Visiting Hours
Last night I dreamed that I was in vaulted courtroom, the kind where the judge sits behind a huge desk and the gallery sits on dark wooden pews. The two double doors at the back of the room banged open, allowing uniformed bailiffs to drag in huge bags stuffed with mail. The judge pounded his gavel, but the bailiffs kept coming. I knew the mail was from irate blog readers pleading with me to keep my blog up to date, and reminding me that I was being lax.
As soon as I woke up, I recognized my dream as the penultimate scene from Miracle on 34th street, but whatever. It still demonstrates my distress that I’m suddenly struggling to keep my blog updated. This blog and those of you who read it are very important to me, and I have no intention of giving it up, but I admit that something strange seems to be happening. And by strange I mean that I’m selling real estate. The snowbirds have returned, and after a reasonably crappy year or so, people are buying houses again. And you know, your blogger gots to get paid, yo.
Having my unbroken stretches of leisure time suddenly compromised by client appointments has combined with another phenomenon, which is that Mexico no longer seems all that kooky to me. Oh, it hasn’t changed! It’s still as odd as it ever was. It’s just that I’ve gotten used to it. After writing about it’s peculiarities for several years, I no longer see anything as out of the ordinary. Well, if I came across a public toilet that had a seat and toilet paper, that would probably get my attention. Otherwise, the things that once seemed strange and old world to me have grown familiar. For example, when I opened my gate this morning to let the dogs out, the folks heading toward the plaza with their empty pails didn’t seem quaint or picturesque to me…. I mean, duh. How else are they supposed to bring home their traditional Sunday pig foot and beef stomach soup from the cart where fat Maria’s got a big pot cooking at the village square, right? The soup’s not going to come to them!
I will say that last Saturday night I participated in an event singular enough to pierce my complacency. As a matter of fact, I let last week’s post slide because I was counting on a youtube video groovy enough to more than satisfy my readers. After all, how many chances do you get to see twenty five middle aged gringas performing the Zombie Dance from Thriller? After a couple of secret rehearsals, (secret because the vision in my head was similar to the Oprah audience who surprised her with a choreographed routine to the Black Eyed Peas performing live on her first show of this season) my Zumba class hit the dance floor at La Tasca on Halloween night with our own flash mob. I would have to confess that my vision was not one hundred percent realized, possibly because at least half of my dance troupe was paralysed with tequila by the time we heard our musical cue. However, no harm done. Let’s face it, it’s hard to be so knee walking drunk that you can’t dance as well as the undead, and we were enthusiastic about our task. Unfortunately, the youtube didn’t happen. Our production crew (Bruno) wasn’t up to managing the band’s break, the floor show– done by a James Brown impersonator, just to switch it up from the Mexican Elvis’s that dominated local stages–and the lighting required for a good video. In addition, it took the crowd some time to realize that we were performing a precision choreographed routine, and not just hanging out on the dance floor and waving our arms at the waitresses for more shots.
So, that would have been a good blog post, but the Halloween moment has kind of passed.
As if that wasn’t enough, there’s one other thing that has been interfering with my ability to update you, dear readers, with the local goings on, and which may continue to hamper my ability to keep up the furious pace of posting once a week. I am trying to win a contest sponsored by Jane Velez-Mitchell, the Headline News anchor woman, that has to do with stories about overcoming addiction. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that I am well qualifed to write on that particular subject. The prize is dinner with JVM in New York, and I have a friend here that I would like to set up on a date with her, as they both share the same sapphic tendencies. Surely there can be no argument about the worthiness of that cause. L’amour!
So, I hope you’ll stick around, and cut me some slack. I’m thinking maybe this is a good time to start editing the blog from the beginning, which I have to do if I ever want to succeed at my elusive book project. Don’t get confused if you check in next week and it seems like I’m just getting here for the first time. Adios for now…
