Mi "Casa"

Yes, here it is. Lovely Carrie McNinch sent us a photograph she took of our house. It takes a lot of imagination to think this will be done in a month. I promise glossy beautiful photos soon!

The house is cool, plain, and modern, so basically a blank slate. We will of course cram our tons of artwork and altars in there, but what next? Not owning anything means I have to buy (cheap) things quickly, and it would be nice if they had some sort of style, I guess.

So I looked at online decorating sites. This was just a terrible thing. Never in my life have I owned matching items. It seems silly to coordinate your bedspread with your drapes! I've always benefitted from the hand-me-down, junk pile, random acquisition, gift method of decorating, so this is new territory.

Then I vaguely remembered a doctor's waiting room in Portland. I had read an issue of Domino magazine there, and I recalled it as less matchy-matchy. Perhaps I'd get some ideas. This house was interesting. No fancy curtains or chic little tables, and lots of brightness and patterns. But still, it seemed too clean and planned. What was I looking for?

I stumbled around and found a blog called decor8. She's very gung ho about a style she promotes as Boho Modern. This is an improvement--lots of crap stacked on things, paintings up against the wall. It is a little more realistic. And the emphasis is on mixing things up, not putting it all together. Some of her commenters, however, did not find it so charming, and called it Crack House Chic. Is this what we've come to? I guess you could go for the cleaned-up version, called neo-Shabby Chic (look how much I'm learning!), but that looks expensive and uncomfortable to me.

As time wears on, I see what I'm a sucker for. The words "flea market", "swap meet", and, the biggie, "junk". But some of this flea market decorating seems to take beautiful old things and attempt to make it into generic new things. I'm not trying to make my crummy old stuff look like Pottery Barn. So not an improvement, in my book.

So, I'll keep searching. Some possibilities: cottage style? beach house style? rustic? eclectic (shudder...but it's probably what I'd be labeled)? retro? Or I'll give up and just let the crap fill up all the corners and make up a name for it. Broken Toy Bohemian. Pile of Papers Nouveau. Mouse Cage on Television Totem. Socks.

Karma Chameleon

I just finished watching Ray Reyes of Menudo fame covering Boy George's "Karma Chameleon", and I have to say, go man! What a supreme cutie.

And those lyrics hit home: "Every day is like survival..." I've been up nights obsessing over house/money, money/house and then stopping myself because who cares?

Today set my teeth on edge. I called Bank of America to initiate the international wire transfer. I knew about the $35 fee, but it was too good to be true that it would end there. They quoted me an exchange rate that had me paying them another $1500 commission. Just to get my money. I banned Steve from even discussing this dismal development, because it compelled me to eat an entire tube of Chokis, the delicious chocolate chocolate chip cookies we scored last weekend.

I do love Chokis.

I am a split personality on this money thing. I am quite possibly the most careful, nitpicky person in the world about finances and spending. But the other side of me says that, at some point, you have to let go, or else you're making money your ruler. My dad the commie has always said that his childhood dream was to be like Scrooge McDuck in the old cartoons, sitting amongst stacks of gold coins. I sympathize.

Then I received a fortuitous email this afternoon. I just landed an excellent six-month writing contract. And the editor picked up every one of my 12 pitches (I had been worried I'd gone a little pitch-happy, but thankfully no). So maybe the Karma Chameleon smiles at me now, saying that what Bank of America steals from me I can compensate for. Still...that bloody bank!

Scary but True

We bought a house. I've done this now three times, this buying/selling a house, but this time it's in Mexico and what in the world do I know about buying a house in Mexico?

It's extremely excruciating to try to understand real estate, legal, business vocabulary. Sometimes they use a word over and over again, and I have no idea, and then I ask a factual question about the thing they had just gone on about for many paragraphs.

I have to ask it again: What do I know about buying a house in Mexico? Right now, a few things. There is no multiple listing service. You find an agent, they sell only the houses they represent. There is no way to see the properties from driving around. Everything is behind giant concrete walls and gates. There are very few websites dedicated to real estate in Oaxaca. I have found the few that are, and the prices seem directed toward gringos. The newspaper has very few ads, mostly just listings by agents. Most people sell their houses themselves and sometimes would rather hang on for years than bargain the littlest bit.

But, still, we bought a house. It's new and very urban, packed between a couple other houses and no yard, though there is an inner courtyard, a real favorite house feature of mine. And so we're developing the roof into a rooftop garden. The builder is putting in stairs from the terrace and bars around the roof's periphery to stop wayward kids. I've sketched out a little palapa-type hut with a tin roof supported by posts upon which we can hang a hammock, and a spot for yoga. I've plotted, with my pen, container gardens, hopefully some vegetables. I've planned an outdoor shrine, and an area for bamboo to grow and give us privacy. Steve, in an astonishing turn at conventionality, has insisted upon an umbrella table.

Did I mention that this house is still being built? And that we don't know how we are going to get our ever-weakening dollars transferred over here without paying a ginormous fee? And that I met with the notary today, which is Mexico's version of a real estate lawywer, a supposed disinterested, objective party, and still don't understand the documents she drew up? Add to this that we own nothing, absolutely nothing, having sold off all our assets up north, so we will actually need to buy a house of stuff, the kind of stuff I haven't thought about since college, like mirrors and frames and silverware. Suddenly, I must acquire things, and kind of rapidly.

We're going to live on Calle Sauces, in the Reforma district, across from Tortilleria Elvis. But I know what you're really wondering--will we still have the free guest space? Yes! There is a separate guest quarters, with full bath, on the back patio. Someday, when the dust settles and I am able to sleep again, I will paint the guest room a beautiful blue, perhaps to trick our visitors into believeing that we live near the coast.

Don't Cry for Me, Genevieve

My dear Genevieve Rosa has been going to school at Colegio Teizcali for about a month. She's in maternal, the room with the toddlers and post-toddlers, whatever they are called. Pre-preschoolers?

She cries big fat tears at drop off and pick up, yet spends her days dancing and singing. The teachers, Liliana and Olgita, are so loving toward her, but rather strict with me, always kicking me out of the classroom.

And then there's the classroom. It was jarring at first, its relative emptiness. There are no tables with manipulatives or playdough or anything, really. There are art supplies, a bookshelf with about 10 books, about 20 broken-down toys, and that's it.

I was surprised because this is a private school and part of our tuition bill is for school supplies. It seemed kind of stark. But then I talked to some moms, including some expatriate moms. One of them, Liz, told me something very significant: "We're used to so much stuff. They don't really need it."

She was right. I watched Genevieve and the others. They dance together and hold hands. They get sponges and wipe down the courtyard. They walk around the classroom babbling, and follow the teachers to visit other classes and watch the older kids at work. The children are content. They don't seem to miss the toys and actually play with each other. Perhaps this is the kind of experience that makes Mexicans a more communal culture than the United States. A world away from the cult of the individual.

And the most joyful sign of Genevieve's adjustment to school is that, when we come to collect her, she is covered in paint and food and sparkles.

Home in Oaxaca

The true beauty of having a near-constant influx of houseguests is that they make you appreciate different aspects of your home and your city.

Peri dolled up our courtyard for Steve's birthday. She picked some bugambilia growing at the side of the road, added cake, saint candles, teacups, and a skull, and transformed our patio.

Likewise, our current guests have us visiting remote villages, hitting town for guitar shopping, reserving the Monte Alban ruins at nighttime for an equinox party, taking in indigenous dance at an ethnobotanical garden, dining on biodiverse local corn creations at Itanoni, checking out indigenous herbal steam baths (called temazcal) with a neighborhood healer, and sampling mole at the chocolate factories. It's a far cry from our more daily life existence of cooking, cleaning, working, and homework, and it reminds me of why we moved to Oaxaca. All the possibilities.

Everyone Loves a Carnival

My entries have been published in two blog carnivals. My "Paper Flowers" write-up is in the Carnival of the Cities and my "Market Day" piece is in Mom's Blogging Carnival. Hooray!

White Knuckles in Oaxaca

I like to obsess about money. Before we moved here, I made all sorts of charts and plans about how we could manage to get by in Oaxaca, on less income, but less expenses as well. Part of the equation involved us living off our interest without touching our principal.

Well, thank goodness that wasn't the entire equation. The U.S. economy is in the toilet, and our interest--which was supposed to generate us about $1800 per month on which to live--has dwindled to $1100 per month, and probably heading down fast.

The Fed meets Tuesday, and I can only imagine what might happen after that. The crumbling economy is a scary thing to ponder.

But this experience is teaching me to be more like Steve. He's had his own businesses for his whole adult life, and has learned to count on the ebb and flow of freelance dollars. I never understood it before, how you could depend on the unfathomable and unpredictable (it sounded like chaos theory), but now I see that what seemed like the most predictable thing--savings with interest--is far less steady than getting an influx of creative gigs. So, I got two more freelance writing gigs this week. I never saw this coming, becoming a freelance writer and, more significantly, depending upon being a freelance writer. It's a little like riding a roller coaster, fun and scary at the same time.

I must say that suddenly it also seems imperative that we buy a house here, to get rid of some of our increasingly worthless dollars and have a fixed asset. When will this craziness end? Or, when will I stop caring so much about it?

Market Day

In Oaxaca, every day is market day, you just have to go to the right neighborhood. Mercado de Abastos hops on Friday and Saturday, the same days for El Pochote. In my hick neighborhood of San Felipe del Agua, there's a small mercado in front of the church on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And, unfortunately, every day is a potential Gigante day. It is the bane of my existence that we find ourselves shopping at a big boring supermarket at least once a week, rather than going to the cheaper and better little markets. How else to score diapers, milk, yogurt smoothies, school clothes, whatnot in one fell swoop? I keep promising myself that, once the kids are older, we will shift to the market model.

This morning, I sensed the potential of Gigante approaching. So I begged Steve to walk with me to the neighborhood fruit and veggie guy before we headed home. I knew I couldn't walk all the heavy purchases up the side of the mountain without him.

He's on Calle Jacarandas, right after our favorite pizza place, Mambo Italiano. He sings all day and calls all the women, "Mi Reina", My Queen. Whenever I ask him what a particular exotic item might be, he tells me, "marijuana". It's funny for everyone in the shop every single time.

This morning, I was determined to get us enough produce to quell the Gigante demon. We tore the place up, scoring eight pears, 25 long-stemmed strawberries, a pineapple that smelled like sugar, five tiny beautiful zuchinnis, two onions, a bunch of bananas, two mangos, some unidentifiable wild-looking greens (perhaps...marijuana? I didn't dare ask.), lots of tomatoes, a chico zapote (untranslatable, as far as I know), a grapefruit the size of a small planet, and a bright bunch of squash flowers, perfect for soup. When the guy said 80 pesos (about $7.50) for the lot of it, I felt like singing with him. Then I got home and realized we're out of diapers...and toothpaste...and sunscreen. The spectre returns.

Gifted, Shmifted

I've always disliked the notion of labeling children as gifted. As a teacher, I find children excel in their individual areas, and that the ones that people like to call "gifted" just happen to excel in a certain approved of area.

That said, I am pleased to announce that Max is gifted. His area of genius is in his propensity for telling jokes. On the way home from school, he caught sight of a couple of big dummo SUVS wrangling at the intersection. He said, in a perfect Bronx Bugs Bunny accent, "Where'd those guys get their licenses--clown school?"

Well, I just couldn't have been prouder. And it was hardly diminished by the fact that Max later disclosed to me that he was merely quoting Shaggy from a "Scooby Doo" episode. After all, it's all in the timing.

Sorrows of the King

One of my favorite moments at the Pompidou Art Center in Paris is catching sight of Matisse's collage of paper cutouts.

Jenny and I learned a good museum trick from our Aunt Judy. Go at the moment of the museum's opening and race up the stairs to the top gallery, working your way backward chronologically. This way, you get some time alone with the sorrowful king.

I must reveal that Jenny was terrible in museums. She was compelled to rush from one room to the next, always wondering what was to come. And continually consulting the guidebook for relevant quips about what we were viewing. I'd implore her to just look at the art, and she said she'd be able to relax after racing through the whole collection. Then, she could return to her favorites. She was this way with books, too, often reading the ending first, so that the suspense wouldn't override her enjoyment of the earlier part of the story.

When we saw a beautiful Miro at the MOMA in New York, she lamented to me that, as soon as she left the museum, she'd begin to forget the painting. Was she doomed to return to her favorite paintings for a lifetime, to fight the forgetting? I told her to focus on one detail, sketch it in her mind, and that could hold the impact of the painting for her. It worked. And me? I've completely forgotten the painting. Perhaps some red? A fish shape? Come to think of it, we might have been at the Met.

The Persuasive Art of Rainstorms

is that they convince you that they cleanse you
of your past, the pains inflicted or received.
If I were to invite a rainstorm to a hand of cards
I'd find it difficult to bluff.
They know too much, and they take too much.

I prefer streetlights.

xoxo

To Jenny, My Sister

Jenny Makofsky

Tommorrow it's four years, and I've been taking lots of long walks so that I can have the opportunity to talk to you. I tell you how I miss you, I thank you for visiting me in my dreams (just this week there was one, and I can't remember it a bit, just that we were laughing and talking and it was easy. There were no questions about what had happened or how you had managed to find your way back into my life, everything was so free.)

February is my weakest month, where I really get to self-pitying, and I know you'd not want me going down that road. But maybe you'd let me do it a little anyway? Like what really burns me up is that it was only a month before you died that I was walking in the East Oakland hills and thinking about you and Steve and Max and I caught my breath because I realized how lucky I was. And I quickly crossed all my fingers to protect us from the Evil Eye or whatever it might be that is vengeful when you are joyful and everything's too perfect.

But there are things to be glad for. You went to Barcelona, Jenny, and stood on the roof of some Gaudi architecture. You drew a Beatniks comic strip. You wrote a one-woman show and knocked out the audience at the Climate Theater in San Francisco (not to mention 21 Grand in Oakland and The Works in San Jose). You helped raise little Max and make him a lover of stories. You sang "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" at Grandpa Abe's funeral, when I couldn't even speak. You drank tea with Steve on the afternoon you died, and laughed with delight over the gay marriages in San Francisco. You wore gorgeous glittery hair clips and big black boots. So many people loved you and were lucky to know you.

When Grandpa died, you told me that the responsibility was on us to carry on his political work and recreate his energy for social justice. And then you left, too. What happens to all your stories and everything you helped to make so poetic and glowing?

I just wrote in your guestbook about tomorrow. Tomorrow we're going to Hierve el Agua, the petrified waterfalls outside of Oaxaca, where you ate too many tamales 10 years ago. I still have the picture of you and Steve and I that Abby took. We're laid flat along a crevice in the rocks where, deep underneath, water was flowing. That's how I try to think of you, somewhere beyond the surface of this shallow world, moving, changing, maybe singing, and if my mind could just make that leap in understanding the potential of the physical universe, I'd be there, too.

Bringing Down the Evil Louis Vuitton Empire

My story, "My Life is a Charade", about Jenny and I getting accidentally caught up in a Louis Vuitton handbag reselling ring in Paris, won story of the month at Expat Women! You can see the site and my story here.

The Great Wide Open

I think "The Great Wide Open" is actually a song by Tom Petty but, these days, it's the soundtrack of my life. With Genevieve at school (sort of) in the mornings and no teaching hours, I decided to make a go of finding and applying for some freelance writing gigs.

Well, in the past week, I've secured two new ongoing jobs as well as a great assignment from an old faithful source. So it happens that, all of a sudden, I enter a new phase of my life. I should say "I back into a new phase of my life" because, since Jenny died, everything feels kind of accidental, like I'm responding to things rather than initiating things.

It's coming up on the four-year anniversary of the accident. My dad's visiting from Beijing, which is nice because he has a way of bringing Jenny back to me, the way he's a fuzzy-visioned, argumentative genius. His multiple backpacks are just jammed full of stuff and there are papers everywhere--it's so like living with Jenny.

Last week, we went to see "Across the Universe" and Dad and I sat in the theater singing Beatles songs. I thought, this is the kind of thing I'd only have done with Jenny but here I am, sitting in the dark singing even though she's been away from me for four years. Who knows? Maybe she was sitting behind us, throwing popcorn at us to get us to quiet down, though more likely she would have been singing along.

First Day

Today, we dropped off Genevieve at school for the first time. She's 2 years, 5 months, and she just seemed very sick of her parents, so we thought we'd give this a try. Though the staff of our neighborhood park's playroom wanted her to attend their daycare, Max was incensed and insisted she attend the daycare at his school, Colegio Teizcali.

This morning as we straggled around retrieving backpacks and diapers, Max was micro-managing: "Did you pack Jenny's little yogurt cup?" "Did you put in enough diapers?" "She needs water, you know." It was actually pleasant having a third parent around, nagging me.

We walked the kids to school and then--I couldn't believe it--they said to just leave Genevieve, not to stay. It seemed crazy. All the daycares I've known in the U.S. have you stay the first day and even half of the second day. Sometimes there seems to be more parents than children in the classroom! But they said that Jenny seemed okay and that she would adjust better without us. I thought I misunderstood the Spanish, so I checked again. And again. And again. Until they just laughed at us.

So we left, and then the tears came. Mine.

Never Can Say Goodbye

I'm feeling sad tonight, because it was my last night of work teaching at the Cambridge Academy. It was so difficult to say goodbye to my students, who I'd grown attached to. There were so many little in jokes, like how my teen class wondered whatever happened to Hugo, the boy who asked to go to the bathroom and never came back. We always told each other to check for Hugo when we went to the bathroom. Three of my teen students brought me a giant ceramic candle holder with glitter and statuary, just the most classic teacher gift ever. Some things transcend cultural boundaries, and this candle holder is the last in a long line of jokey mugs, off-brand stuffed animals, and battered jewelry. My adult students all gave me kisses on the cheek and told me how I had helped them.

And to think this all came down due to a measly three hours a week! Because I taught only 16 hours instead of 19 hours, the powers-that-be decided not to pay for my work visa. Ah, you know how it is--you take on emergency shifts, you substitute for friends who need to go out of town, but, when it comes down to it, the administration worms out of paying whenever it can.

It's a shame because I know I was an effective teacher. On the other hand, the school doesn't need effective teachers, just teachers, so I was quite expendable.

So I've found other work now. Online work that may or may not pan out, but I am open to the next adventure. Just a little sad at the same time.

Dr. Manuelita and the Crystal Pendulum

I've never seen anyone write about how many colds you can catch when you move to a new country, confronting some new types of germs. It's ironic, because the winter is so gorgeously beautiful here, with highs in the 70s and 80s, and our whole family's had one thing or another passing around since Day of the Dead. It doesn't help that poor baby Genevieve seems to be going through her cycle of colds, just like Max did at her age. It's so challenging to be sick in a foreign county. We can't find our favorite remedies; we have no family around to help us; we can't always understand what doctors recommend.

As much as we hated to do it, we had Jenny on antibiotics in October and then in January. Of course, they didn't help her at all. And then my dear friend Gabby told me about Dr. Manuelita.

She's in one of the most simple yet beautiful little courtyard buildings I've ever seen, on Calle Humboldt, near Llano Park. A little signboard outside signals that it's a homeopathic pharmacy.

But what gives Dr. Manuelita the honor of this Harry Potter-sounding blog post title? Her crystal pendant which she swings like a pendulum, North-South then East-West, over a piece of paper with the patient's name written on it.

As she rotates the crystal she describes the patient's trouble. In Jenny's case, her whole bronchial system was suffering and she needed something to strengthen her immune system. Jenny was delighted with the news, or perhaps the pendulum, and decided to sing and dance for the doctor.

Then, Dr. Manuelita and her assistant labored for an extraordinary long amount of time to type up tiny labels that said "JENNY" and apply them to seven tiny bottles of pills and a dispenser of drops. Jenny was to take four from bottle one, wait an hour, then four from bottle two, and so on, until she ran through all the medicine.

That night, she didn't wake up shrieking at midnight and require watching The Teletubbies to chill her out. And, in the morning, Steve was allowed to walk away from her without causing her to cry. She was happy, playful, energetic--just like the old Jenny.

Next October, as winter approaches, the whole family's going in for the crystal pendulum treatment.

Max and the Baby Jesus

Well, here we are, atheists adrift in Christian-landia, for it is Three Kings Day, the day of the Epiphany. I should begin, though, by saying that this year was my first experience of this holiday traditions, and I loved it.

All over Mexico, people are baking and sharing the Rosca de Reyes, which is a round, sweet bread with candied fruits, sort of like fruitcake. There are little plastic baby Jesus dolls inside the cake, representing the need for the baby Jesus to be hidden to be protected.

Each guest slices into the cake and examines his or her piece to see if the baby Jesus is inside. Well, there we were at our neighbor's store and, wouldn't you know it, Max scored the baby Jesus. He paraded through the street holding the tiny, eerily white baby over his head. Receiving it means good luck for the year!

Receiving the baby also means that Max is the money behind a party he must organize on February 2nd. The Feast of the Candelaria requires Max hosting a tamale party and putting up the funds to purchase tamales for everyone who was present at the cake-slicing.

By afternoon today, the zocalo was jumping with Three Kings chaos. Blocks in four directions were closed and filled with market stalls. I saw many many wonderful things, such as wrestler dolls in a wrestling ring; Pink Panther patches; three tostadas for a dollar; light-up roller skates; and Powerpuff Girl socks (purchased!).

There were calenda processions in the zocalo and, to Max's delight, cascarones-smashing. Max loves buying these eggs filled with confetti and then cracking them on our heads. I have to admit, the day felt...lucky.

First joke of 2008

Overheard:

"I accidentally put on my underpants with a sock in them, so it looks like I had a big poop."

Books to look forward to...

Now that Maxito reads in Spanish, I am trying to read to him in English every night, from books that are beyond his picture books. So we began with "Pippi Longstocking" which, with the cultural stereotyping edited out by me, was enjoyable.

Next up was "Alice in Wonderland" and tonight we finish "Through the Looking Glass" (a little tedious, though I have always liked "The Walrus and the Carpenter". The chapters run long and there are too many parenthentical asides. I wonder if I should be critiquing parentheticals when I am within one?).

Then he will choose our next book, probably "Mary Poppins" (which, if I recall, will also require some editing) or "The House at Pooh Corner". I keep trying to sell my personal favorite, "Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth" by the almighty E.L. Konigsburg (who can forget "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler"?), but so far Max is not persuaded. Other possibilities: "The Wizard of Oz", one of Jenny's folklore collections, or "Sideways Stories from Wayside School". Or, the Bible...ha!

POSTSCRIPT:
Well, here it is two days later, and I thought I should update this post to share Max's choice. "Garfield Takes the Cake". Not exactly what I was aiming for.

A New Year in Mexico

You know it's New Year's Eve, or New Year's Day, or Christmas, or Dia de Independencia, or the week before them, or the week after them, when you hear bomb-level fireworks going off around here up until 2am and starting again around 5:30am. And so it is New Year's Eve, and Max demanded that we all wear yellow underpants because his Boing! Boing! magazine said that would bring money in the year to come.

Another tradition around here is to eat 12 grapes as the clock strikes 12 and to make 12 wishes for the New Year. So we all ate raisins around 7pm. I imagine that, if our wishes come to fruition, they may be dried out renditions of the original wishes because of the raisin substitution. So, instead of world peace, perhaps we'd get a treaty signed or something. And my wish/resolution to write every day might be watered down to writing grocery lists or emails. Not that I'm complaining. I'd love the raisin version of my wishes to come true.

How to get to Yagul

Yagul is a rather remote, less-visited archaeological site that is on the road to Mitla, which is a more major site. To get to Yagul, you take a MITLA bus from the second-class bus station, by the Mercado de Abastos. You ask the driver to let you off at Yagul, and then you climb up the mountain to the ruins, about 1.3 miles.

That's one way to get to Yagul, and how I did it 10 years ago. Another way is to wait forever for the bus and decide to rent a car and drive there, which is what Steve and Max did today, to my chagrin, because the car rental negated the money we were earning for getting the photographs.

But Steve tells me Yagul is as dramatically beautiful and eerie as ever. There is a labyrinth in the center, and the mammoth cliffsides around, all seeming to have faces and skulls carved into their recesses.

How do you bring back the dead?

I've been reflecting on the philosophy that, during Day of the Dead, the veil between this world and the afterlife is lifted, and the dead visit altars dedicated to them. I've always made altars for loved ones, especially for Jenny. I try to follow some of the traditions, incorporating flowers, candles, foods, water, pictures, and mementos. And I add my own elements, like alebrijes, paintings, favorite books, masks, vinyl tablecloths, Max's drawings, tissue-paper roses, and medallions from bread of the dead.

But it's an atheist's altar, beautiful and, in some ways, meaningless. It's a hedge, too, just in case I'm wrong about my belief that there is no afterlife. I know, though, that, if she could, Jenny would only visit something that I deeply believed in, so I've explored some options.

I rented a DVD from Netflix on how to communicate with the dead. They recommended writing a question and meditating on the the dead person and, somehow, the answer will appear. I went to Ecstactic Dance and tried the same thing--posing a question to Jenny at the beginning of class and hoping for some kind of inspiration in her voice, her persona during the class.

Recently, though, I rediscovered the best way to bring Jenny back. We were on a long drive and I started to sing to pass the time. The songs were all Jenny, all her silly fantastic Ethel Merman operatic ballyhoo and pathos and hilarity. It was her "Scrappy Doo" song, sung to the tune of "Desperado". And the themes to "Mary Tyler Moore" and "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". Old-timey stuff like "Red River Valley", "You are My Sunshine", and "Clementine". Jenny had a way of belting out a story song--"Killing Me Softly" "I Will Survive" even, sort of, "Like a Prayer". She always sang loudly, which made up for our shared trait of lack of staying on key.

So, I'll lift the veil and bring back a little of Jenny tonight. Here are the lyrics to her "Scrappy Doo" song. You must sing it loudly, to the tune of "Desperado":

Scrappy Doo, when will you stop chasing crim'nals?
And start singing hymnals,
Just like you used to do?
Scrappy Doo, you've got that pu-u-ppy power
to catch crim'nals by the hour...
But have you forgotten Saint Jude?
Scrappy Doo, you have left me in a lu-urch
So get your dog ass back to chu-urch
What do I have to do?
Scrappy Doo, when will you stop chasing crim'nals?
And start singing hy-y-y-ymnals...
Just like you used to do?
Scrappy...don't.

Los Arquitos

My new favorite neighborhood in Oaxaca is Los Arquitos, or The Archways. It is a colonia located beneath and behind the city's old aqueduct. All sorts of secrets hide beyond the archways, like the Friday and Saturday El Pochote organic market. Steve and I scored a couple lovely plates of fresh vegetarian enchiladas in mole sauce, for about four dollars.

There is also a free film series which, someday, I will attend.

Steve and I wound through several of the alleys in an attempt to find a house for sale. No such luck, but we did meet some friendly neighbors who admired Jenny's wild hair.

Looking for the Light

When things go wrong around here, it exhausts me. It's not just the language that gets in the way, but figuring out how things are done.

Last Sunday, turning on the coffee maker caused all the power in the house to go off. And stay off. We called our landlord's assistant and they immediately sent a maintenance man (on a moto) to check it out. On a Sunday afternoon. So I was feeling very fortunate for how things work in Mexico, with people available immediately on a Sunday afternoon.

The problem was, Juan Carlos couldn't fix it. He tried and tried, scaling the side of our house and teetering along the roof by the wires. He plugged and unplugged things. He removed fuses and changed them. He took apart the refrigerator. He called around and decided we needed a new...something...it looked like a cable in a box. He asked if I could get one and I said I probably couldn't because, well, how could I? And what would I do with it if I got one, anyway?

So we tipped him and he returned the next day with the thing. But still it didn't work. We had half our lights and no refrigerator.

Four days later, all our food went bad and stinky and I felt a little desperate. In the darkness of the late afternoon, we accidentally locked ourselves out of our own bathroom and had no key. Max was doing homework outdoors, trying to catch the last rays of sun.

The mommies at Max's school, who I cherish and who love to advise and chide me (thank goodness), told me I would have to visit The Commission. Oh god, I didn't like the sound of that. It's the Electric Company, but Mexican government style, surrounded by guys with big guns.

Instead I called my landlord's staff again. They said to be patient. I went next door to the little store I love that is attached to our house. I shared my troubles with Julita, the proprietress, who said, "For the rent you're paying, you should get better service."

She gossiped about my difficulties to a neighbor, who took it upon herself to come over and instruct me in how to call The Commission. Which I did. The repairman came within an hour of the call. He backed his immense truck and crane into our driveway, trotted up to the wires, and had all our power on in five minutes. And just like the difficulty of having no electricity had loomed so large in my life for five days, having it fixed seemed nothing short of a miracle. Even though, all told, I had involved twelve people in my problem. Gossip--that's my kind of Google.

Dead Head

It's Dead season around here, and I'm lucky to have a 6-year-old son who can show me the ropes for some of the more key traditions. First: chocolate. Oaxaca is known for its chocolate factories, and they hit full hum around Muertos. The chocolate is other-wordly--perhaps that's why it's put on altars. At the factory, you can see the cinnamon, chile powders, nuts and such that they add to the various flavors. I also love to see the mole sauces, many made with unsweetened chocolate and ground pumpkin seeds.

We had a feast at Max's school. It was very challenging to stop myself from eating a mountain of tamales, pumpkin in cinnamon sauce, arroz con leche, homemade chocolates, and fresh tortillas in mole. All of this at an elementary school party; it really puts my old days of hot cheetos and Hawaiian punch to shame.

There was a calaveras poem contest where the children had to write about their dead selves. Although it sounds macabre, the children find this practice very entertaining. Max: Habia un calavera Maxito, quien fue bien chiquito. Tuvo un gatito que tambien fue calavercito.

Oaxaca is trying very hard to woo tourists back and had many extra frills for Muertos this time around. The zocalo was the stage for a series of altars, each representing different regions. And there was a giant sand tapete, essentially a brilliant painting done in sand, flowers, seeds, and glitter, depicting Frida Kahlo, in the grand Municipal Palace.

We made visits to a couple of cemetaries and set up an altar for Jenny. I made sure it has popcorn and Mayordomo chocolate. Max added an orange and marbles. The cemetaries were filled with families and flowers, orange and maroon, flickering candles, copal incense, little framed pictures of saints, and children drinking soda and running around the gravestones.

Riding the bus home last night, I thought about how I have happened upon one of the world's most beautiful places, at one of my favorite times. It's such good fortune that I sometimes feel as if I am rising out of my body, like I can't quite touch the ground. Jenny called it "living life like you're in a movie", and she was right.

Just because you wear a sexy bikini doesn't mean you don't have gas

Genevieve had a fever, so we took our first foray into the Mexican health system. That's right, a visit to Farmacia Similares, also known in these parts as "Dr. Simi", a chain of pharmacies with doctors on staff who will do instant consulations.

It was Sunday afternoon when we circumnavigated the giant inflatable doctor and arrived at the closed door of the pharmacy. "Why did I think it would be open?" I asked Steve, and then decided to ask at the drug counter if there were any doctors on staff. The women told me to knock at the door and wait.

A few minutes later, Dr. Simi (really Mario) popped his head out and invited us in. He interviewed me extensively--using far too many irregular verbs and indirect objects--about Genevieve's symptoms and then went into rapid-fire explanation about what he was going to do if I could only, unblame him please, wait five minutes, unblame him, while he ran over to the store.

While we cooled our heels, I inspected the room and found an interesting framed certificate on the wall. "Steve, our doctor is licensed to kill cockroaches, fleas, flies, and mosquitos." Alas, it wasn't so--the room had recently been fumigated and received a certificate of approval.

But Steve was otherwise absorbed with the Dr. Simi advertisement hanging from the ceiling. It was a cardboard mobile of a sexy bikini lady sitting next to an inflatable Dr. Simi. In the corner was a small box of medicine for indigestion. "This," decided Steve, "was the low point of her career."

Dr. Simi came back with batteries for the ear inspection tool and spent a long time peering into screaming Jenny's ears, checking her pulse, listening to her breathe (and scream), taking her temperature, all the while asking about her sleeping, eating, drinking.

In the end, he wrote two pages about Jenny's little cold and reviewed the information with me. He jotted down his home number in case Jenny got sick during the night and I wanted him to pop by. He warned me, though, that his mom might answer the phone, but that she would be sure to give him any messages.

Then we paid him the 25 pesos ($2.50) for the visit. We love you, Dr. Simi!

Walking with the Bulls

I'm not the Ernest Hemingway type (though Jenny always cited a favorite Hemingway passage about his lamenting eating hot french fries too soon and burning the roof of his mouth, but being unable to wait for them to cool down). And the whole "Running of the Bulls" tradition in Pamplona is unappealing to me.

But, yesterday, as I was taking a shortcut to get to Maxito's school, I found myself on a dirt alleyway facing a couple of bulls. It was somewhat astonishing to see them on the open road, rather than behind a fence or in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Bulls! They are massive and extremely muscular--I certainly entertained the idea of running away.

Then I saw the man walking alongside them. He fell into step next to me and began a conversation. So it was that I wound up walking with the bulls to get to Max's school. They pulled at roadside vegetation as they walked, dragging down branches, even uprooting small plants. Sometimes they wandered into the middle of the cobblestone road and, once, they kicked up a little dust trying to chase a red VW van that chugged by.

As my party and I approached Colegio Teizcali, the man pointed to a pasture, filled with detritus and bramble and barbed wire. He told me he and the bulls were heading through the pasture and, if I wanted to, I could join them. He assured me that it was a short cut. I looked at gnarly tangles of roving weeds tied around bits of trash and thought of how Hemingway and company were so macho and bold on those winding thoroughfares of Pamplona. But I'm no Heminway. I took the long way.

The Teachings of Don Juan

Now here is something I remember from living in Mexico before. You become desperate for casual reading material. So it has come to pass that Steve and I are both reading old paperback copies of Carlos Castaneda books about...transcendence? Vision?

I'm halfway through mine, in a chapter about water rats, but my mind keeps wandering. Ah, but maybe Don Juan wants it to wander because it is in that sideways movement of thought that you encounter the great epiphany!

I'm excited to report that I've just unearthed a couple of Vanity Fair magazines, and one of them is from 2006--pretty recent! In the meantime, Steve has shared one of Don Juan's teachings from A Separate Reality in which our protagonist expresses fear of eating street food in case he gets sick. Don Juan responds, "Once you decided to come to Mexico, you should have put all your petty fears away."

Agua Fresca

When our big move to Oaxaca got put off due to my diagnosis, I felt my strength flowing away from me, like water. It was if I had lost the power to decide what to do with my own life. We were put in the position of waiting and wishing but never knowing what was going to happen.

So I began visualizing agua fresca to transcend the confusion. I saw myself walking down the cobblestone streets of Oaxaca, going through the stucco arches of La Michoacana, approaching the counter, and looking into the silver tubs of "fruit water" to choose my flavor. That's what I used to do 10 years ago, and that's what I planned to do again, as soon as I could get back. It was a kind of promise to myself.

Yesterday, we were on our way to Benito Juarez market because I had somehow misplaced all my shoes and my flip flops were wearing dangerously thin. Shoes in Mexico are quite a conundrum for me because I wear Size 11, just freakishly big for Mexico. We were almost at the market entrance when Steve said, "Let's stop for agua fresca."

There it was--La Michoacana, home of the vision that had carried me through a lot of self-doubt. And they had agua de jamaica, one of my favorite flavors. It seemed as if they had just been waiting for me all along.

From Oaxaca

I titled this entry "From Oaxaca" because that's where I'm writing it from, and because it's now where I'm from. I can't believe the moments leading up to our coming here:

1. A mastectomy with a little added surprise--removal of all my lymph nodes because the sentinel node had two borderline miscroscopic foci of cancer. Madonna really said it best: "Borderline, feels like I'm going to lose my mind" because I keep almost having invasive cancer and almost having complications, but no test really commits. But they "round up" on my diagnosis and go for more aggressive treatment.

2. Coming down off the Vicodan a couple weeks later, I picked a fight with Steve at a new vegan restaurant called Nutshell. What a shame to D.T. at a cute cafe with wall-sized paintings of Bigfoot painted by...Bigfoot. We're trying to be vegan-ish now because milk products are some vile stuff according to my favorite book on cancer, The China Study, given to me by Andrea, one of my wonderful Portland friends.

3. We got our asses kicked at the Mexican consulate in Portland and couldn't get our FM3 documents to live in Mexico. So, like many who have preceded us, we will attempt to get the papers in Oaxaca instead.

4. Our car did not sell until 10 hours before our flight out of the country.

But now we're here. In less than a week, we've enrolled Maxito at Colegio Teizcali for first grade, stood in the long line at Provedora on Independencia with his list of school supplies, met my future employer, made some new friends, met some old friends, visited the Zocalo, stalked the location of our apartment from 10 years ago, went to our old favorite veggie restaurant El Manantial, and, most importantly, found a favorite produce stall and staked out a lady selling fresh tortillas, both near Max's school.

I'm already feeling the pull of daily life redefined. We rush around, do typical over-planning, worry over trivialities, but it's all in Spanish and it's all in Mexico.

Our adventures to come: Steve finishes covering all 7 of Max's required notebooks (of different sizes, with different interior papers) with the required yellow laminated paper; I locate some agua fresca de tuna fruit; Genevieve turns 1 and spends the day wrestling and high-fiving; Max runs up some pyramids at Monte Alban.

My deep gratitude goes out to all who showered me with love and support during this dramatic month. You brought me here, to Oaxaca!

Another Test before Oaxaca

What I want to know is who started that metaphor of fighting cancer? It's in my body, and I don't want to fight my body.

I want to take the cancer cells to tea and talk to them about the situation. Could you just sit there, in the ducts, not doing anything? I won't burn you and you won't go forth and multiply.

Megan said that, when she worked at Hospice, a patient told her he visualized a gnome in his body, stacking the cancer cells in his arms and carrying them out of his body.

She said maybe I could imagine a Swiffer sweeping the cells away. Yeah, I do love Swiffer. But have you ever noticed that those microfiber pads don't really clean? Try Swiffering the floor, changing the cloth, and then Swiffering again. The second cloth comes up dirty.

And breast tissue can't be dirty. That's what I've learned in the past whip-fast week and a half, when I had one foot out the door to go to Mexico and found myself at Kaiser for a routine appointment.

My aunt had said that I was supposed to get a mammogram when I turned 40. I had an extra hour between my appointment at Kaiser and when the prescriptions were going to be called in, so I wandered over to the mammogram dept. to make an appointment. I didn't think they'd get me in before August 4th, my date of Oaxaca departure, but I thought I'd try.

"Your lucky," the receptionist said. "We've just had a cancellation. Come back in 15 minutes and come on in."

I did and they did it and the next day they called me and since then I'm on a whirlwind tour of stage zero microcalcifications which cover my mammogram film like a starry sky. It could fool you into thinking it was beautiful.

Tomorrow is my surgery. But that's not what I want to write about. I want to thank that woman, wherever she is, who cancelled her appointment for her mammogram. You may have saved my life, and you have certainly saved me much trouble and sorrow. I'm sending you my gratitude and also my wish that you never have a starry sky inside you.

We sold the house, and nearly everything in it. We are reducing our lives to checkable luggage, USPS M-bags for books, and 10 boxes to ship to Oaxaca.

Sometimes I wonder if Steve and I are just too similar, egging each other on to greater and greater adventures, with no one to check us. It's not the worst thing, I guess.

Today was our 10th yard sale, tomorrow our 11th. Then, we cart stuff away and sell the car that carted it.

I have a lot I could worry about, like how I still haven't received my renewed passport, so we can't finish our residency applications at the Mexican consulate. And how Genevieve, having finally begun walking at 21 months, has now been targeted for speech therapy (but does say uh-oh, wow, look, dat, mama, dada, mimi, bubba, woof, hello, uh uh, no, and vroom to distraction). And how my Oaxacan teaching job I was semi-offered is seeming more and more semi rather than offered.

But I turn 40 tomorrow, which means I transcend much of these piddling concerns because I'm tougher and more free! I have glittery lavender toenails, am writing a movie, and ate Peruvian tapas for dinner. There is no need to stay up wondering about the highest interest rates on savings accounts and finding a charming rental in San Felipe del Agua...

Send in the Clowns

There are milestones in life and, while Maxito graduating kindergarten was lovely and unbelievable (and came complete with the cute performances and the cake riot), his graduation, last week, from Clown Camp was monumental. You can see him getting his groove on in these photos.

It is increasingly clear how much of Steve I can see in Max. It was Steve who, while shaking his thing at a Dirty Dozen Brass Band concert, inspired one of the musicians to shout, "That boy's got a rhythm all his own!" Right on.

A Blur of Birthdays

Jenny's birthday is tomorrow, and I'm trying to remember 34 years of celebrations past.

She called May her "birthday month" and wanted to go out to dinner as much as possible. In recent years, it was Spettro or Dona Tomas or Cha Cha Cha or TiCouz or Cafe de la Paz.

When we were little, we celebrated with pinatas, treasure hunts, peanut hunts, and cakes with those ballerinas-in-tutus candle holders. We'd play Spanking Machine, Hot Potato, and Strut, Miss Lizzy.

There was the dark year when, in a fit of jealousy, I scratched her "Free to Be You and Me" record that she got for her birthday, reducing "The Helping Song" to "Some kinda help, some kinda help, some kinda help..." I spent years trying to find the replacement LP, which she finally scored at a Friends of the Library sale.

For her sweet 16, I rented out the multipurpose room at our condo complex in Santa Rosa, The Land that Time Forgot, and threw her a surprise party. Ants attacked the cake. Mr. Crutchfield, the grouchy manager, got very anal over Jenny's lovely friends wreaking havoc with the swimming pool rules (had we learned nothing from his response to the shampoo in the jacuzzi incident?).

Nana would cook Jenny a homemade lemon meringue pie, which I found grody.

There were at least a couple of quick Mexico trips as birthday presents. During one, she parasailed over Mazatlan while mamacita drowned her worries in a Coco Loco. We typically enjoyed a birthday repast at El Shrimp Bucket.

We always managed a spring/summer house party in Oakland, usually with the cocktail of the moment (a while back it was Mojitos) and tiki decorations. Steve's artist buddy Jeff Roysden would stay late and wax rhapsodic over current obsessions ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or painting rocks), and then we'd send him home with the leftover booze.

One of my favorites might have been the most recent. We hiked to the waterfalls and swam under them. We sat on the sunny rocks and ate white peaches, which was my way of admitting I was wrong in our argument about there no longer being any good peaches in the world.

Jenny loved a party and lots of public attention. She was the type to wear a crown (actually, when she was little, a tiara and a faux fur stole) on her birthday, to broadcast the uniqueness of the day to as many people as possible. Whenever I meet a May 27th Gemini--and I've known a few--I know she is going to be a very punk rock individual. Feliz cumpleanos to my righteous, ass-kicking sister! Nobody is as brave as you were. I know that if you were here right now, we'd be laughing about something.

D.E.P. Jose Fernando Pedraza

Anti-immigrant sentiment is so deeply ugly, and the incident reported in the following press release makes me feel such shame for this country.

PRESS RELEASEFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEMay 6, 2007
CONTACTS:Suzanne Foster: 310-486-8499Jose Calderon: 909-952-1640Veronica Federovsky: 818-515-0782.
Day Laborer Leader Killed During a Minutemen Protest in Rancho Cucamonga
WHAT: Press ConferenceWHERE: Corner of Arrow Highway and Grove Avenue, Rancho Cucamonga, CADATE: Monday, May 7, 2007TIME: 11 a.m.
On Saturday, May 5, 2007, José Fernando Pedraza, a day laborer, was struck and killed by a vehicle on the corner of Arrow Highway and Grove Avenue in Rancho Cucamonga, California. At around 12:30 p.m., two vehicles collided in the intersection, causing one to veer into the day laborer corner. Several workers were hit; two sustained minor injuries. José Fernando Pedraza was airlifted to a nearby hospital but died from his injuries. Though day laborers are typically not looking for work at that time of day, Pedraza and workers were present yesterday because the Minutemen and members of Save Our State, anti-immigrant, vigilante groups, were staging a protest against them.
José Fernando Pedraza, 57, leaves behind many friends and loved ones. He was the father of five children and the grandfather of seven. In the last five years, José Fernando was a leader at the day laborer corner, mentoring young day laborers. He fought tirelessly for the creation of a day laborer center. He attended several meetings of the Rancho Cucamonga city council to advocate for a day labor center and joined in numerous marches in the region to support the legalization of immigrant workers. The day laborers have lost a brother, a friend and a leader.
We are all deeply saddened over this tragedy. Day laborers and community members will come together on Monday to express their outrage and frustration that they continue to be targeted by groups such as the Minutemen and Save Our State. As one of Fernando’s fellow day laborers and friends, Carlos Mendez, stated, ” This would never have happened if we did not have to be there to respond to the Minutemen.” He continued, “This would never have happened if the City had provided us with a safe space to stand and look for work. It should not take a death to push the City to provide us with a day laborer center.”
The accident in Rancho Cucamonga is an example of the precarious reality for day laborers across the country. Vigilante groups, whose members shout insults at workers and use intimidation tactics to discourage employers from hiring them, routinely target day laborer corners and centers. Of high concern to the workers and their organizations in Rancho Cucamonga is the fact that the frequent protests by the vigilante groups cause a chaotic environment, potentially distracting drivers and leading to accidents such as Saturday’s deadly incident.
The strongly anti-immigrant nature of Save Our State and the Minutemen protests create aclimate of violence and hostility that encourage hate crimes against day laborers and migrants in general. Last week, a newly opened day laborer center in Gaithersburg MD, was targeted by arsonists and in the fall of 2006, day laborers at a center in Laguna Beach, California were injured when two individuals drove a car through the center’s property attempting to run down workers. Day laborers and their organizations also fear an increase in violence in the aftermath of the repressive tactics that the Los Angeles Police Department used during the May Day march and rally at McArthur Park. Groups also fear an escalation of violence, hate crimes and hate incidents as federal legislators engage in the immigration debate in Washington DC in mid-May.
Day laborers and their advocates call for an end to the hostilities against day laborers in Rancho Cucamonga and throughout the country. We demand that Minutemen and Save Our State members end their demonstrations against innocent workers whose only crime is to look for an honest day of work. If at all, day laborers are the victims of injustice, they don’t cause any harm to anyone in the community. Day laborers and their organizations demand a detailed investigation of the incident. We also demand that the City of Rancho Cucamonga establishes a day laborer center for workers and employers to meet and carry out their negotiations in peace and harmony with the community.
To the vigilante groups, day laborers and their organizations send a message of peace and reconciliation. We don’t hate you but we don’t fear you either. End hatred and hostilities now.
As part of the healing process, day laborers, their organizations and allies will join together in an ecumenical service on Tuesday, May 8, 2007 at 11 am to mourn José Fernando Pedraza’s tragic, untimely and unnecessary death. Press is welcome at this service.
A Bank Account is being established for donations for the family of José Pedraza. The account number will be announced tomorrow during the press conference.
José Pedraza Vive!

Full of herself

My baby Genevieve is a wild thing. She loves to steal underwear, pull it over her head, and crawl around with her vision blocked. She growls at me if I take the underwear away. Then she tries to scale Max's slide to his loft bed, with his Sponge Bob underpants in her teeth. She loves getting away with things.

Which is why I feel for her, still not walking. She's nearly 21 months old and demands my pinky for support as she dashes around. If I withdraw my finger from her grasp, she collapses to the floor and flails around, grasping for it.

For a long time, it didn't bother me. I've never believed in rushing children and I know they have their unique gifts and qualities. But there was a girl today, a month younger, running all around, climbing on benches, scooting off and I felt almost ashamed that Genevieve was so incapacitated comparitively.

I know she wants it. No, that's not right. It's as if she thinks she is walking, dragging me around with her. She's so content. She loves clapping, jumping on Max's head, rolling on the lawn with her daddy, blowing kisses. She loves herself. I'm trying to let that suffice, for now.

Fired by My Therapist

It was about a month-and-a-half ago. I was galavanting around Queens seeing "Not What Not to Wear" in the Bad Ass Shorts Festival. But, back in Portland, another drama was unfolding. My Grief Group had a mild confrontation with my therapist regarding time management issues. And the discussion turned emotional. Eventually, my therapist said that the group could do just fine without her, and that we should meet without her.

I came back into town with messages from the group members. I emailed my therapist, but she didn't respond. I never heard from her again. It made me wonder--who does that? I mean, what if someone had trust issues, or was deeply depressed, or suicidal? I also wondered if maybe she had done this before, with other clients.

I think I was disappointed because the three year anniversary of Jenny's death had just passed, and she thought it was fine to just scoot away. But I have realized it actually is fine. I have continued to see the women in the Grief Group, and we are now in a kind of hybrid Soul Collage/Grief/Star Chart group. And I took some of my sadness about three years without Jenny to Ecstactic Dance, and have had some questions answered while whirling around and peering out the windows. I'm finding there are multiple ways of exorcising the demons (or, perhaps, exercising them!)...

I'm it...

I got tagged by Dishy Duds, and here's what I now must do:

1. Someone tags you.
2. You post five things about yourself that you haven’t already mentioned on your blog.
3. You tag people you’d like to know more about.

Here's the five things:
1. I have deep phone phobia.
2. I am an Ecstatic fanatic! I have been doing the Ecstactic Dance thing (though I stop short of writhing on the floor or going nudie).
3. I am a big eater, and I haunt Extra MSG.
4. I obsess about money.
5. My favorite scene in any movie is when people walk into an unfurnished room, and it's crystalline shining empty gorgeous. I always think that's the life I want.

I tag:
Steve
Clara
Ben

Ya me voy

To the left is Max's work of art, a cartoony version of a Mexican altar. He walked down Alberta Street trying to sell it during the Last Thursday Art Walk. He had takers, but I refused to let it go.

It looks like we're in fast-forward getting ready to move to Mexico. Over the past few months, I have found incredible resources for preparing to move the family to Oaxaca, and I thought I'd share some of them for anyone else trying the same thing:

Getting ready for the move:
Rolly Brook gives all the details on applying for visas, moving your junk, and bringing all the right documents. He also kindly responds to emails.

For working and daily life questions:
I haunt the Mexico boards at Dave's ESL Cafe. They meander on about all sorts of delights, such as where to score olive oil, how to flake out of a teaching contract, and where to find the best airline deals.

For grumpy but ultimately helpful advice:
The retirees at MexConnect have kicked my ass more than once but at least I can outrun some of them...The discussion boards are meticulously detailed and address issues as diverse as medical insurance, monthly bills, favorite books about Mexico, and nailing the best exchange rate. The secret to all these discussion boards is the behind-the-scenes information you glean after posting a public message. Everyone starts PM-ing you with inside pointers, especially if they pity how poorly you're being treated on the forum. I've had to take my old advice I used to give my students and "rise above" a number of times.

For rose-colored-glasses swooning:
Well, I always find fiction can communicate more of the feeling of a place than guidebooks can and one of the better Mexico expatriate novels I've read is Harriet Doerr's Consider This, Senora.

Bad Cop

Last Wednesday, a 2:10pm, I was driving north from Burnisde toward Lloyd Center when I saw a cop car blocking the left lane. As I passed on the right, I saw the cop pushing a young guy against the street. He had the guy in cuffs, he had backup, he had the guy face down, yet he continued to pull on the guy's elbow in a way that looked like he was dislocating it.

I was driving by, and I felt helpless. I unrolled my window and stopped for as long as I could, to bear witness. When the cop adjusted his grip, I could see the white fingerprint marks left behind on the guy's skin, and still he was pushing, pushing his damn elbow.

There's a million stories out there, I know, about who might have been wrong, who might have been right, but the story in my head had me wondering who I could call to intervene. Certainly not the cops. And I fantasized about a bad cop service, a person with a van that would rush to the scene and know all the right things to say and do, rather than just roll down the window and, later, blog about it.

New York!

My play "Not What Not to Wear" is premiering in New York right now! All right, it's not Broadway. It's not even off-Broadway.

BUT--what if a theater bigwig just happens to be driving through Queens and her car breaks down and she straggles into the Creek and the Cave Mexican restaurant, only to find that the basement holds a stage and that stage is home to Ratutu Collaborative's Bad Ass Shorts Festival, starring my one-act comedy? It could happen.

And I got reviewed in the Queens Chronicle, baby!

So I'm headed to The Great White Way (where I will then get through the midtown tunnel, take a couple of buses, and walk a few blocks to my show).

It's better to die on your feet

...than live on your knees.

Three years, Hennannabellamaria, so unbelievable. I've been singing your lullabies to them, and telling stories (but I'm still trying to accept the duck).

We'll see you at the ocean today--blue jeweled fish, JAWS t-shirts in Atlantic City, paying tribute to the mothalode, funneled into the sand in Melaque, body surfing in Puerto Escondido, foot headaches at Doran Beach, and, the week before you left, the playa at Barcelona at night. A life of oceans is not a bad thing.

xoxoxoxo

Gaudi Plaza

When Jenny was in Barcelona, she fell in love with Gaudi's architecture. Also, a street of pastry shops and the flea markets. I've just been reading her emails to me from that time, and thought I'd post her last one to me:

Barcelona comes alive on Saturdays, and when it does, it comes alive as a Fellini movie! I mean big festivals with 12 foot tall puppets being maneuvered by human dancers inside, and musicians and jugglers and acrobats and markets. I think this is more than just the fact that it´s Saturday and Sunday, it is also the festival of the patron saint, and Ben and I keep accidentally coming upon another big weird thing, like a huge fire'breathing dragon machine fighting a ram in the middle of the busiest street in town.

I take back everything I said about no good shopping or cafes. There are so many cafes and I have found the cutest areas for shopping. Some of the shops are high'concept. In the student area, there are shops like The Air Shop, which seems to sell only inflatable pillows with things inside. Also an esoteric lamp shop, with beautiful handmade lamps made to look like flowers. i didn´t dare go in. In the medieval quarter are thousands of bakeries, gelaterias, adorable little stores, such as one selling puppets and carnival masks, oh it goes on and on. This morning, we went from bakery to bakery sampling pastry. you must come here. We must come here. It is nonstop fun in Barcelona.

Today we went to the picasso museum, watched festival fun, walked around the medieval quarter, and visited a couple of markets (a great antiquarian one, and one still to come, by the beach). Right now Ben is eating paella and I am back at the first internet cafe, since I had trouble getting my e'mails at the free one.

Miros! So many! So good! Tonight, we eat gelato for dinner as planned, and then tomorrow we leave. We should arrive at the airport at 9:10, and then customs. We will see you there, I guess! Can´t wait to tell you about it. I am glad Max remembers me. Last night, I thought of pink day and smiled.
xoJen

She Speaks Some More!

At 14 months it was: Mama, Dada, Bubba (brother), here, he-llo, that (dat), and maybe just maybe book and cat.

Then it was the occasional bath and, maybe, "up dada". A month later we had "na na no no" and "Mimi" and "woof". Maybe "dere" for "there". She also repeatedly said "yook" while pointing at something interesting.

Now she's almost 17 months, and the "woof" has turned into a very German "voof". I think she said "dog" today. And she does a panicky sounding roar for a lion. She pounds her chest for a gorilla sound. She also says "vroooom" while playing with cars.

I found Max's baby book and, by this age, he was saying all sorts of intriguing things, such as uh-oh, buddha, and sock.

My mind is in Mexico

We're planning to move to Mexico! We have mucho details to work out (what to do with our art collection?), but it's falling into place. The only frustration in this process is that all the expatriate guides I encounter focus on retirees, or on teaching English in Mexico. Does anyone have any good resources on moving children to Mexico?

Counting our Pesos

That's how Jenny, Steve, and I spent our evenings in Zihuatanejo, back in 1997, as we were beach-hopping from Puerto Vallarta to Puerto Escondido. After ice cream happy hour (two for one until 7pm!), wandering around, and breaking a sweat over air hockey, we'd wind our way back to the non-air-conditioned rooms and start stacking pesos. Jenny always, always, always seemed to find a secret stash of bills that bumped up her daily allotment. She'd say, "Now I can get that mask" or "We gotta go back so I can try on that shirt" or "I'm going to order camarones tomorrow". She fully loved every momentito, every detail of our journey.

I returned to Zihua a couple weeks ago, for seven nights, under dramatically different circumstances. I'd lost my Jenny I'd known for so long, but gained a new Jenny who will hopefully learn to love Mexico just as much. We stayed in air conditioned rooms and my budget was far more than 80 pesos a day. But still, every night, after I walked growly baby a few laps around the crib and plopped her in, after I guided Max through brushing his teeth with bottled water, I'd count my pesos. With each one, I felt my heart beat for Jenny, and break just a little bit. She'd want me going back to Zihua, I know, but she'd want to be there with me.

So I made her a secret promise about Mexico, one I'll post someday soon. I'm working hard on a project that is monumental, and that would be important to Jenny. As Jen always sang during Hercules in Espanol, "Amor, amor, no importa la distancia..."

Hong Kong Phooey Hustle

My obsession with Hong Kong Phooey, that '70s superhero dog that was a kung fu fighting superstar, has resulted in a one-act play. Man, did I have fun writing this play. Here's the dope on it:

"Hong Kong Phooey Hustle" concerns two lost soul Los Angelinos who hit a hipster hotel in Portland, Oregon after a long road trip. As the tired friends argue, they spill a polvo--a Mexican powder used for invocations--in the room. The accident sets off a series of surreal happenstances, including a spiritual possession by the '70s kung fu cartoon dog superhero Hong Kong Phooey and the busting up of an international jewelry heist, all contained within the simple hotel room. It takes an otherwordly visitation by Saint Cupcake to deliver the friends from despair and give them the strength to summon some righteous kung fu chops.

This was the first play that seemed, at times, to write itself. There were writing sessions in which I was so delighted--like when Wilma asks the hotel maid if someone from spa services can perform an exorcism, or when Rosemary insists that Wilma's saint painting of the Virgen de Guadalupe has the virgin holding a vibrator--that I felt I was watching the play unfold.

The play I've just started is not such smooth sailing. I'm trying a lot of new things. It's a musical, tentatively titled "Beatific Beatitudes", inspired by Jenny's old comic strip "The Beats". Meg's gonna help with the jazzy beatnik music, to be performed by a trio onstage. I know this project would be important to Jenny, but I still find myself fighting apathy to write it. For example, I am supposed to be working on it at this moment.

How to Put on a Show for Under $20

Here's a reason to love Portland. The wonderful Brenda of Tour de Crepes gave us her space for an evening show. I built a couple altars, put up a theme exhibit of shrines, and got the flyer-making machine rolling. I feel so very fortunate to have friends such as Meggie (the wild violinist), Jennifer (super crafty concocter of sugar skulls), Steve (on dreams & politics), David (poet), and, of course, The StageSlingers (ShaSha, Ciji, Susan & Me) who rocked the house!

Portland makes things possible. I remember when Jenny put up a show in Oakland, it cost her so much money just to rent the space. And scoring the space was a whole other production. Living here, I realize there's just no need for all that hype and fuss (even though sometimes what I miss most is the hype and fuss).

I got up in front of everyone and spoke, and it was as if I was hearing Jenny. I was always the words behind someone else's voice, but there I was voice and all. It made me miss her, but it made me proud of all she had done, who she was, and where she was going. The month before she had died, she had filled the Climate Theater in SF's SOMA. She had them. The memory burns me because I want what was going to happen next to happen, but it inspires me because there she was, self-actualized.

So I did the show, advertised on a 5-cent pile of cardstock recycled from SCRAP, with special-effect lighting provided by ten dollars worth of saint candles. Half the show's budget went to candles, which may explain why there was a small fire on an altar during the last piece of the show.

DASHBOARD SHRINE

The momentum is on! My new theater group, The StageSlingers, is hosting its inaugural show this Sunday, in honor of Dia de los Muertos. I built an altar for it, and also have a tiny tiny art show in the theater space. Here's the description and information:

Writers, artists, performers, and musicians gather at this Salon de Muertos, spinning surreal tales and fiddling Romanian gypsy dirges in the shadows of a candlelit altar. Join theater troupe The StageSlingers for an evening evoking dreams, death, and the beyond. The program of suspenseful stories, urban legends, fantasies, and folktales celebrates Day of the Dead and Todos Santos.

Sunday, November 5th at 7pm.
Free admission.
Tour de Crepes.
2921 NE Alberta Street.
503-288-5980

All I Want for Hanukkah is a Hulk Pillow

Max made a 48-item list for the holidays today. He seems to have a problem with that old boundary between fantasy and reality.
1. space mucus
2. bendable monsters
3. A flying saucer--Santa can get into outer space with his reindeers
4. skateboard
5. cozy footies
6. cool paper for drawing
7. Scooby Doo movies
8. sketchpads
9. Little Vampire Goes to School
10. a new Ding Dong clock
11. the real Hello Kitty
12. alien kit
13. comics
14. Hulk shirt
15. Spiderman scarf
16. superhero gloves
17. new vans
18. gummy worms
19. transformers
20. ninja stickers
21. Pokemon toys, including the real Pikachu
22. baseball
23. a motorboat
24. snow shovel
25. a goldfish
26. an umbrella
27. ancient treasure
28. New pants--green, like I'm pooping out green
29. jumprope
30. hula hoop
31. air hockey
32. new pencils
33. a crown
34. A superhero costume, with a real cape so I can fly
35. a Hulk pillow
36. a snorkeling kit
37. grapes
38. eyeball glasses
39. slime rings and ropes
40. Beastie Candy, that candy that makes you into a monster
41. a light hat
42. a fortune-telling crystal ball
43. magic tricks
44. A tiki ball that can come alive at nighttime, that I'll leave at Mimi's so it can go in her room, shaking maracas. It will be a real tiki festival!
45. a Pudding clock
46. a book that shows how to write Japanese
47. a new nightlight with a superhero
48. a new roll of Scotch tape

She speaks!

Well, at least a little.

Genevieve is a week shy of 14 months old. So far, she says: Mama, Dada, Bubba (brother), here, he-llo, that (dat), and maybe just maybe book and cat. This is when the fun starts!

Update on 11/1: She's 14 months today and also says "bath" and, maybe, "up dada".

Update on 11/27: The chant is "na na no no", so very close to Mork from Ork.

Update on 11/30: She says "Mimi" and "woof". Maybe "dere" for "there".

ESPANOL

My whole adult life, I've tried to learn Spanish. Sometimes it flows, and other times, it's as if my Spanish is an impressionist painting, alluding to subjects, but kind of blurry and blotchy. I was worried that, when I moved to Portland, some of my Spanish would fade. So I've been working to stay in touch with the language, as well as Mexican culture. Here's some of the Spanish happenings in my life these days:

Sin Fronteras: This group is working to educate people about the Mexicano government's destruction of public schools in Chiapas and Oaxaca. I went to their recent documentary screening and it was once again illuminated for me how little the U.S. media addresses international issues, and how much U.S. constant consumption and capitalism has deeply damaged other corners of the world.

Viva Kinder!: Maxito is in dual immersion bilingual Spanish kindergarten. His teacher told me that the other day, after much prompting and modeling of phrasing, Maxito volunteered a full phrase in Espanol: "Yo fui a la casa de Mimi." When the teacher asked, "Quien es Mimi?", he told her, "Abuelita." Then, she got him to put the whole thing together: "Yo fui a la casa de mi abuelita." Que milagro!

Salon de Muertos: My new theater group, The StageSlingers, is hosting Dashboard Shrine, a Salon de Muertos with surreal stories, fiddled gypsy dirges, and dreamy poetry in honor of Day of the Dead. I'm going to build one of my pedestal altars for the event. It's Sunday, November 5th, at Tour de Crepes, 2921 NE Alberta Street, at 7pm.

Vamanos a Zihuatanejo! We just bought our tickets to Zihuatanejo. We'll be on the Mexican beach in early December. Max can't wait to snorkel. This will be only Genevieve's second time in Mexico--I try to make sure my ninos visit Mexico once a year (but I can visit more!).

Living Fast

I feel like life's been in fast-forward lately, so I'm going to resort to headline-itas to share the latest goings-on.

L.A. Odyssey
As I did with Maxito, I took a vacay after weaning. Genevieve was wild because, after I intiated weaning, she lept on the bottle bandwagon without any drama. I'd read about babies self-weaning, but always with a little suspicion. But it does happen (sometimes)! So, I flew to Los Angeles and met Meggie and Carrie. We went to many punky little galleries and shops, the highlight definitely being seeing The Datefarmers doing their Mexican street art-prison tattoo-lucha libre-religious icon thing at New Image Gallery. I also adored Toy Town, the downtown district filled with cement-floor warehouses packed with cheapo toys and trinkets. We picked up some saint bracelets, a stool made of purple fun fur, a set of gold buddhas, embroidered shoes, Japanese stickers, and some sweet mango, chile& lime in a cup.

Kindergarten
Whoa. Maxito's been in K-land for over a week, now, and he hasn't had a breakdown. He favors recess and science, and won't tell me much else that's happening. He got his name on the board yesterday, for asking a girl what to do on an assignment. I acted cool about it, but I couldn't help but think how I never, not once, put a kindergarten child's name on the board for punishment. What's the point? Anyway, he's made a friend or two, so I'm happy.

Play Group
And I don't mean one for babies! I'm in the Portland Playwrights Group, and things are whipping along! I've written a multimedia piece about immigration called "Cautionary Tale". I've begun another cartoony, anarchic comedy called "Hong Kong Phooey Hustle" because, lately, I've been obsessed with Hong Kong Phooey, that Kung Fu-fighting dog of the '70s. And I just met with an owner of a cafe on Alberta Street who many want to host some of our productions.

Genevieve
Tries to walk with us supporting her. She overlifts each leg--we call it moonwalking. Today, she had me support her as she tried to run so she could see Max in the other room. She's almost 13 months--I just can't believe it. She sings and yodels. She loves dogs (a little too much, actually, pulling their fur between her fingers). She snarls at me a la Billy Idol if I take things away from her. She stills pulls off her socks, crows about it, stuffs them in her mouth, and then waves her feet around wildly.

40 Hour Man
My husband, Steve Lafler, has written this brilliant book. He's getting so much attention. He's been interviewed by radio stations in Portland, North Carolina, and Minneapolis so far, and he's hosting a publishing party in October at The Know, my favorite Alberta Street bar for 15-year-olds. Go, Steve, go!

Steve

Dear Genevieve and Maxito

To my babies:

I don't want to wax too sentimental, but I was talking with my dear friend Trey the other night and we had to agree that our babies have given us the adventures of our lives. Trey and her son Kyle spent the summer saying "What do you want to do today?" and then diving in. Something about having children has opened us up, compelling us to move forward while also reflecting on the best parts of our childhoods.

Maxito, you turned 5 in July, and you start Kindergarten next week. I love the smudged smiling Happy Ghost pictures and many-eyed alien drawings you bring home for me now; I can only imagine the beautiful art projects that await. You spend so much of your day giving and being kind--trying to make baby Jenny laugh, feeding her Cheerios, asking me for a huggle on the couch, offering your hair for Jenny to grab and eat, and saying, "Dada, can I help? Can I do it, too?" Today you busted your piggy bank open to buy a marzipan croissant at the Star E. Rose cafe, and it reminded me of how Jenny would buy a croissant every day after school.

Genevieve, you turned one a few days ago! You seemed to know the party was all about you at Pambiche's Hora de Amigos--you chomped on the cocktail menu, shouted at everyone who came into the restaurant, gulped down plantains and arroz con leche, and tried to grab all your presents at once. You are my tough little girl, but with a sweet soul like your auntie.

Yesterday, I got obsessive. I was trying to clean up every last piece of spilled rice off the floor, and I kept spotting one more grain. In the meantime, Daddy was holding naked Genevieve, about to give her a bath, when he heard two little splats of poop hit the floor. You see, there is no time or space for cleaning up every grain of rice when you have two kids. I embrace the chaos, with all the tears and the anxious calls to urgent care and the robots made out of garbage because every moment, every tiny thing, has made Maxito and Genevieve who they are, my sweet shining stars.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo--Mama

The Amelie Game

A friend of mine posted on her MySpace about a game she plays, inspired by the movie Amelie. When you're feeling uninspired, make a list of things you like and don't like.

Since I am procrastinating working on a creative project right now that has to be done tonight, I thought I'd play the game (to both kill a little more time and to perhaps jump start my getting to work).

I like...
doorways and windows, especially if they're filled with light
the washed-out flat pink of beverages in Dr. Seuss books
going somewhere old or somewhere new
signs and symbols, pictographs and petroglyphs

I don't like...
dust under the furniture
bad omens
the crick in my neck
picking up the wrong drink at my neighborhood cafe

In Search of Multicultural Portland: The Library

Portland has an incredible library system that just kicks ass over the Oakland Public Library. These are the kind of libraries I grew up visiting, with lots of people walking and bike-riding there, rather than jams of cars vying for parking. Maxito and Jenny and I head over without even checking the hours first, because most branches are open every day and into the evening. The librarians are laid back and courteous, and never seem to jump on people about fines. The hold system is stellar--you can put movies on hold and keep them out for 3 weeks.

So I hesitate to complain. And yet. And yet--what is wrong with the collection? I was in Hollywood branch yesterday and was seeking board books for Genevieve and I to read (and, okay, for her to munch on just a little bit) and there was not a single board book in the room that was about a child of color. Okay, okay, there was one--The Snowy Day. That's it! Book after book of animals or white people--in a library, where someone is conscientiously reading reviews, consulting books lists, and ordering books. It's a travesty! As I told the librarian there, "I guess I'm just used to the collection at the North Portland branch." That's the branch near my house, and it has tons of muliticultural and multilingual books.

I guess the rationale in Portland is that, if you live in a white neighborhood, you only order books about white people. I can see how this city--which I truly have come to like and which is why I become frustrated when this issue of homogeneity rears its ugly head--has remained pretty segregated over the years.

I'm considering some ways to wage my one-woman revolution at the Hollywood library:
--Put it multiple requests for multicultural books.
--Check out multicultural books from other branches and return them to the Hollywood branch.
--Donate multicultural books to the Hollywood branch.
--Volunteer to run some type of multicultural program there.
--Every time I go, doggedly go through the search for multiculti books and be vocal about the lack of results.
--Go back to my North Portland branch and give up on the gringo branch.

Raspberries

Baby Jenny is 10 1/2 months old. She's a big goof.

Art Collecting on the Mexican Backroads

I've been writing articles on lowbrow, outsider, and folk art for Aishti Magazine. I thought I'd post one of the pieces here.

Tope. There was a word I’d never encountered in five years of Spanish classes. Maybe it’s the name of a town, I thought, just as the driver of the gypsy cab hit the road hard and bounced the four of us who were squeezed together in the back seat. So now I knew that tope meant bump. You learn some Spanish vocabulary the hard way.

If you ask me, the hard way is the best way. That’s how we wound up shopping for art sold out of farms and ranchitos in Oaxacan villages, when we could have settled for boutique-hopping around the city center.

That morning, we had trekked to Oaxaca’s Centro de Abastos, the main marketplace, and wound our way to the back, where an empty lot was filled with signs listing different villages. Groups gathered at each sign, waiting for colectivos—cabs with designated routes—to transport them to the valle de Oaxaca.

My boyfriend and I had a solitary goal: adding to our collection of alebrijes, small wooden carvings of fantastical creatures that are meticulously painted in brilliant colors and designs. Each alebrije begins its life as part of the copal tree. Artists use machetes and knives to carve the soft wood into iguanas, fire-breathing aliens, grasshoppers, bandas of devils, and other creatures, imaginary and real. Then they paint the carvings, sometimes wielding toothpicks to complete the intricate patterns.

We were headed down the tope-filled road to Arrazola, home to the workshop of Manuel Jiménez Ramirez and his family, the supposed originators of the Oaxacan alebrije craft. Ramirez’s success has inspired many villagers to turn from farming to carving, transforming Arrazola into a destination for galleries and collectors.

The cabbie deposited us in the town square and three boys ran up to us, offering their services as guides through the town. As Felix, the eldest, walked us across a dirt lot inhabited by baby goats, I spotted the signs—wooden signs, painted with family names, or with the word figuras, or simply a picture of an armadillo or turtle. I reached for my boyfriend’s hand to signal him: I’m about to drop some pesos.

We never made it to the Ramirez workshop. Instead, we found an empty town square, surrounded by dark buildings with concrete floors. Brilliant painted creatures filled shelves, while iguanas with elaborately curled tails were attached to the walls. As we approached, a man stepped forward and pulled the cord suspended next to a single, naked light bulb, illuminating his makeshift gallery. We cleaned him out.

Then Felix and company led us to a long building alongside towering crops. A group of women stood behind tables that were filled with alebrijes as well as the lunch they were preparing. We filled our backpacks and placed orders for some friends.

As we staggered to a fonda for lunch, we spotted a small sign hanging outside someone’s kitchen that said animalitos. A married couple stood inside. The wife was proud to show us her original creation: a frog with an intricately tattooed penis. She also had a simply carved snail covered in Matisse-like patterns. We tried bargaining for the snail, but she wouldn’t budge.

We grabbed a second-class bus back home to Oaxaca city. We hardly noticed the topes as we unwrapped the pale pink paper clinging to our alebrijes. And we began what would become our traditional conversation after a day of buying art: “Next time, I’m getting that one that she wouldn’t bargain over.” Next time.

Unanswerable questions, maybe?

I am sending out questions to the universe, and wondering if I'll get any answers.

--Maxito wants to know if the sun will ever die.

--Do babies dream?

--Someone please tell me where my birth certificate is hiding.

--Is there a museum of doors in Scotland, or did Jenny just wish there was one?

--How high is the mouse that spins? (My cousin Keri wrote this question two decades ago. I actually know the answer: The higher the few.)

--What is it about Fluevogs that makes them take over my thoughts?

Baby Paradise is Fresh Papaya

Genevieve's been having a great time these days. She loved our vacation to Mexico--getting passed around, toes tickled, cheeks kissed, sung to.

And she loved all the new foods: fresh papaya every morning, pan dulce, quesadillas, guacamole, sopes, empanadas de huitlacoche (oh, that last one was mine; I truly dig that corn fungus).

This adventure of motherhood is eternally fascinating (except when it's absolutely tedious). Today, when she tried hummus, I felt a thrill imagining what a first taste of something so distinctive must be like.

I wonder, too, if she experiences frustration. Having returned to Portland, does she long for the papaya? Or does it all fade in the face of the old US standbys of oat cereal, green beans, sweet potato puffs, and veggie booty? All the more reason to return to Mexico, I guess, because there is no papaya like papaya in the sun, where you can see and smell the ocean, and where your mind spins about while rehearsing the Spanish to express delight over said papaya.

Everybody's Working for the Weekend

Yeah, I always thought that Loverboy captured the idea that "work's for jerks" best. That was until I read 40-Hour Man! This graphic novel is hilarious, recounting all the menial things we have to do and all the craziness of bosses that we must suffer through just to bring home the bacon.

My husband, Steve Lafler, drew the book, which includes masterful renditions of a Jamaican Go Go club and a Nazi statue at a miniature golf course. Congratulations, Steve!

Viva Mexico

We just returned from a quick visit to Mexico. Rather than do the whole urban adventurer route, we did the easy version and stayed at an all-inclusive resort.

Strange.

I've never seen so few Mexicanos in Mexico. That said, we pulled Maxito out of the swimming pool and baby Genevieve out of the all-you-can-eat buffet and dragged them into town, to the zocalo, which is the Mexico I know and love.

And that's when the trip reminded me most of Jenny because she and I (and Steve, or Mom) always sought out the centro, where the markets and la Michoacana and the funky calavera or gorgeous Huichol boutiques surround a bandstand. On Sunday night, the place was jumping with tamale vendors, kids pulling balloon creatures, babies snoozing in strollers, and guitarists shouting out to people from Guadalajara, La Paz, Zacatecas, D.F.

In that moment were all our other journeys to Oaxaca, Guanajuato, even small-town Melaque where Jenny did karaoke to "Eensy Weensy Spider." I can see her in my mind impersonating the karaoke host: "Bienvenidos a Cascan! Soy Ramon." And I can still see her and Steve doing their Beatles duet while I laughed.