6 minutes of your life you can’t have back…

Yesterday was Mother’s day in Mexico. It’s a huge thing. First off, everyone made their excuses and left work at middayish to head off to crowded restaurants all over town. No one was without roses they’d either received or were about to give. In Gigante the usual musak was replaced by someone urging everyone to buy mother-related goods (tortillas, white wine, cleaning products…) and businesses closed up early. I didn’t even have to stand on the bus home for once. One of these days I’ll post about Mexican phrases involving the word “madre”, but first I want to dig out El Laberinto de la Soledad, cos Octavio Paz has some pertinent things to say if I recall correctly.

Last night I barbecued again cos Sarah was coming round for some webdesignery advice. For some reason it didn’t turn out that well. I should pay more attention in the meat isle to what I’m buying. In fact they should have pictures of what your meat should look like when you’ve cooked it on the labels, to help men choose whether they want arrachera or milanesa… Never mind. Sarah brought us a bottle of diamante negro tequila, which is potent but fragrant with the agave. As a digestif it did a good job of cutting through the culinary dubiousness we’d eaten.

My Aguascalientes photos got linked to by an Aguascalientesian (made that word up, hidrotermico?) and he let me know. Which is nice, so in the spirit of reciprocity, here’s a link to his blog.

And finally, just for Sarah who can’t make embedded video play on her laptop, here’s a “mamada” I saw on the internets about Star Wars’ emperor on the phone… You come for the self-absorption, but you’ll stay for the lo-res comedy…

Cherry coke, indeed.

My new favourite beach town for those on a budget…

Chacala, is about 10 minutes beachwards from Las Varas and 3 hrs from Guadalajara and is absolutely gorgeous. We rented a house for the 7 of us with a pool and everything. Brought the BBQ and had 48 hours of no internet (though it was available), sun, sand, seafood and Pueblo Viejo. We arrived late afternoon on Friday, stayed in the pool all evening, cooking up a storm of hamburguesas and suchlike. Then Saturday, arranged to have people come and cook camarones al mojo de ajo and a la diabla around the house in the evening and explored the town on foot and by boat. Monica clandestinely baked sita a delicious chocolate cake and all.

On Sunday we came home and went to the Lucha Libre in the evening followed by the Famosos Equipales cantina and yesterday (Sita’s birthday) went out for breakfast, then Tlaquepaque then (and I’m going to spell their name wrong in protest of them not allowing cameras) a FANTASTIC Mexican/Thai fusion meal at Annnitttta liiii followed by imported Californian wines chez nous. Plenty of Chacala photos on Flickr, and as per usual my favourites below:

Just saw “Closer” with Jude Law and Natalie Portman and various others. It’s great entertainment if you enjoy watching grown-ups breaking up with each other and getting back together again or not. Anyroad, Sita loved it and as such on the right in the “Consumed box”, Sita will be rating films with the Klem icon (the brown one) out of 5… just so people don’t assume she’s just as fond of I, Robot, as I am, or whatever…

It was the size of footballs, so it was… it just melted while I tried to find the macro settings on the camera. Actually not even pingpong ball sized, but hefty all the same.

Graniza?.. Anyroad, hopefully it’ll destroy all the black widow spiders… like the one we found lurking yesterday. Hang on, what if they come into the house to shelter? That’s it… I’m sleeping fully clothed clutching a spray can of RAID EXTRA (the adverts for which show the insects actually EXPLODING after you zap them) and commending myself to the Virgin of Guadalupe.

I was looking around friends’ blogs for inspiration today (cos I promised to post more often even if I’ve nothing much to write about) and I remembered Flash had recently unearthed the Things you love beginning with… meme. Way back in 2006 I got W. This time (via Skype chat)… 

[8:37:38 AM] Gwyn says: Oy, Flash! Give us a letter for that meme. You gave me a W last time and I need some inspiration. (thanks 🙂 )
[8:37:59 AM] Flash says: you want a different letter?
[8:38:05 AM] Gwyn says: yep
[8:38:11 AM] Flash says: *thinks*
[8:38:17 AM] Flash says: P
[8:38:20 AM] Gwyn says: yay!
[8:38:20 AM] Flash says: ok?
[8:38:21 AM] Gwyn says: thanks
[8:38:24 AM] Flash says: np!

10 things I love beginning with P:

Parents, Phoning home

If it weren’t for skype, cheap international phone calls and the internet I wouldn’t be living so far away from home. Hi Mum & Dad!

Photography (+Picasa)

Here’s one from the other day. It looks like an apple, but is actually an acorn.

Chose focal black and white in Picasa’s options menu, waved my magic mouse and uploaded it to Flickr.
Photography is one of the most rewarding hobbies I have, not just taking photos but admiring and being inspired by other people’s too. Also it brings you little moments to treasure like Atticus finally overtaking “Dead Horse” in the LA Times and being the 2nd Best Animal at time of writing…  I promise I only voted once. The votes have nothing to do with the judges so here’s hoping he gets printed in the LA Times paper edition this Sunday…

Potatoes

I could live on these exclusively for months. Like I did through most of university. I reckon the antiscience hicks have it all wrong and that spuds, rather than bananas, are the real “Atheist’s nightmare“…

Planting stuff in the jardin.

I won’t call it growing veggies just yet. That would be premature. I enjoyed the actual planting, even if the resulting rows of slug-eaten greenery is not (and may never be) fit for human consumption. The herbs’re doing grand though and the dandelions are thriving. 

Peep Show

The facebook group has it about right: “If you don’t like Peep Show, you’re probably not worth knowing.” Harsh, but fair. 

Pratchett, Terry

and his lovely discworld series. I started reading them when I was 13 or so and have read them all in order ever since. They’re enjoying a bit of a renaissance at the minute round here as Powells Books has a fair few used copies on sale. I’m still patiently waiting for Making Money to come out in paperback Stateside. 

Pasties & al Pastor, Tacos

I’m going to have to get back to Mexico soon if only to gorge on Tacos al Pastor again.

Pasties are also missed, though we had the Chilean version round a colleague of Sarita’s house the other day, empanadas. Lighter pastry, an olive, egg and raisins got added to the recipe when it travelled south. Wikipedia has some handy pasty facts… “It is said that a good pasty should be strong enough to endure being dropped down a mine shaft.” 

PCs

Yeah, they crash occasionally. Yeah, some of my drivers stopped working with Vista. Yeah, Microsoft… But when PCs go wrong I can usually fix them, swapping out some part for another cheaply bought one, or messing with the registry. When your Mac goes wrong, it goes wrong. Usually in spectacular/ expensive fashion. 

I got my first PC from Drsita’s dad, Martin when I started at UMass in August 2000. I’d probably still be trying to teach Spanish to spoilt teenagers now if it wasn’t for him.

Parks

Parks are good. They used to be for drinking cider and playing guitar in, now they’re for being dragged through by a 25lb + schipperke. 

Pubs

Though it turns out it’s not the place, it’s the company. Still working on finding some Portland pub peeps.

Posters

I seem to be making lots of posters lately. Here’s today’s…

(Thrills youtubery) 

That feels like 10. Maybe more. If anyone would like a letter, comment away.

Thanks for wading through all that, though the biggest news of late is we’re well chuffed to be having some Mexican mates over in January.