I love this picture! I really, really love it!

Today was another vet clinic, this time in Cheymuyil, so last night Mimi and Paula's daughter Sandy were over there setting up.

Paula and I decided to go to the Buena Vida and sit out by the water where it was cool and have a few drinks.

Heh!

I really don't do this that often but I had way more than a few and we had a lot of fun. Luckily, I'm a happy drunk and according to Mimi I have nothing to be embarrassed about today. That's good because my memory is a little fuzzy on the later part of the evening. I definitely don't remember singing. It didn't help that I can't eat much and while I do remember having the soup that's about all I ate.

Mimi said there were 8 margaritas on the bill she paid at the end of the evening. I was also talking a lot about my chanclas for some reason. I recently bought some (flip flops in English) so I could get my toes used to the divided thing again and I wore them last night. I guess I was very proud of them, I don't know. Maybe it was just the sound of the word, I do like saying chanclas, it has a ring to it.

I woke up this morning at 8am when Mimi got up to go to the clinic but I did not feel good. I went back to sleep for a couple hours, laid around a couple more, turned the ac back on in the bedroom and took a nap. Oh, first I took all my vitamins and had a smoothie. I guess it worked as I feel fine now.

I'm posting a bunch of pet pictures. I've been ignoring my dogs of cuteness since that baby kitten ate up all the cute quotient.

This last one has the whole damn family on the bed that has become the dog's room. The AC is broken in there, we have to go to Cancun and get a motherboard for it so now, it's the dog's room. I just know that Tita is going to be one of those cats that thinks they are really a dog.

I have links and pictures! First off, the store I was in is called Amati and they have branches in Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Puebla (Fned!) and Italy, according to the website. It's a cool web site but may take a while if you have a slow connection, it's got a lot of Flash and fades and music and all that.

I found the stuff we bought there. First off the turning chairs/lounges that we both fell in love with.

I really love them in the red, I wish that one hadn't been sold. I could order it how I want but they were having a Sale! and I got an extra 10% off on in stock merchandise but not if I ordered.

The covers all come off though, and I'm already considering having other covers made in either sunbrella or leather. We'll see how I like the black and white tweed look. I wish it showed more of how they spin to face different directions.

Here's the ottoman except that the cow hide pillow is black and white on ours. It may not stay, we'll see.





The couch. Ours is in a warm dark brown leather.

I'm so relieved, I still like all of it. That's good on the morning after!

I'm still chewing like a rabbit, only using the teeth in the front of your mouth to chew really restricts what you can eat. I'm a little sick of it. I wish I could say it is a diet and I'm losing weight, I don't think so though as most of my food consists of flan and pudding and yogurt and fruit smoothies.

Last night was my first time out of the house, we went to Tulum with some friends for dinner and I had some enchiladas. Even something soft it takes forever to nibble it down to swallowing size.

Today, I went to see Dr Ruben again. He says there is still some inflammation and so no temporary teeth yet. He's leaving for Alaska on Monday, he's a diver and he's going to go up and actually dive in that frigid water. Yikes! He's got friends up there who are getting him all the special gear, dry suits and all, but still. It will be beautiful and he's also going up by Nome or somewhere way up there. So, I need to see Dra Alicia next week to see if the inflammation is gone or not. Afterwards, we had a couple hours to kill before we were meeting friends and I was kind of depressed by my rabbit-ness so ... we went shopping!! Retail therapy! My favorite cure all.

I've been bemoaning the fact that we will have this huge house and absolutely zero furniture. Add the fact that there are all these new, cool furniture stores popping up in Playa that are full of Euro imports and Italian designed stuff. Well, I spent a little money.

We really loved this chair/couch/chaise thing. It's hard to explain but it is on a stainless base and there are 2 separate chairs that swivel in complete circles, that have futon type tops that unfold into a chaise or fold up into a chair or fold flat to a daybed. All of this with the 2 facing in any direction, including that opposite facing thing of the lover's chairs in most of the plazas of Mexico. They had it in red, which I loved, but it was sold and in a black and white nubby material which will hide dog hair well so that's what we got.

Then we spotted this leather couch and chaise, pretty large with wide cushions and really soft leather. We laid around on that for awhile, discovered they had it in a deep brown and bought it.

I lust for ottomans and huge flat things to put my feet or my laptop or my plate on and they just happened to have this black woven strap leather daybed. It's very linear, stainless legs, quite flat and severe and has one roll pillow in cow hide that can be removed or not. I decided it was a perfect table/ottoman and we bought that too.

All of this stuff is from Italy, fairly modern and severe and Euro. I think it will be a good contrast to the old house, I'm not positive where it will all go yet but I have no doubt there will be a place for it. Right now, we are thinking that all of it could be in the living room. I really, really liked these square, boxy leather chairs in red or black that they had and I think they would be perfect in there as well. I didn't get them though. I did stop. The really good news is that they will store it for us for up to 4 months. The other good news is that I couldn't have bought just the couch in LA for what I paid for all of it. Plus, I feel a whole lot better, we may not have a bed or a table but we have couches and a place to put our feet up!

In memory of one of my hero's, George Carlin.

I get a lot of spam, I peruse the list before deleting to make sure that nothing I want has ended up in there. My favorite subject line is "Update your Penis"!

Granted my knowledge of them is limited to the kind you buy at Good Vibrations. They come in a couple of colors and a few sizes from large to humongous to coffee table art. But, it is my understanding that the general design has not changed in a very long time. I can't imagine a lot of new features or bug fixes that would be important to the general public. I mean, there are specialized markets to be sure. I like the drip free, disease free, ever ready versions that I had. I used to keep them under the bed until my cocker spaniel found them one day at a bad time. When we sold everything to move to Mexico I realized that I am not the kind of girl that enjoys shocking people in the customs line or the military kids at the inspection stops so I sold my vintage Jeff Stryker and a few others and got out of dick ownership. Still, I wonder about these updates.

My second topic is sort of related. It doesn't take long in this world to realize that men are always fondling and checking and scratching their junk. It's a source of great humor among some of us, that irresistible urge to make sure it is still there that seems to come over any man who is nervous or just bored.

Can you imagine if women routinely stuck their hands down their pants and felt around a bit or just scratched at it good and long while waiting for the bus? I used to have a stripper friend who was always massaging her tits, the plastic surgeon told her to do it so she had an excuse. Still, it caused a least 2 car accidents that I know of and a lot of walking into walls when she did it on the street.

The other day my neighbor points out to us that Mexican men scratch their junk differently than US men. She says they kind of pinch it, it is her theory that they all have crabs. I think that's mean and I thought it was probably not true. Well, fuck me running, ever since she said that I cannot stop noticing this weird little pinch and shake move that Mexican men do. It's driving me crazy because really, I'm not so happy about noticing this behavior whenever it happens and now I can't seem to ignore it. There are a gazillion Mexican men in the city of Mérida alone that are standing on a street somewhere pinching their stuff and kind of pulling it back and forth. I really didn't need to know this and no, I don't agree that they all have crabs but I've just never seen this in one of those cultural differences books either.

Mimi took all 3 of these pictures, the bird, the babe and the sleeping pussy. One was an Osprey hanging out on the roof next door, another was hanging out on the beach below and is a companion so to speak to Wayne's shower pic. The last one shows one of 2 places I've been in what seems like weeks, the other one being in the bed under the down comforter with the AC on 18.

I have to admit, that picture of me with Tita on my head was taken a week or so ago, my face does not look like that. Think huge chipmunk cheeks and hanging jowls and tiny squeezed up mouth from the ginormous cheeks... it's gross. One side is getting smaller, oddly enough it is the side with 2 implants. The other side, the one that caused me such horrible pain and suffering, is really huge still.

I do love my dentist though, poor Dr Ruben, he felt so bad that he didn't push me harder to take the other shot and that I suffered like that. He came over to our house tonight to check on me. He's in Akumal for his daughter's birthday, stuck in a house with 15 teenage girls. So, maybe it wasn't such a hardship to come here :) Really though, he had them all sorted out for the evening and was at the local bar with his wife but called me and walked over to see how I was. Knowing most Mexican fathers, he probably had 3 guards on the door to feel safe leaving.

He says it looks OK. I have an appointment with him on Monday and he might have to put some more stitches in the 'good' side. They've fallen out and he wants it closed up for at least 4 months to heal. He said the 'bad' side looked a little red but that he thought it would be fine. Reassuring always, that's the only cultural difficulty I have down here. It's tough to get the bad news laid out for you so I never quite believe the good news.

I've been laying around for 2 days, sleeping 12 hours at a time, reading weird stuff on the internet and watching Manuela and Joaquin work. Joaquin has been refinishing wood for us, he sanded and varnished the front door and the wooden ledge. While we were in Merida, Manuela had him sand and varnish the huge coffee table in the living room. It looks great now.

What has happened with the wood furniture is that several hurricanes have dumped tons of water through the front rooms and the bottoms of all the wood has bleached out from water and salt. Even without hurricanes, wood has to be refurbished fairly frequently here. So, having found Joaquin who is a fantastic worker, we're getting a lot of it done.

Here's a before picture of the table and one of the chairs. You can see the bleached out foot of the chair and the dried out look of all the wood.

Here are 2 of the chairs afterwards. Joaquin sands them and then Manuela oils them with the ever present 'Aceite Rojo' or Red Oil. One of the first things she said when she returned was that we needed a lot more Aceite Rojo, I think we need to buy it by the case.

Mimi didn't want them varnished and they do look a lot better natural. I think I'm going to get some wax and see if I can convince Manuela to try that along with the Aceite Rojo. Change is not easy though, so it might not work. I'm happy either way, they look a lot better and the wood looks healthier and not all dried out.

I tried to find out from Joaquin what kind of wood they are. They are very heavy, they aren't pine but I don't think they are oak. We got them some 12+ years ago when we bought the condo, the previous owner left them. She may have brought them down with her from somewhere in the north but I doubt it. Joaquin said only that he thought the wood was from Chiapas, it was not a local wood. Chiapas has high mountain forests with lots of evergreens and definitely different woods than here in the tropics. We've had no termite problems with them and they are not light so they must be some kind of hardwood.

I think I'll show you all some of the wood here in the condo, this is all after Joaquin, Manuela and the Aceite Rojo.

Here's the coffee table, the legs used to be bleached white for the first few inches off the floor. Please ignore the sleeping dog, the clutter and all, I didn't clean up for you, consider yourselves family.



This is the inside of the front door. I would have gone out and taken a picture of the outside but the mosquitoes are all hiding out there for one thing and for another these silly people here put red lights on the landing - there are no turtles here on the inside of the building folks! So, you get the inside view. Joaquin did a great job on it, it shines, it is smooth, the white bottom is gone.



These are one of the bedroom closets - Mimi is asleep in the other one but they are about the same. This is a local hardwood, I love the grain and all our closets and cabinets and interior doors are made from it. I've had too many pain pills to remember the name now, it's Mayan... Katalosh? maybe... if Kathe reads this she will know.



See how everything gleams? That Manuela is a gem. Today, Mimi was going to make me some grits and scrambled eggs. I can't chew but I was craving something solid. Manuela saw her making the eggs and got really adamant that I could NOT have any eggs. She said eggs or beans or rice would cause infection and bad things in my mouth. She was really serious and she stood there kind of watching Mimi like she thought if she turned her back Mimi would give me the eggs. So, I had grits and Mimi had an egg sandwich and Manuela made sure she ate it all and didn't give me any. I wouldn't have eaten the eggs anyway, Manuela just knows things.

Yesterday afternoon, I was driving us back to Akumal in the Jeep. We take the toll road as far as Valladolid and then cut over to the coast at Tulum. Just outside of Merida, we drove into a wall of black. It was fearsome. Rain came down in buckets, visibility was only a couple of feet, the road was instantly a hydroplane. Even though it is a good road along there and it is sloped for runoff, it was coming down so hard that there wasn't time for it to run off and there was a solid inch of water on the road. I stayed in the middle and was thankful I was on a divided road. Suddenly a lightning bolt struck just ahead of us and I swear the Jeep shuddered from the force of the instant thunder.

Holy shit! It was scary. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked instantly, we were right under a huge storm. Mimi is my lightning expert as she loves it (but respects it) and is from Colorado. I'm a wimp from California where we only get occasional flash lightning and not these terrifying bolts. She just kept saying for me not to stop - like I was even considering stopping in the middle of that. We came to an overpass and I asked if we should sit under it and she said no, keep going. Then I realize she is hunched over to stay below the steel roll bar and she is keeping all arms and legs away from the door. Ack! She also said to stay in the middle of the road and watch the trees for a lightning hit that could send one over us! I digested all that between jumping at every strike and then said a little shakily, "I don't want to get hit by lightning" She agreed and said the good news was that the trees were taller than we were and the bad news was that they were right at the edge of the road and we have a soft top.

It was a very long 45 minutes but then we emerged from the dark and there were blue skies and a gorgeous sunset. Oh, and we didn't get hit by lightning and no trees fell on us. Phew! We got back to Akumal and had a pre-birthday drink for Mimi at the Buena Vida. Sometime in the middle of the night we woke up to such loud thunder that I swear the walls shook. Poor Hombre was freaking out so we brought him into the bed and he crawled under the covers and stayed there until he got too hot and the storm passed on. It is a LOT nicer to listen to thunder and see lightning when you are inside a big building, it's even better when you are warm in your bed inside a building.

Today, I had 3 dental implants along with bone augmentation or something like that. Let's get honest here, they put some powdered dead person's bone inside my jaw! Yak! They showed me the bottle, it was from Oklahoma and it is supposedly radiated and baked and whatever to make it sterile. Still... yuck!

I had 3 dentists working on me. My guy Dr Ruben, my other dentist who does my cleanings and laser whitening, Dra. Alicia and the specialist in bone and sinus surgery whose name I've forgotten. Did I mention that these teeth have been gone for so long that the bone receded and my sinus expanded and thus they had to go through the bone and raise the sinus cavity up without breaking it and then add extra dead person bone powder? I'm not at all sure how I agreed to this procedure, the words just came out of my mouth last week and I've been in a low level panic about it ever since.

I was to get one implant on one side of my upper jaw and 2 on the other side. They started with the single one. The specialist who I'll be nice and just say that she is supposed to be an expert at her job but she has little to no chair-side skills. So, she takes this needle and proceeds to stick it about a foot up into the roof of my mouth. I levitated off the friggin chair. The pain was incredible, I started crying immediately and couldn't stop for the next 45 minutes.

They had this paper thing drapped over everything but my mouth, I was inside my paper Chador with tears pouring out and trying hard not to hyper ventilate or just stop breathing and pass out. At one point I thought maybe passing out would be a good thing but I couldn't hold my breath long enough. My doctors, Ruben and Alicia could tell something was wrong, maybe because I was stiff as a plank and my legs didn't touch the chair at all. Or, maybe it was because the tears started pooling in my ears and then running out and my shirt was drenched, or maybe it was the moaning and shaking. Ruben kept asking me if I was in pain, saying they would give me more numbing medicine. I was too terrified of that shot in the roof of my mouth to admit it and I just kept shaking my head no and trying not to move while this person was using power tools in my mouth.

It was a 9 on a 10 point pain scale. I don't think I've ever experienced pain like that. What a torture technique, I would give up anyone and anything if threatened with a needle to the roof of my mouth. Shit! I'd give anyone up if they even mentioned the possibility of a needle to the roof of my mouth. I could tell that the Novocain had not reached the areas she was working, it probably was all in the bottom of my brain which was why I didn't leap up and run out the door. I actually almost grabbed her by the throat when she gave me that shot, only my fear of moving the needle in my mouth kept me from it. Nothing was numb, not my lips, my gums, my cheek, none of the places that should have been numb were at all numb. So, basically, I laid there and cried and let someone drill a hole in my jaw bone and then push my sinus cavity up and then twist a screw into the hole and pump in a bunch of dead person bone and then... stitch the whole thing with what felt like a huge canvas needle. That and I cried under my paper Chador. Oh, and Mimi was off at the grocery store so she couldn't step in and make them stop.

Once they finished that one tooth. I said I couldn't go on. I was shaking and crying and in a complete panic. I've never been afraid of the dentist. Dr Ruben kept asking me what happened to his good patient but I couldn't even get it together to tell him that NOTHING WAS NUMB!!!

I knew that not getting the other 2 done defeated the whole point of this which is to eliminate the need for a bridge. I also knew that if I walked out the door I would never, never return. So, I laid there and cried and shook and couldn't talk. Finally Mimi arrived and I think the whole lot of them went out to greet her with open arms and tell her that something was wrong but I wouldn't tell them what. I was really glad to see her. During all the above I kept thinking I heard her voice and hoping she would walk in and stop all the pain but then I'd realize that the voice was speaking Spanish, not Mimi.

I managed to tell her what happened, Dr Ruben was the only other one there and he immediately touched my gum and cheek and when I told him I could feel it he was horrified. He got a sub-lingual Tordol under my tongue, Mimi rubbed my feet and talked slowly to me until I stopped shaking and felt calmer. I was still unable to say I'd stay for the other 2, just the thought would send me reeling off into fear and crying. I'm really not a crybaby, I have a pretty high pain threshold and even used to get my teeth filled without novocaine. I had to be calm at the start though, know it was coming and be able to float over the pain. That first incredibly painful shot had killed any hope of me dealing well with what followed.

Dr Ruben assured me that he would give the novocaine for the next 2, that he would do it slowly and make sure that it worked. What the hell, I finally agreed and he kept his promise. The only real pain in the last 2 was at the end with the stitching, I think the numb was wearing off.

So, that's been my last 24 hours. Fear and more fear and unbelievable pain. Now, I'm sitting in my living room with the doors open to the ocean, my kitty asleep on my chest, stoned on Tordol and white wine. Life is definitely better.

Oh, today (now yesterday) was Mimi's birthday. She has spent it taking care of me and she's doing a fantastic job of it. We will celebrate it later this weekend perhaps, assuming I keep getting better. I can't eat solid food but I can drink and I had some great Top Ramen for dinner along with a really nice Monte Xanic Chenin Colombard. I feel like I got run over, nothing really hurts (love that Tordol) but I'm completely drained.

I've tried to put the pictures of the house in some kind of order, sort of a tour. I put them here on Flickr.

I'm exhausted. We've been out and going from 10am to after 10pm for the last 2 days. It's 3:30am now and I've been messing with these pictures - and tossing the bad ones - for hours. You can leave comments and questions on Flickr if my descriptions don't make sense, which is quite likely considering how tired I am. Or, you can skip the whole house thing and I'll be back to life on the beach by tomorrow night.

I love you all, but I've got to go... to bed.

Tito is really Tita! Here she is with Mimi and her vet Nelson, he is the one that broke the news to us that our Tito is a girl.

Luckily, my friend Cristina had prepared us for this by writing me that Tita is a perfectly good name - just in case - and was the name of the kitchen maid in Like Water for Chocolate. So, Tita she is.

She was a great little traveler. We came over in the Jeep and she slept most of the way and then kept us up pouncing on our heads last night.

Today we took her to vet in just her harness and leash and she was not at all scared. She spent most of the ride up on the window watching everything. I took these pictures with my cell phone while driving.

We were at the house this morning, I took some pictures but don't have time now to go through them. It's looking great, still a long ways to go though.

This afternoon we met with Henry for several hours and we are meeting him at the house in the morning. Hopefully, I'll have some better pics and can post them tomorrow night.

I wasn't all that happy with the ones I took today on a quick look at them. It's very hard to get perspective, the rooms are large but they don't show up well. Mimi says it is the lens on the camera, that I need a wide angle. Well, I'll try again tomorrow or maybe get her to take some.

We are off to Merida. We had a wonderful surprise visit from Cancun Canuck and family today, Max was as cute as ever and his dad was having a great Father's Day.

As you can see in the upper corner, Pasty Girl is still trying to do something about that horrid paleness and not get carried away by the ants.

Right before they got here, the workers who made our new shutters for the bedroom arrived to install them. They really are beautiful and they fit well so I think we will be able to turn the AC on in that room and actually cool it. Also, it adds some privacy when there are other people staying here.

I'm really pleased with his work, if I get it together to re-do the kitchen here I will have him do the cabinets.

We're not taking the RV on this trip, we will be staying at the lovely B&B, Luz en Yucatan.

It should be fun to see the changes, we've been gone almost a month now. Henry says things are really moving and they are about to start tiling the floors upstairs. I'm sure I'll have lots of house pics soon.

I'll leave you with this cute shot of Max and Tito, what a pair!

Random things about living in the tropics:

*Get the largest refrigerator you can. It's amazing the stuff that you will need to keep in it in order to keep the ants and the humidity out. Like dry cat food, vitamins, candy, crackers, bread, hot sauce (yes, Mexican ants eat hot sauce if it is at all sweet), bakery goods (cold donuts are not all that good which is probably for the best), some medicines, cough drops and cough syrup, honey, butter ... if I weren't too lazy I could go open my reefer and find some more odd stuff.

*Ants will inherit the earth. In fact, they probably already own it and just haven't gotten around to evicting us yet. I've never liked ants but now, I don't even get all that excited if I realize I ate one or two. In fact, the really tiny ones I can't even see unless they move. The variety of ants is mind boggling, there are dozens of types of ants just in my condo. The electric ants are cool, they only live in electric outlets and you never see them unless you leave something edible near an outlet. Like say, the top off your toothpaste on the bathroom counter. Did I forget to say that I want the toothpaste in the refrigerator too?

OK, this isn't really tips for living in the tropics - this is just a long rant about ants but without ant pictures. Instead, you get more pictures of my cutest kitteh in the world and the great view off my deck, which more or less makes up for all the ants you can't see inside.

A couple days ago, Mimi was driving and we were heading to Playa. When we got to the highway she reaches back and pulls her seatbelt around her and shortly thereafter she starts yelling and slapping at herself while I grab for the wheel to keep us on the road. It turns out that ants had built a nest in the seat belt receptacle on the floor of the jeep. This happened to be the large, red ants that bite. We safely got to the side of the road and she didn't use her seatbelt on that trip. Today, she spent the day cleaning out the jeep and found 4 separate ant nests in it.

Oh, and tourists! Sometimes locals make fun of tourists, not me of course because that's how I started out here.

I do sometimes get a kick out of them, like this afternoon. I went out on the deck and saw these 2 laying on the sand with their newly arrived whiteness. But, they are so cute! They look like they are just blissed out.

In fact, here's a close up. Aren't they cute? I think they are holding hands!

I had this post in my mind about all the wonderful tropical fruits here, I even have pictures and everything. But, of all the great foods that Mexico has given the world - like turkey and corn and vanilla - one trumps them all... Chocolate! If that was the only thing Mexico had ever contributed to the world, it would be enough.

Manuela brought me that bag of chocolate beans you see there. She comes from Tabasco in an area where they grow a lot of chocolate and her family makes sure she is never out of the elixir of life.

I roasted some as directed in a dry frying pan and those are the roasted beans on the plate.

Once they had cooled a little, I rubbed them between my fingers to take off the brittle outside husk.

I then had the small plate of husked beans and that big pile of cocoa husks.

I used to buy cocoa husks in Calif and use them as a mulch, I don't think I'll ever make enough of them by hand for that but I probably should have thrown them in the potted palm.

Next I ground the beans in my coffee grinder. They were not as dry as coffee beans, they made a bit of paste that stuck to the blades. I got most of it out and left the rest to flavor the coffee in the morning.

From that plate of beans I got this baggy of ground chocolate. It really didn't take that long although hulling them was the most tiring part.

A beverage made from chocolate was the drink of the Gods and their earthly relatives the Aztec and Mayan rulers. From some of the pictures and translations I've seen, they drank it like a Brit drinks tea, any occasion at all calls for a cuppa.

The beans were also used as currency which gives a whole new meaning to drinking your money away.

Always one for cultural and historical accuracy, I heated the ground chocolate and whipped it into a froth. Of course, the Mayans used water and I used milk. I also threw in some cinnamon and vanilla but hey, they are from Mexico. Oh... they didn't sweeten their drink but I added a little nutrisweet. In this instance, sugar was just as foreign as nutrisweet so, why not? I also added some dark Caribbean rum, another local product. There are some accounts that they made a fermented chocolate, no doubt for those all night sacrificial parties.

I've got to say that those Mayan Lords were really on to something, this stuff is fantastic! I slept well too.

So, I'm meandering around the backyard of the internet the other day and I find this cool jacket. Here's a quote about it:

The No-Contact Jacket is a wearable defensive jacket created to aid women in their struggle for protection from violence. When activated by the wearer, 80,000 volts of low amperage electric current pulses just below the surface shell of the entire jacket. This exo-electric armor prevents any person from unauthorized contact with the wearer's body.

Later I found out it had been out for 5 years or so, it isn't the new thing I thought it was. Still, what a great idea! I thought about it all evening. First off, I thought they should make pants too, imagine some jerk grabbing your ass and getting knocked on his?

One of the things about getting old is that this doesn't happen to me anymore. It's probably a big reason I'm so comfortable living in Mexico this time around. I lived in DF when I was in my early 20's and the single most frustrating part of living there was the unending, unwanted, intrusive behavior of the men. It wears on you, never being able to walk down a street without the sucking air sound or the gross piropos or the blatant grabs. I came up with lots of different coping mechanisms and they would work sometimes but mainly, nothing really changed the fact that I could never just walk down a street without notice.

I told myself that it was a cultural thing, that I needed to adjust, that they didn't mean any harm, that I should take it as a compliment... none of that made it any better for more than a few minutes. I would be OK just dealing with it for a few weeks and then it would pile up in my mind and I'd be furious whenever I went outside. That's no way to live, and I knew it had to be me that dealt with it as I wasn't going to change their behavior. I lasted a year there, and it wasn't this that sent me back to the US but a serious illness. I wonder though, how much longer I would have stayed anyway.

I remember one Christmas Eve, I was staying at a apartment hotel downtown and I had Dupre with me who was about 4 years old. After he went to sleep, I needed to go out to the parking garage a block away to get his presents. I put on a huge rebozo that covered all of my upper body and my head and most of my face, loose black pants, low shoes... I did my best. I got about a half block and some guy started with the suck air sound and then turned around after he passed me and reached back towards me. I went ballistic! I started screaming at him in English and Spanish, calling him every kind of fucked up pervert, talking about how tiny his dick must be if he had to accost strangers on the street, I don't know what else I said. I also went after him and that really scared him and he started walking away fast trying to look cool. I followed that guy for a block screaming that he was a pervert, with everyone on the street gaping at us. Finally he just started running.

To be honest, I felt better for weeks after that. It was a great release. In fact, I tried it out as a solution. I'd just start after any guy that said anything and I'd yell really loud. It kind of worked but I was as embarrassed as they were and sometimes they would just yell back at me and my Spanish would fail be on the really clever replies. Mostly though, they just yelled "fooking gringa".

I don't know if it has gotten any better down here for young women, it's been 35 years since I lived in DF. Perhaps it has but my guess is that it has been slow and this kind of unwanted attention is still really common. It's a major downside to living in Latin America. In the US, we get used to pretty much being able to go wherever we want. Yes, there are jerks there too that catcall but outside of construction workers and not-so-great parts of town, I think the business districts and the suburbs are pretty free of this. For sure, it is not considered their right to harass women like that and that alone makes a difference.

Anyway, this jacket had me thinking about all of this and fantasizing about full body armor that knocked them on their ass if touched. I remember wishing I had a laser gun back then and could just zap them (you can guess where) and drop them to the ground. Ahhh, venganza.

I haven't been able to post for a couple of days so, while the sun is out today, you are getting the rainy day post.

I've been poking around in the US Govt sites lately, looking at the rules for acquiring US citizenship. What a morass of weird and seemingly senseless rules I've found. I don't understand the reasoning at all.

Here's the story. Our friend Rod was born and raised in Mexico City. His mother, now in her 80's, is an American citizen and lives in Mexico on an FM2 or immigrant visa. In other words, her only citizenship is from the USA. Her father was from Ireland and her mother from France, they immigrated to the US where she was born in Texas. While she was fairly young, they moved to Mexico. She married and had 4 children, Rod is one of the middle kids.

Much like I think a lot of US citizens would assume, I thought that Rod should be eligible for US citizenship based on his mother being a citizen. Here's where it gets complicated. His mother could have registered his birth with the US embassy in Mexico while he was a child, if she had she would have received a form from them. That form would have guaranteed citizenship to my friend. Walk into the embassy and they give you a passport is how someone described it. I doubt it is that easy but the outcome would be certain.

She didn't know that though, remember this was almost 50 years ago. So, now he would have to qualify under a complicated set of rules. He was born between 1952 and 1986 so he has to prove that his mother lived in the US for 10 years prior to his birth with 5 of those years coming after the age of 14. If he had been born between 1986 and the present, she would have had to live in the US for 5 years prior to his birth with 2 years after the age of 14.

He doesn't make the cut. I don't understand this. Any woman that can get to the US illegally and have her baby guarantees that child US citizenship but someone who is the child of a legal US citizen is not? What is the point of these rules about years lived and age? They have changed the requirements several times but never eliminated the rule so it must have some justification, I just don't see it.

Also, if his mother had known to register his birth there would be no question of years lived in the US or anything else. Same kid, but different rules?

He could probably gain Irish citizenship easier, I think the Irish allow you to claim citizenship using a grandparent.

He doesn't care that much about getting the US passport but he would like to be able to visit the US without the huge visa hassle. He has relatives in San Francisco and he would like to travel around the US. He was up there a lot as a kid but apparently he traveled on his mother's passport then.

I wish I could help him or at the very least explain it, but I have no explanation and even with my "superior English skills" and first hand knowledge of American culture, this stuff just doesn't make sense.

All's well here, Arthur is blowing but not so hard anymore. He's been a good wake up though, we do have to get our hurricane stuff organized as this season has started quick.

Hurricane season actually starts on June 1st and as the first named storm, Arthur arrived a day early.

I've taken a lot of pictures, the sea is gorgeous when it rages. We are so used to the calm, flat crystal clear waters of the Caribbean that when it is opaque and covered in white caps and waves I find it spectacular. I could hear the wind howling and the waves pounding all night last night.

In this pic, the color change in the water is right beyond the reef where the depth drops off.

It's a great dive site actually, just off the reef in front of our condo. There are long fingers of reef with sand between them and lots of fish.

It's about 40' to 60' feet deep on the seaward side of the reef and about 10' to 15' on the bay side - thus the difference in water color. Normally, you see only the change in water color and in the afternoons an occasional whitecap, these are huge waves rolling over the reef right now.

As you can see, the reef is a ways out, the waves are rolling all the way in though and have come right up about 10' from the base of our building.

During the last 3 hurricanes, Dean, Wilma and Emily, waves rolled right through the first floor condos and were breaking across the road behind the building. Dean broke up the retention wall that Wilma had badly damaged and now we have nothing to keep the water from undermining the foundation. Not a pleasant thought. The owners have all agreed to pay for the wall to be replaced but the work can't be done now because it is turtle nesting season and it would or could disturb their nests. So, we are all hoping that no big storms come in here until after September when we hopefully will get the wall replaced.

For those that asked how the 4 legged critters were dealing with the storm, here's all our dogs hanging on the bed as far from the windows as they can get.

That's actually the master bedroom but we've moved into the guest bedroom because those shutters that allow you to lay in bed and look out over the sea, have such large gaps in them that we can't air condition that room with any success. The only time I really like or want AC is to sleep, I do love my heavy blanket and cool, dry air for sleeping. A carpenter came by yesterday and is going to make me new shutters that are solid and that fit the opening better so I can close the room off if I want AC.

This is Manuela, our domestic goddess. I've taken a lot of pictures of her over the years and I don't think I have a single one with her eyes open. In the past, she never smiled in pictures even though she is a very happy person who smiles a lot. Now, she smiles but she still immediately closes her eyes.

We went out to dinner tonight with friends and the whole town seems deserted. You know that thing where you sit around with friends and say "where do you want to go eat?" and no one has any ideas and it gets later and later and, if you live here in the boondocks that means your options start dwindling as everything closes pretty early.

Finally we all agreed that we just didn't want to be near the water. Heh! That strikes me as funny somehow, everyone wants to sit with their toes in the sand on a Caribbean beach and we just want walls and floors and away from the wind.

The light at dusk tonight was incredible. I don't know that I really got it in this picture but the whole world was glowing, a kind of pink luminescence. Click this pic to make it larger and you can see the huge billowing clouds that are rolling over us. I have to say, I do get a thrill from wild weather like this. I'm not sure I'd want to stay here for a bigger storm but, I would be tempted.