obviously he’s missing his other family in L.A., but just to show how he’s adapting to life south of the tropic of Cancer, here he is refreshing himself with chilled mineral water on Sunday’s Via Recreativa:
and here’s the famous “Daily Doggy Dinner Dance” along with feeding instructions:
He’s a great one for cheering us up.
Since Pat’s leaving this morning, we had our b-day celebrations a day early and went to La Matera to eat our own weight in perfectly cooked very rare steak. We sampled a couple of Chilean wines and at the end of it Sita got a waiter to come over with a mil hojas cake with a candle and i was sung (with varying levels of expertise), Las Mananitas. It didn’t reach the level of brutality that Ed mustered with his pinata, and that’s a good thing. Jose also showed up with the latest Propaganda (Jose’s an incredibly accomplished poet… among other things). Anyroad, a few more beers and comeraderie at home and then off to bed latish. A fine, fine night all round. The only negative point is that I might not be up for Fernando and Aldo’s DJing this evening, then again, maybe with a strategic power nap… I’m not as young as I used to be you know. I don’t know how these kids manage it. The prospect of a quiet evening in with Sita, vino tinto, scrabble and one of the DVDs she got me is looking better every minute. Thanks for all the emails and comments, muy amables todos.
…by whoring out my photoblog and web design page with pay-per-click ads. At this rate I’ll be able to pay for this month’s hosting and a couple of tacos by 2009. I’m really enjoying the photoblog thing- it’s a very self-congratulatory way to spend 10 minutes a day browsing through old photos. Thoroughly recommended though.
So today I took on the inside patio and the cucarachas that have been accumulating of late, did some repotting of my albahaca (basil) plants and tidied up the garden a bit. I printed a “Wanted, Gardener” sign and stuck it to the gate on Friday but there’s been no interest since then so I launched myself at the nispero tree and ripped it down to size mano a arbol and dug over the earth a bit. Once it starts raining properly all bets are off. Things just grow and there’s nowt you can do about it.
I’ve started taking my camera everywhere with me more than ever. Hence photos like the one below…
unfortunately due to various bureaucratic cock ups I’m not getting paid in time to get the new camera I wanted to order and have Sally and Martin bring on Thursday. Never mind, I reckon there’s still a lot of mileage to get from my point and shoot Kodak model. I’m itching to have a go at making some HDR photos like CasaDeGuadalajara’s been uploading of late on Flickr.
Tomorrow I’m giving Ana back her computer so Jorge has no excuse for not finishing his end of term essays and then we’re off to Tequila once again. Sita’s interviewing local dignatories and I’m probably going to go exploring the agave fields. I’ll have to be back for my PHP class at 5, so no shennanigans are planned…
Other news: Flickr’s just gone multilingual which should boost the number of Tapatian photographers on it. And there’s an interesting thread at VivirGuadalajara where people are going to do a Guadalajara alphabet of photos. I’ll wait till I fully understand the rules before joining in, but that should be nice to check back on. They’re on A at time of writing. There’s a Flickr tour on Sunday, but I think we’ve got other plans. Shame, but there’ll be more…
I omitted to blog that lately my scrabble scores have gone through the floor, but that changed last night when I was on a roll. I finished watching The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) around 1am, then thought I could have a quick game before bed. One turned into 20 (these are 5 minutes a side games) and before I knew it the dawn was threatening to break and I realised I’d be knackered the next day. Also I’d slipped back to the wrong side of 1000. At least I’m not like the freaks who play scrabble first thing when they get up. I wait at least an hour… Anyroad, I took the opportunity to try and ring New Zealand where it was 8pm though, but Anne and Stu weren’t in…
So I’m a little fragile today and need a siesta of the highest order. Back to the film though, T3BOME was excellent. If I find myself with a spare moment I’ll rush off a review. 4.5 Lulus, I reckon…
Today: honing my Flash skillz on Intangible ready to do some template adapting for these peeps and that’ll be all before an early night. I’m thinking 8:30…
I promised to take Sita to the charreria before we left the city, but in the end she couldn’t make it and I went on me own with my trusty camera and zoom lense. I’ve nothing more to add really to my last post about it when I went with Anne and Stu. I took 297 photos in 2 hours and then cherry picked the best 50 which are now over at Flickr… Best entertainment 1 pound 30p can buy you, I reckon.
This photo’s from one of the first events, where the charro has to gallop at full speed then do an emergency stop when the instructor taps his notebook on the dashboard within a chalked area. Then they measure the stopping distance. The shortest wins the charro a round of applause.
I start my photojournalism course today. I’m going to be networking to try and get some kind of press credential too… I might resend that email to the Gazette to another desk there as the sports people are too busy attending skittles and Great Mills League football matches to reply.
Had a nice soirée round Javier’s yesterday too, he lives in one of my favourite areas of Gwod (well, Zapopan technically) called Seattle and met a couple of new peeps. One of whom might want a website for their ecotourism business.
I’ve nearly got all the things I had to do today more or less under control and to celebrate, I added another couple of reviews. Here’s one all about Louis DeBernieres’s’s’s’s’ tiny little book, Red Dog, and here’s another for Black Books. There’s a nice unifying theme in the last three reviews…. red dogs, black books, dogs in the night time… maybe not.
You can also click on the links on the ‘consumed’ section to the right, of course.
I’m thinking of putting a tagline by the reviews, something like ‘Making other people’s efforts all about me since 2004’. Suggestions?.. In fact, I remember reviewing The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett as a last minute, ‘Arse, I need more coursework to submit for my GCSE English Language’ thing aged 16, so maybe since 1991… keep checking by.
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What a lovely little dog!
Does he dance on demand or is it just for his food?
Jed has got some strong competition.
Love mum xxxx
It’s a suppertime only performance. Although wandering into the garden with anything bowl-shaped between 4 and 6 pm is likely to get him started. Atticus sends his best to cousin Jed… Cheers!
Lovely dogs 🙂
When you get a mo, I have a question.
What are Mexican desserts like? On nights the other week one of the male nurses swore he had choclate with chilli paste in it?
Cheers, Annelise, just letting you know that I'm busily collecting photos of mexican desserts and delicious chocolate chile is mentioned in this post towards the end.