to medicate a tooth and fill it - $600. Pesos. Yeah, we’ve already established that I’m cheep.  Back to the fridge (did you enjoy your little ride to tangentown?), I talked to someone who may come by and see if he can save us the $4000 cost of a new fridge by fixing this one.  Fingers crossed.

T minus 4.5 hours. I think I need to get to work.

When I next update I’ll either be waiting for da plane in CUN, crying at customs in Miami because we’ve missed our connection because they’re going through our stuff with a fine-toothed comb or fat and gorged on turkey. I’m hoping it is the latter. We have our wonderful friends Deb, Jeff, Sara and Andrew meeting our flight again and we’re giddy with excitement to see them. I’ve not posted flight information before, but since we have people staying here at the palapa in our absence, there isn’t any danger in doing so. I sure hope.

We’re flying CUN to Miami on AA flight something and then Miami to SFO AA flight 1817 or 1816 or something I can’t rmember. Maybe I’ll update this later.

T minus 4 hours and we got SUN, baby!  SUN!

T minus 50 MINUTES AND WE’RE NOT STRESSED!!!!!

The last few days of frigidness and coldness and just downright MEAN coldy icy frigidness have had an interesting effect on the humidity scale.  When the humidity drops to desert percentages (oh, anything below 60%) for a long period of time (say, 3 days), my “vertigo” goes away.  It will be interesting to see if it comes back today now that the humidity is climbing again.  The humidity is interesting.  Yesterday it was probably 85F/27C but the humidity was so incredibly low (45% or something insane like that) that I wasn’t nearly even close to hot.  It was comfortable, and in the shade I needed a jacket.  In the sun and wind I needed a jacket.  I have suspected Meniere’s disease for a while, I have the constant tinuitis, but not the hearing loss.  It is also a diagnosis by default.  I don’t think there are actual tests to diagnose it.  I haven’t consulted the most famous of doctors yet, Dr. Google, but I will.  So, anyway, I’ve been mareo-free (it truly has never been classic vertigo, and the Spanish word fits it better - dysequilibrum) for about 3 days.

Yesterday I had an emergency dentist appointment - I had a filling come out - and the boys had wanted to do some present shopping.  Then Sissy had a funny-looking tooth (according to Jamie - I don’t “do” teeth) so we decided to bring her too.  Poor little Ellen wanted to stay home alone but we just couldn’t do that.  She finally decided at the last minute she wanted to come after all.  The dentist found Sissy’s tooth to be a baby tooth with absolutely no problems (as it had finally come all the way out - just a little sliver of it left - in his waiting room.  I’m getting a bridge; he’ll give me a discount and I can pay little by little.  But I’ll finally have a chomping molar!  I lost a tooth with each kid so I’ve been without molars for a while.  Pike has an appointment on Tuesday to finish his work and then we’ll be dentist-free for 3 weeks.  If our dentist ever builds a house, we’ll have paid for 1/2 of it. 

It was absolutely LOVELY having the whole family together and we all commented on it.  Generally, the boys are always back at the palapa and sometimes only Ellen comes with us and many times only Jamie goes into town, so it was like a treat to have everyone together for once.  Along the way we stopped to watch the motocross guys (there is a race today) working out.  Taxistas, tricicolistas, other locals and some people on foot all pulled over and watched these guys.  Their lot is on a large corner and there is nothing (yet) built around them.  The boys were incredibly jealous and are dying to try their hand at what most be the most expensive sport available here.

Every day I read the Writer’s Almanac to the boys, sometimes the poems are over their heads and sometimes they resonate and we all enjoy the little blips into history and culture.  So we’re meandering through today’s Writer’s Almanac when I was almost bowled over the fact that yesterday was the anniversary of JFK’s death.  I think I have a memory of the shooting - it isn’t an actual memory because I was so young, but I remember something very strong from that age and the time period fits.  My family was deeply influenced by the Kennedy culture and for me, Camelot has never had an English connotation.

From yesterday’s WA, “It was about 12:30 p.m. on this day in 1963 that President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. The Warren Commission published a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in shooting the president, a conclusion that less than half of all Americans believe. Don DeLillo wrote the novel Libra (1988) about the Kennedy assassination, and he wrote, “What has become unraveled since that afternoon in Dallas is … the sense of a coherent reality most of us shared. We seem from that moment to have entered a world of randomness and ambiguity.”

Ellen has been begging for earrings for what seems like a year.  I’m sure it has been much less time, and she has been dedicated and sure.  We’ve been talking and talking and promised her that she’d get them for her birthday.  Unfortunately that didn’t happen and yesterday we finally made good.

I’ve never come across those earring stores you find the malls of the US here but when Pike wanted his ear pierced I looked into the subject and found that you really want the piercings done where they specialize in piercings - a tatoo/piercing parlor.  Luckily, Playa has more than a couple parlors and it was easy to find a place for Pike.  This year I thought we might have more options, but it turns out we’re still left with these parlors.  Honestly, I just didn’t want to pay so much.  So when we had multiple errands involving multiple children we decided to make an afternoon of it and take everyone in and get everything done.  The boys got dropped off at the dentist, Jamie dropped Ellen and I at the piercing parlor and he and Sissy headed to WalMart.  Here in Mexico we patronize WalMart as I figure all the big box stores (Mega, Soriana, Chedraui, Gigante, etc.) are all the same in employee policy and crap they sell.

The piercing parlor didn’t have any earrings to fit little Ellen’s ears and after hearing that we’d be paying $200 an EAR (even after recognizing us from 3 years ago!) I seriously reconsidered my promise.  They mentioned a couple places we might find earrings so we headed out and walked 30th and Constituyentes looking for a joyeria.  After giving up and reminding Ellen we were looking for earrings for HER and not looking to buy gum (although she didn’t want to break her 20 peso bill, she still wanted to stop at each and every tienda looking for gum…) we stumbled back to WalMart, pretty much given up.  FYI Playa folks, Mega does not sell earrings of high quality.  Immediately after walking in, however, we hit the 10kt and 14kt earring stand and that was that.  After selecting, waiting for the sales girls to stop playing with a display and sell us the earrings, we headed back to the parlor.  First, however, I managed to acost a young woman with a baby girl (obviously pierced ears) and asked her where she got the earrings and where she got the piercing.  I had come up empty after asking my dentist (EARRINGS???  He shows me his ears - I don’t know ANYTHING about EARRINGS!!) and a couple other locals (who suggetsed piercing parlors).  She told me that everyone gets their babies ears pierced at the hospital!  Right after birth.  (mystery solved)

Luckily the parlor was still open and they were happy to see us.  It has been a particularly hard low season this year so I was somewhat mollified in paying out the $400 and he took long and good care of her.  She is over the MOON with excitement and LOVES her new ears.  I have to wonder though, where I got such a girly girl…

If you’ve been following along (there will be a test at the end of this post, so Pay Attention!) we’re planning a trip back to the US.  We have actually been planning a trip back to the US all summer.  We were first going to meet up with our folks in August, somewhere in Texas, but when we found out we’d only have 2 days together we nixed that plan.  Ever since we left our stick house for a life on the road (though, at the time, no-one knew it was going to be a life on the road) we have managed to summer in the US.  Last year we were working on construction of the palapa so we stayed here.  This year the diesel prices were insane in the US (or was that just propaganda?) and we thought it would be best to conserve resources and stay here.  But we really wanted to visit with Jody again and see our family again and, well, put the rubber side down and roam. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve written about 3-4 posts in my head but unfortunately you guys never read them because by the time I get to the computer, POOF, they’re gone.

I’ve been crazy bizzy with two Final exams and two “other” exams.  I’ve sent in one Final and one “other” and have finished the other and the other Final and am waiting teacher feedback before I proceed with sending those in.  I’ve now started on internship (Advanced Sessions) and I can’t believe how HARD it is.  Luckilly, looking at the forums I see that I’m not alone - everyone seems to go through this in these sessions.  I am, however, finding it hard to believe that I will be even minimally employable as it seems that I have learned NOTHING over these last 12 basic sessions.  Sigh.  So that’s been taking up a bit of my time. Read the rest of this entry »