There have been all kinds of comings and goings here at the Rainbow Trailer Park. That's really the name of where we stay here in Mérida, conjures up all kinds of associations.

(Tortuga and Ciao Baby hanging together at the Rainbow Trailer Park)

Anyway, we had been awaiting the arrival of another Lazy Daze owner, Tessa and her 3 kids in Ciao Baby.

They say that people that own Lazy Daze RVs are cult-like in our devotion to them and most of us give them a name. Most of you know ours is named Tortuga, commonly called Tuga for short. Tessa named theirs Caio Baby and promptly took her kids out of school and took off for over a year to see the world. They've already been north to the Arctic circle and now they are heading south to Panama. After that, Europe and perhaps China. You can follow this portion of their trip on their blogs here.

They were here for a whirlwind 3 days and we had a great time with them. Tessa took some wonderful pictures, I'm using some of them. Of course, she doesn't appear in them and even this picture that I took of all of us having ice cream on the plaza grande, Tessa is kind of hidden behind Mimi. You'll have to go to her blog to see this incredibly dynamic woman. Her kids are really wonderful as well, interesting and adventurous and obviously having an incredible trip that they will always remember. What a fanatastic thing to do for your children!

We've met some really wonderful people here in Mérida and John and Mary are two of the best. We've become good friends and when they are in town, we try and see them as much as possible. This trip, their daughter and her boyfriend came down for Thanksgiving.

(Mary, John, Mark & Lisa)

Mark and Lisa wanted to see the Caribbean coast so we gave them the keys to our condo in Akumal and off they went. Well!! Mark proposed to Lisa up in the crow's nest at the Buena Vida just down the beach and they are now engaged! Much celebrating ensued when they returned! We took Tessa and the kids over to meet them and see their beautiful house.

Which takes me off on yet another tangent. A couple days ago, Henry got a call that he had won both first and second place in the Architectural Digest of México annual awards for renovation. This is a huge award and he flew off to Mexico City for the award dinner. It turns out, the 2nd place award was for John and Mary's house. See how this all ties together?

But anyway, here's a picture of our whole week kind of summed up. All of us (except Tessa of course cuz she took the picture) at John & Mary's celebrating the engagement of Mark and Lisa, the visit of Tessa with Charles, Jazy and Lia, and Henry's awards too!

Whew! I'm tired.

None of my reasons for living in México that I outlined yesterday would count if I didn't genuinely like the country and the people.

My love affair with México started early, I can't remember my first trip as I was too young. I have seen a cute picture of me at about 2 yo with my parents in Tijuana. I'm sitting on one of those burros with my parents standing behind me, I think there was a huge sombrero in the picture somewhere as well.

As a teenager, every school break and summer meant a long trip to surfing beaches in the Baja or Sonora. When I was in my early 20s I ran away from life's complications to live in México and made it a year in México City. After that I made dozens of vacation trips south, sometimes camping and sometimes flying in to resorts. Once I fell in love with scuba I concentrated on the Caribbean coast and Cozumel.

So, when I retired and we bought the RV, it was so we could travel more in México and explore areas I hadn't seen. It's been 7 years of winters and 1 summer down here and we've been in all but 4 of the 31 Mexican states and spent considerable time in all but 6 of them.

One of the cool things about traveling in an RV is that you have your home with you and wherever you are you 'live' there. I would always fantasize about really living in every place we stopped, sometimes deciding right away that it was not suitable and other times feeling wistful when we left. In the back of my mind I knew that one day I would want to have a house again, mainly because we still have 2 macaws living in California that we miss and wanted to spend more time with. Also, the more dogs and now a cat that we adopt, the smaller this RV gets and we really are a little crowded in here now. Plus, I miss plants. It sounds odd but I do love growing things and having the time and the space to enjoy watching things grow.

During those travels I started a mental list of things I wanted in whatever place we decided to settle. I never got very organized about it, no surprise there, but I kept it in the back of my mind and graded places based on it. Here's my list.

1. International airport nearby with reasonable flights in cost and convenience to the US, mainly to California.

2. Excellent medical centers and top of the line hospitals and specialists. I'm not young and it is something that I knew I would need at some point.

3. Comfortable altitude. I'm a sea level person and probably also because of my COPD, high altitude is very tough for me. It's also usually pretty cold in the winter above a couple thousand feet.

4. Warm to hot weather. I want to live in a greenhouse basically.

5. A real city. When you live in an RV most of the time you live in a more rural or at least suburban area, RVs don't do well in big cities. That said, we once spent almost a month living in the RV in the city of Guadalajara very close to the Minerva glorieta. It was fantastic! We were parked next to a small park and in a friend's neighborhood. We enjoyed it immensely. I'm more of a city girl than a country girl. Yes, I like to garden but I don't like places where the sidewalks roll up in the early evening and where the options for music and art and information are limited. I like to vacation in those places, I don't want to live there.

6. An ocean. I grew up on the beach in Santa Barbara, California. I love the ocean and can't imagine living all the time away from it. México is blessed with coastlines on 3 very different seas; the Gulf of México, the Caribbean and the Pacific. I do prefer the Pacific in many ways, it's familiar and comfortable. The beaches on the west coast of Mexico were a big draw and we spent a lot of time over there. The Caribbean has incredible reefs, fish and water; there is nothing that compares to the color of the water and the powdery white sand of the Caribbean. No real waves though and if you are inside a reef it is shallow and often rocky on the bottom. I have less experience with the Gulf but the beaches we've camped on along it have been beautiful, warmer water than the Pacific and with sandy bottoms and a long shallow slide to the depths. I would be happy on any of them, that part was easy.

7. Interesting architecture and colonial roots, I want some history with my city. Luckily it is easy here in México to live with beautiful old colonial homes, extravagant cathedrals and churches, indigenous markets, artesanía and culture. It does eliminate the city of Cancun however.

In the end, there were only 2 cities that had everything and that I loved and could really envision living in. Guadalajara came in a very close second to Mérida. It's got everything except an ocean and it does get colder than I like in the winter.

What it does have though is a good road to the west coast that will put you on some beautiful beaches within a few hours. Renting or buying a house on the coast in the winter would be a good compromise and affordable. It's a much larger city, many millions in population, and with all those people come more crime and traffic and noise.

Then, there is the heart.

I fell in love with the city of Mérida much as I fell in love with San Francisco over 40 years ago. It's a city with a personality and style and presence. Just walking or driving the streets here makes me happy and I get almost giddy whenever I remember that I actually LIVE here.

Today I'm remembering how thankful I am that I have the opportunity to live awhile in this great city. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

I'm riding around the other day and thinking about why I want to live here in México. I know that I have friends who don't understand and no doubt think I've made a bad decision. That's ok, what interested me though was why it seemed like a good choice to me.

Honestly, I will admit that money figures into this. If I had unlimited wealth, I might keep my main residence somewhere in LA. Up a canyon close in but with killer views and a garden, then no doubt a beach house on the coast for an ocean fix. Of course, when it got cold in the winter I could travel somewhere warm and lush. That would work. Since I never remember to buy lottery tickets, that's not likely to happen.

So my first reason is that living here allows me to have my main house in an even more liveable city than LA (less crime, no smog) but cosmopolitan enough to keep me entertained. I can afford my dream house with everything but a view and a lot more archtectural interest. Because I was lucky enough to buy a condo on the Caribbean a dozen or more years ago, I can have a beach house a few hours away.

The second reason is that I'm never bored. If I think about what I like to do, it comes down to: puttering around with plants, hanging out with animals, cruising the internets, going to casual events that expand my brain with new ideas or new ways of seeing things, finding places to go and people to meet that I haven't encountered before, learning new stuff. I could do that in LA or San Anselmo or Cathedral City, any of the places I have or could live in California but it would take more effort to find the new and stretch the brain. Here, I just have to walk out the door and new stuff is everywhere. My brain perks up, my eyes get brighter and I'm suddenly very, very interested in everything around me. That's a huge plus about moving somewhere new and particularly a new culture and a new language.

The third thing is that I'm really over cold weather. It's not a huge thing but it matters quite a bit to me. I don't like being cold and I like to be not just around an ocean but able to actually get IN it. It's too cold anywhere in California. I could move to Miami and probably enjoy the weather. I've never been very interested in much else about Florida so it wouldn't help with reason #2 and for sure, I would not have the dream house or a place on the beach.

I could find all these things in another country besides México, I can think of a dozen right away that I would love to live in. The downside there is proximity to my son and my friends from home. Money again, it would be too expensive to fly back to see them or for them to fly to see me.

México is perfect for me.

It started when my friend Debi sent me the following:

A Chocolate Tasting to Save the Orchids!

Please join us this Sunday for a Chocolate Tasting consisted of a talk on the origins and history of chocolates by Master Chocolatier, Mathieu Brees, who, along with his wife Stephanie Brees, is the proprietor of ki´Xocolatl, the fantastic chocolate store in Santa Lucia. Mathieu and Stephanie will be present, with Mathieu giving a talk about the history of chocolate, where the best cacao beans and vanilla are grown, how Belgian chocolate making techniques are used at ki´Xocolatl, and there will be a sampling of the new chocolates he is making.

This will be followed by a discussion of the orchid program at CICY, the Scientific Research Center of Yucatan, under the direction of the charming Englishman Dr. Andrew James.

Could it get any better? Chocolate and Orchids?? Irresistible. Did that last line in the first paragraph just leap out at you like it did at me? ...there will be a sampling... That alone would have gotten me there.

It was a fascinating demonstration and talk in both English and Spanish about chocolate and how it is processed. Mathieu answered a question I've always had about the difference between the common chocolate used here for hot chocolate and the rich, dark ambrosia used for the finest European truffles. So, the answer is that the beans have to ferment and most of the chocolate grown in Mexico is cleaned, washed and sold without fermenting. There are other fine points but that is the main one.

Xocoatl controls the growing, harvesting, fermenting and processing of their chocolate. They have introduced cacao growing here in the Yucatan by using the cenotes, irrigation and micro climates to provide the environment it wants. Most Mexican cacao is grown in the jungles of Chiapas and Tabasco where there is more rainfall and more humidity but there is a fungus that is attacking the beans there and by growing it here in a less favorable climate, they hope to avoid the spread of the fungus.

On the table you can see some cacao pods from their land along with plates of raw, washed beans, fermented beans, roasted beans and coco butter. We all got to taste the sweet, fruity meat that surrounds the beans and smelled and tasted the beans from each stage of production.

Then they passed around the good stuff! His dark chocolate is simply to die for! Unbelievably rich and creamy, it hits all the right spots in your brain and mouth. We also tried his dark chocolate with chili and herbs which I really, really loved. There is a hint of heat, a hint of orange and cardamom and vanilla... incredible!

Luckily they had a table with some of their products for sale. I'm also going to visit their shop at Santa Lucia and their factory where you can watch the whole process through glass. I am so thrilled to have this really exquisite treat available here in Mérida. I have missed living in a cosmopolitan city and this is just one of the things that reinforces my decision to move here.

After chocolate it was time for orchids. Probably they could have just dipped the orchids in the chocolate and I would have been happy. I learned quite a bit about orchids in Yucatan from Dr James presentation, so it's better that I didn't eat the displays.

He is doing research at CICY (Center for Scientific Investigation) to help develop commercial orchid operations as a viable business for the Yucatan. We have the climate for growing popular orchids and there is a market for them here as well as for export. He showed slides of his trials and offered tours by appointment. I'm going to take him up on that one as it is the only time he will sell plants, if you take a tour you can buy a plant.

I'm doing a lot of reading and learning about orchids but I've yet to buy one. The beach is not a good spot for them and I'm waiting for the house to be done before I start collecting. I walk around at the house all the time though and contemplate where I will put which type and how I will mount it. Every time I'm there I'm watching where the sun is and how much light is in different places. Hey, it's better than smoking and eating all the time. It's my new obsession. Clearly I'm the type of person that has to have an addiction so, orchids it is. Except... there is the chocolate.

We went to the fair! I've been talking about it for weeks and this afternoon Stephen, Paula, Mimi and I went off to find the Yucatan state fair. It's in a small town on the outskirts of Mérida, my iPhone gps and mapping program got us there flawlessly. God I love this phone.

Anyway, it's huge. Really a city of shops and restaurants and carnival rides and artesania and god knows what else. I don't think we saw much more than half of it. We walked around and ate and people watched and shopped. I had a blast. I want to go back again before it closes at the end of the month.

There were Boy Scouts marching around.



Bicycles



Incredible mannequins





Real people pretending to be mannequins





The usual rides





You could even get your hair cut on the midway



I wish I had gotten a picture of the wedding dress shop that was there as well. Who would think to go to a fair to buy a wedding dress? You could buy mattresses as well, just a few steps away.

Also any number of gadgets and gizmos and dozens of things with your name stamped on them. You could play all the carnival games and win a stuffed animal for your sweetie or shoot air guns and make dioramas of Vicente Fernandez light up and start singing. I really wanted to get a picture of 4 state police with their M16s in hand watching some guys shooting the air guns. Didn't seem like a good idea though. I did ask them if they could do better with their weapon and they laughed.

We came home with a weird assortment of stuff, little floaters with chlorine tablets for our tinaco, some Arnica gel, a wooden smasher for the mint in a mojito, a beautiful hand painted Quetzale bird t-shirt for Mimi and a jar of tamarind syrup to make agua tamarindo. It was a great evening.

The local forum for Merida has gone away and I'm in withdrawals. I do love forums but more than that, this one had the information and recommendations from hundreds of expats in its past files that were invaluable. I've met so many wonderful people through it as well. It's a huge hole in my daily life.

Also, when I'm in a fix and trying to find something quickly I have no easy way to do it. I could call a bunch of the great people I've met here and ask them personally but it seems rather inefficient and kind of intrusive. So, I've decided to do my asking on my blog and hope that some of the readers who are local can help me out.

The first and most immediate thing I need is a good insurance agent who carries ING. I'm partial to that company for car insurance and (shhhh...) my Mexican insurance on the jeep expired TODAY! Sheeet! So, anyone in Merida know a good agent I can call tomorrow and hopefully get my butt covered?

I do have a good agent in Playa del Carmen who covers our little Mexican truck but I thought it would be better to start with one here. Because... I am also looking for ING medical insurance as I've heard good things about it. If I don't find someone here tomorrow, I'll call my agent and insure the jeep and RV out of Playa.

Mimi returned today, she seems fine although the procedure sounds horrible. She had her gums lifted, bone grafted, stitches between all the teeth in one quadrant of her mouth. She has 3 more quadrants to do still, at least she gets several weeks break between them.

I met Henry at the house and then hung around awhile longer to wait for Mimi's bus. It's really convenient that the bus station is just a block and a half away. If I ever decide to get over my bus aversion I might try it, it certainly seems efficient, comfortable and easy.

They tore out the sidewalk in front of the house while I was there. It was damaged and they are installing lights and want to fix the slope away from the house. No problem, get the guys with the pick and just break it out. There would have been dozens of permits and signs and yellow tape required to do that in the US - what we had were a couple of orange cones.

I took a walk around the block while I was waiting for Mimi and discovered we have a Mystic Temple just a half block away. The signs on the window say "Feng Shui - Love - Aromatic Candles - Mantras - Amulets - Incense - Quartz - Luck - Books - Irrigations" Irrigations? WTF? Well, it was all in Spanish so maybe there is another meaning that my dictionary isn't giving me. The word is Riegos if anyone else has more info. What's coming to my mind is not too pleasant. The sign in the window also said they are looking for employees, the whole place looks new and very clean and tidy. Maybe I should have them come over and check the feng shui, say a couple mantras and maybe do some irrigating to see if it gets the house done this year.

We have color!

It's pretty amazing to see the gray concrete I'm used to turn into rich color. Can you believe I was worried that Henry would want colors that were too tame? I'm really thrilled.

Most of the house is still white primer but this wall is starting to turn a deep adobe color and the beams are turning the blue violet color picked for them and the wall above the hall pond.

Still, I think there is a long ways to go before I'm moving into this house. I'm trying to be patient and not get anxious but truthfully, the waiting is killing me. I now think that we will be lucky to be in by Christmas. Local friends say "hey, it hasn't been a year yet" and they are right but I hate hearing it.

Things are happening, I'm not complaining about that. Terrance showed us the cabinet doors he's completed and says he could start installing some of them by this Friday. The wood is gorgeous. I'm really, really happy with it. It has a deep finish with red tones and the grain looks like you could stick your finger down into it.

What isn't finished is a long list though. Besides an enormous amount of painting, there's the installation of appliances, fans, and light fixtures. There is no front door or garage door, they have blocked the garage with boards and the old door and the old front door is leaning against the opening with sand bags holding it in place.

One of the guys is now sleeping there in a hammock in the living room. We went by on Sunday and he was napping. We knew he was there and called out when we came in but I don't think he heard us. When he came out of the room he was all fuzzy and had bed-head.

He was really nice though, he ran and got the hose and filled the hall pond and turned it on for us and then when we came down from upstairs he was putting oil on the kitchen doors. Come on, it was Sunday! His only day off. I told him he should be resting but he just gave me a sheepish smile.

I know those of you up in the north get sick of us down here complaining about the cold. I have to say though, we are freezing! My blood has thinned even more than last year and this norte that is here now is really chilling. If I look at the numbers it's ridiculous, I think it is 65°f right now at midnight and the high today was probably 75°f. I see people talking about living where the weather is "perfect" and spring-like all year... about like this, what they mean by spring is friggin' freezing to me.

I'm sitting here in my sweatpants, sweatshirt, Ugs on my feet, and I'm still cold. Mimi and I keep looking at each other and saying 'what the fuck are we going to do in that big stone house when it is cold?' We have no heat there, none, zip, zero, nada. I'm starting to think about rugs and electric blankets. Really, what are we going to do?

The RV is small and carpeted and there are 3 dogs, 2 humans and a kitten in here warming it but it's not enough.

Concrete floors, stone walls and high ceilings - it will be like an old house in England in the winter. Perhaps huge wall hangings are the answer with scenes of hounds and horses and all. Maybe I should have gone for that fireplace I saw and thought was so funny here. I will try to never make jokes again about the down jackets and long underwear that appear in the stores this time of year. I might even buy some of it.

We were standing in our new bathroom the other day when it was cold and gray and I had many second thoughts about having no wall on the shower, it's open to the patio and the freezing heavens above. The idea of getting in it in that cold was not a good one. I hope the hot water heater is big enough because it's going to take a lot of hot water to get warm enough to get out of the shower onto the cold concrete floor.

I took all these pics with my iPhone and it's not great in low light. This last one is a pic of the guy painting the stripes on the wall by hand. It amazes me! He has a pencil line that he measured but no tape, no roller, just an artists paintbrush and a steady hand. It's the colonial way, a band of color around the door with a small space and then a small stripe of the same color, hand painted. I love the way it looks, there are small irregularities and it does not have a machine look to it. It still amazes me that there is so much handcrafting done here.

Mimi took the bus to Playa today, Rod picked her up and she is in Akumal tonight. She has a dentist appointment tomorrow for a deep cleaning, the kind where they peel your gums back. She's staying tomorrow night and then taking the bus back on Thursday.

I texted Manuela that Mimi was coming over and asked if everything was ok and if she needed anything to stop and tell Mimi. She answered 'sí, gracias' and that was all. Mimi called me tonight and said that Manuela had called Rod and told him her husband had been bitten by a snake and was in the hospital in Cancun. Holy Shit! That was worth a couple text lines, ya think? She wanted Rod to tell Mimi she was really sorry that she hadn't come by to clean before her arrival. The place is clean, no one has been there. Nothing I could do would make her not feel bad about it though. Of course, now I feel sorry that he is in the hospital and she's dealing with all this. She's a hell of a woman, I wish she had a twin that lived in Mérida.

As usual, it was the last possible minute when we left Akumal for Mérida. Mimi was pushing it a little and the road was bumpy.

Tita decided the best spot was snugged up tight on Chica's butt between her and Hombre. I tried to get a focused picture but this is the best one. It's so cute, the bumps were not working with me though.

We got to the RV park, unhooked the jeep, showered, dressed, fed the dogs and made it to a wonderful dinner party on time! It was a great group, we met Leslie and Richard at an art auction last month. They are old friends of Henry, our architect, and he and Terrance were there along with another couple who also have a house Henry did. I loved seeing another house of his, done years ago but showing the same skill at design and the use of light. Great food, wine and conversation until late that night.

The next day, we were moving the RV to a better spot and met a couple who had just arrived. They had emailed me last week about the park and routes.

Paula and Stephen are considering living here and are looking at houses on the coast. We hit it off with them right away, really fun people. They have two extremely well behaved border collies and a wonderful big grey cat, Barney.
Tita got to meet a CAT! I think she considers herself a dog so this was an olfactory treat for her. She was leery but fascinated. Barney was more blase about it all, he's incredible. They put a plank to the wind wing of their RV and leave it open for him. He walks around the park like he owns it.

We've spent a couple days looking at colors and trying different ones. It's coming together and it is amazing to see the walls with color on them. I've gotten used to the gray concrete look and the difference is kind of shocking.

The blue is a keeper, I wasn't sure when I first saw it at night but seeing it in the daylight convinced me. It will continue on down the wall behind the pond and will also be on the roof supports.

I like the off white as well, I wasn't sure I would be happy with that. I have had an aversion to white walls in the past but... I'm recovering.

The yellow is too pale. We drove over to Terrance's old house with Henry, it is the color we wanted, and we took a piece of cardboard with the paint they used in our hall. Not the same! Mimi found a tiny piece that had chipped off of Terrance's and Henry took that for them to make a new formula for the yellow.

These were the 3 colors we had narrowed down to for this wall in the kitchen and the long wall behind the stairs outside.

I didn't like the brownish one on the left so it was down to the more orange one on top right and the deeper one at the bottom.

We decided on the deeper one on the bottom. I like them both but particularly like the darker color with the blue which will be on the roof beams.

The hood will stay the marbled white cement but it will be sanded, polished and sealed. We're also having a stencil put on it, made to look faded and incomplete and old.

One of the things I so love about Mérida, is the prevalence of music and the enjoyment that the whole city takes in listening and dancing to music in the parks.

Tuesday nights they have a band in Santiago square so Stephen, Paula, Mimi and I went to have panuchos and watch. It was jammed, most of the dancers were not spring chickens but, as Paula said "they still have the hip action" and the couples were clearly having a great time with each other. The food was excellent, the company fun and the warm night and wonderful music a joy. Have I mentioned how much I love this city?

Our friends Sky and Mike flew back to LA on Monday.

On the way to the airport in Cancun we stopped for lunch at the Cueva del Chango. It's the restaurant connected to the nursery where I found the mysterious blue flowered vine (Petrea volubilis).

That day I didn't go into the restaurant so I was excited to see the landscaping. It's incredible!

There are waterfalls and ponds and dripping rocks and a creek that runs throughout the space.

I was most enthralled with the ferns with their roots attached to the rocks. I really want to try some of that around the pond in Merida.

They also had quite a few orchids, my new obsession. They were growing attached to beams and tree trunks and old tree stumps.

I'm hoping that I can get some to attach to the rock wall in the back. I've been spending a lot of time reading about different types and trying to figure out what will grow in which part of the house.

The orchid world is huge, and the people in it are... well, interesting. I'm not the type to get involved in showing and breeding orchids but I am impressed with how devoted so many people are to this hobby.

I've had a few orchids before, they never lived very long up in northern California. I doubt I'd want to grow them if I didn't live in an area where they can do well without a lot of special equipment.

Mainly I want to see them naturalized and growing outside, hopefully blooming too. That's the rub, getting them happy enough to bloom well.

At any rate, getting interested in orchids instead of smoking, drinking and eating has worked OK so far. I've lost another 2 kilos. I feel great, I'm optimistic that this last round of antibiotics has done the trick. Either that, or the orchids.. who knows?

It is a great day for the USA!

Tempered by the fact that way too many citizens didn't get the part about separation of church and state and want to impose their religious doctrine on everyone. But, you win some and you lose some. I'm still very proud that we have elected Barack Obama as POTUS.

It's a shitty job though, hope somebody told him that. The pay is lousy considering what he could make elsewhere, you and your family are forever denied any kind of personal privacy, you will never again have as high an approval rating as the day you got the job.

Good luck to him and a big raspberry to all the Euros that want to tell me how bigoted my country is - no country in Europe has ever elected a minority as head of state.

I'm still not moving back though, the weather sucks and I'm happier living in a country that is serious about keeping religion separate from the government.

We have friends visiting and they came down to Akumal for the famous party at the Buena Vida. No, we didn't wear costumes. We were almost the only ones though, some of them were really funny.

My favorite was the tall guy all in white, with a large XY on his back, white swim cap and googles on his head and 'Fallopian Swim Team' on the front of his shirt!

Mimi stayed until the end and got some great pictures which I have put up HERE. Check out the ultimate beach bar Halloween party!

For the first time since I have been old enough, I wasn't going to vote this year. Early in the election extravaganza it seemed that whoever won would be an improvement and I felt that both candidates were qualified. Then came Sarah Palin, give me a friggin break! Is there a dumber bimbo on the face of the planet? I started realizing that the McCain I respected had sold out to the religious right and it disgusted me. My only reservations about Obama were that I didn't know much about him and my interest in politics is so low that I didn't want to spend the time finding out. Well, try and keep your head in the sand when there is a US presidential election and see how well you do. I read a little, watched a little, listened a little and started feeling much better about the man.

I tend to make decisions by figuring out what is the worst case scenario, then what are the chances it will be better than that. Worst case with Obama is that the US gains a little of the respect it has lost in the eyes of the rest of the world and that's all that happens. Best case is that things really improve in my homeland. On the other hand, worst case with McCain and the bimbo is that the religious right kills McCain as quickly as possible after the election and puts their puppet girl in office, another 4 years just like the last 8 years, same rulers, different puppet. I think that would be very likely to happen. It scares me and it depresses me, the more I watched her fans the more likely it looked. McCain has seemed to crumble, he sold himself and he knows it and he's screwed no matter what happens.

Still, that's not what made me decide I had to vote. It was this ugly, hate mongering proposition 8 in California that did it. I wish someone could explain to me how 2 people who love each other and want to marry could destroy some other couple's marriage. It's not like there are going to be armies of homosexuals in the suburbs of Fresno trying to steal husbands. Or, do they believe that? I have no clue.

Mimi and I have been Domestic Partners in California for a dozen or more years and I have no desire to have a marriage. In my mind, marriage is kind of irrelevant and should be a strictly religious affair with no legal rights attached. Keep them separate, that's how I think it should be. However, I do think we should have all of the same rights, responsibilities and tax breaks that are available to any other 2 people who are willing to commit to each others support. So, at first, I wasn't really interested in Prop 8 either, but then I couldn't avoid the media and the really hateful stuff I was reading disgusted me. Next, I began to get the notices from people I love that truly did desire to have a marriage and a blessing by their faith and their friends over their union.

Our friends Mary and Elaine are one of these couples. They are the finest people I've had the privilege to know. They have been together for 29 years, they've raised 4 children, they've worked hard and paid their taxes and been upstanding citizens all their lives. Their love for each other is a beautiful thing to be around, it blesses everyone who knows them.

They were married this past Saturday with hundreds of friends, their families, their children and a grandchild there to celebrate with them. I so wish that Mimi and I could have been there too, we raised a toast to them that day from Merida. How can this affirmation of such a lasting and positive love be a threat to anyone? How can anyone be so hateful that they would deny these wonderful people the right to this ceremony that has so much meaning to them?

Mimi and I decided we really had to vote after all. Luckily, friends were flying in and could bring us our absentee ballots which were waiting for us in California. Other friends were flying out to New York and have taken our ballots and will send them overnight, express mail to our polling place in Marin.

I was wrong to think that I could ignore my responsibility to vote. I was wrong to think that because I live in Mexico now I didn't have to care what happened in the US. It was a selfish thought, selfish because I have people I love who still live there, selfish because when it really came down to the wire I realized that my homeland is just that, my home, my land, my people and my responsibility. Whatever happens, I have to shoulder my share of the result and I can't turn my back on the land that molded me and the culture that shaped me. There are times though when it is difficult to understand how my country has become so divided and so full of hate - how can you say you love your country when you hate so many of your countrymen?