I’ve decided to return to the original idea for this site and remove the more blog-like elements to a separate, straight-forward blog. Plain ol’ barrelofapples.com will be more general stuff, preludetosorrow.blogspot.com will be more personal, and I’m getting rid of tara.barrelofapples. The new url sounds gloomy, but Nina fans will know that the prelude to sorrow is love, and heck, love is a happy thing! Heh, mostly. I imagine the same can be said of the blog’s future content as well.

Imagine you work your butt off every day, deliberately doing difficult, scary things, and bombard yourself with newness in a strange world where you are completely alone, and eventually it gets you somewhere. Congratulations, you have been tested and placed in, oh happiest of joys and most sought-after of offices, REMEDIAL LEVEL class. Hurray! I can almost hold my own with 13-year-olds.

• Singing loudly
• Cheddar cheese***
• Hugs and kisses**
• Cooking
• Dancing around my apartment
• Salad
• Recycling
• Sourdough
• Talking to loved ones*
• Not being stared at constantly
• Not discovering new mosquito bites every damn day

Stars indicate the top three most missed things and activities.

Hot Dogs: If you order a hot dog in Oaxaca and you’re asked if you’d like it “con chili” you will get diced, pickled jalapenos. Way better than relish!

Public Buses:  In Oaxaca de Juarez (”Oaxaca City”) during rush hour each bus will have a guy who stands in the front doorway at the bottom of the stairs, hanging our over the street, and shouts the bus’s destination to try and wrangle passengers.

Internet Cafes: 20-30 minutes for 4 pesos = about 26 cents USD. Wow.

Del Jardin:  I ate in a “sit-down” restaurant by myself for the first time. It was as weird as I thought it would be.

Streets:  Every single street in downtown Oaxaca is one-way with parking on one side because the streets are all so skinny. The U.S. (*coughBallard*) could really take a hint. There are also no prohibited left turns so the one-ways aren’t a gigantic pain to navitage (*coughdowntownSeattle*).

Dogs:  Mexico is truly the Ireland of the western hemisphere as evidenced by their dogs. They are plentiful, well-behaved sweet creatures, and always leash-less.

Chapulines:  I ate grasshoppers. They’re toasted on a comal then flavored with lime and garlic, very crunchy and salty to my taste. Supposedly anyone who eats them is guaranteed to return to Oaxaca.

Sprain:  At the cooking class I raja-ed so many flipping poblanos my thumb started tingling again from swelling. It’s fine again now.

Cooking Class:  This was a fantastic experience and such a great deal. Transportation, an awesome lunch, tasting tour of the market, cooking class, an awesome 5 course meal, fresh juice and beer all day, recipes to take home, chocolate and a chocolate water whipper contraption as gifts. Quite the day!

School Uniforms:  It seems that all public schools in Mexico require standard-issue uniforms, only varying in school colors. The difference between uniforms in Veracruz and Oaxaca is only in the girl’s outfits, in the skirt. In Veracruz the skirt hits just above the knee. In Oaxaca it hits below the knee, eliminating any sexy school girl potential.

Guera:  I get called this a lot by people out on the street and for a long while I couldn’t determine how I felt about receiving this ambiguous nickname. Sometimes it’s used as a term of endearment, sometimes it’s derogatory or even vulgar, and usually it’s simply descriptive. I’ve finally decided. . .that I like it. I would rather be a guera than a gringa, for sure.

Doughnuts:  To buy a doughnut in Mexico you need a metal or plastic platter and a pair of tongs. You walk around the bakery heaping stuff you want onto your platter, then take it to the cashier to check out and get everything bagged. Yesterday I got a delicious round variety with chocolate frosting on top, that was then sliced in half, sandwich style, and spread with sweet cream.

Topes:  Oaxaqueno shocks must be in terrible disrepair because there are so many speed bumps everywhere. Downtown is more reasonable, but out in the sticks, especially the small villages, they have speed bumps every 3 blocks. This is especially ridiculous because the roads aren’t in good enough shape to drive quickly on them anyways.

I leave tomorrow morning for Oaxaca to see what there is to see and do what there is to do. I think that will mostly mean looking at art and eating food. On Wednesday I’m signed up for an all day walking/tasting tour, food lecture, hands-on cooking class, and meal of whatever conconctions we made. I’m also thinking of doing a craft village and ruins tour. Most likely I’ll be away from computers so there will be a big Oaxaca update upon my return Friday.

I just returned from the first of the two big weekend parades, which arrived at our bleacher around 8:30 and didn’t pass until around midnight. Wow. But the coolest thing about the parade is that I sat next to this group of young folks who were very friendly and we talked for most of the time. The two I talked to the most were even women! This is a big deal because every other person I’ve met out and about who has wanted to talk to me has been a dude looking to flirt. It felt so nice to hoot together at the scantily clad float-men and talk about dancing and food and whatever without being propositioned in any way. Ah, girl talk. They asked for my e-mail address and want to go out next weekend (since I’m going to Oaxaca on Monday for the week). I am so excited by the prospect of having Mexican girlfriends! I hope they write!

I accidentally ate some meat that had been sitting unfridgerated on a store counter for who knows how long (a chile relleno that was supposed to be stuffed with cheese). I hope I don’t get sick.

The region of Veracruz is very fertile, with lots of water and sun, and has a wide range of temperatures within a small circumference because of the ocean and mountains and all that goodness. So I thought there would be a dazzling variety of produce at the markets for me to explore. But ah, no. There are so many produce stands and they all have the same selection, the only variance being the quantity they offer. All the onions are white. All the apples are red and golden delicious, with the occasional Braeburn. All the tomatoes are Romas. Lettuce is either this cabbage-y looking Iceburgy stuff or, at supermercados, they also have Romaine. All oranges are navel. Pumpkin seeds are very popular but the only squash you can find is a variety of zucchini. To me the most upsetting example is the potato–you can only get “white” potatoes. A freaking Russet would be considered exotic here.

Last night was the coronation of the ugly king, which I passed. The next morning I looked in the paper and the ugly king was not ugly at all! My impression was that he would be like a clown king with a funny crown and all that. The locals thought that was very funny and told me it’s just a title that doesn’t mean anything. Less fun, I think.

Tonight was. . .I have no idea. There appears to be stuff everywhere. Out on our street and on the main boulevard which we are just off, there are loads of street carts, a lady walking around with a giant boa constrictor tossed over her shoulders, people having impromptu parties on the bleachers, and music, music, everywhere.

I went downtown because I heard there was a concert on the malecon (seaside promenade). The bus had to take a detour, the route of which I was uncertain, so I got off early and walked down Avenida Independencia, the same street where the kid’s parade was. The street was cut off to car traffic and was swarming with folks. It seems like the food carts coordinate what they’re all going to be offering each night because tonight was all hot dogs and pancakes, mostly pancakes, which is especially odd because before tonight I hadn’t seen any.

As I neared the zocalo, the crowd became denser and denser until nobody could move. Something big was going on at the zocalo and everyone was crowded in to watch on the many giant projector screens set up around the square, since the square itself was jam-packed. I felt a little like I was in hell, but I got out alright and approached the square from the other side. It was less terrible, but I did’t see the point in staying, so I wandered towards the malecon.

Along the way I came upon a. . .drummer band? There were at least 12 drummers and a couple of some-kind-of-shaky-thing players and also a couple had whistles in their mouth. The music they made would best be described as “tribal marching band.” I stood and listened for about 15 minutes, and during that time they worked on only one song. There were a few times where it seemed like they were going to stop by dropping down to only 1 or 2 drummers but then others would join in again. It was pretty cool stuff.

I continued on my way to the malecon where it turned out there wasn’t a show going on until later. 10 p.m. isn’t late enough I guess. Instead of musicians, the promenade was lined with vendors displaying their wares and weird street performers, like a space Merlin and silver robot cowboy (unfortunately I neglected to bring my camera). I bought my first souvenir from one of the street vendors, notably one who had their stuff laid out on the blanket-covered ground and didn’t launch into a sales pitch. When I asked how much the item I liked was their maybe-6-year-old kid jumped in and performed the whole transaction, although his mom gave me a bag. Pretty cute.

I returned to my meandering exploration of broohaha back towards downtown but to the south, in the general direction of where I could catch a bus home. I heard music so I went towards it. In the same park-venue two weeks ago I saw a fun salsa band but tonight there was what I guess was Mexican metal? All I know is they had electric guitars, lots of yelling and grinding and long hair, and there were notable groups of leather-clad biker dudes in the audience.

That wasn’t so much my scene so I headed towards the Plazuala, a semi-enclosed plaza where there’s usually live music and dancing. When I got there, sure enough people were going bonkers salsa-style, but there was yet another band down the street whose music could be heard. The other band was also playing some kind of Latin/Carribean something (I could tell there was clave and that’s about it), but just off-beat enough to hurt my head.

I’d say the party is well under way.

Now if only I liked parties!

Monday there was a Mexico-wide public bus strike. Apparently this is the second one, but the first was Veracruz buses only, and this time the rest of the country joined AND a good helping of taxi drivers backed them up. You see, all the gas stations here are owned by the government, and with the crazy climbing of gas prices the president declared a gas price freeze. But he didn’t freeze diesel, which all the buses use, and it has continued to go up. So the bus drivers want him to give them a price freeze, too, and nobody seems to think that’s going to happen. Considering the strike was two days ago and el presidente has kept mum they’re probably right.

The bus system here is very odd, and I think most of it has a causal relationship with this little tidbit: the bus drivers are not salaried or paid by the hour. For each passenger they pick up they earn 1 peso of the fare.

So. . .

• you can pay with whatever small bills or coins you have and they’ll give you change while they drive
• you can catch a bus from pretty much anywhere–just stick out your arm
• you can get off the bus pretty much anywhere–just ask him to stop
• you may end up going in circles (literally) in high pedestrian traffic areas so the driver can pick up more passengers along the same route
• when there’s traffic you will get to see parts of the city you wouldn’t otherwise because the driver will take all kinds of crazy detours to get out of the jam, often unsuccessfully
• you are likely to routinely think “oh my god we are all going to die” due to the speed, swerving, and attempts to pass vehicles the driver deems slow

Today on the bus I swear our driver was racing with the bus driver next to us. We had two lanes going one way and the road narrowed to one and each wanted to get in front. I looked out the (open) window while this was happening and I swear at a couple points the adjacent bus was only 4 inches away from us, while going like 50 mph in a rickety old school bus. Definitely an “OMGWAAGTD” moment.

***Bonus bus fact! The vehicles themselves are either old tour buses with plush seating or school bus style, all have various kinds of manual transmissions, some with giant weird contraptions. But the yellow ones, oh HO the yellow ones, they are air conditioned and cost 1.50 pesos more. I have only ridden in one once because apparently I’ve already adopted the local mentality that my comfort is not worth 10 cents.

The madness officially began yesterday like a tiny baby lion that doubles in size each day.

I went to the first parade, which immobilized a large chunk of downtown with throngs of standing on-lookers. What was on parade? KIDS KIDS KIDS. Yep, it was a preschool through high school costume extravanganza with a vaguely futuristic theme (lots of stars, moons, aliens–and princesses?). It was very cute, and I snagged some decent esquites off a street cart.

Last night was the burning of the bad humor, which I didn’t attend because it was a school night and I am a lame-o who goes to bed before midnight. The bad humor is a giant effigy made to resemble somebody or something of which the general populace would like to be rid. My teachers and I were betting on George W., but this year the organizers decided to be a little more heady and a little less catty and made it a giant dollar sign to represent the worldwide economic crisis.

Tonight was the coronation of the king and queen infantiles–yup, kids again. It took place on the monstrous stage they built in the zocalo and after the crownings (the king and queen each had separate, elaborate posses of Carnaval royalty) there was a firework display right OVER OUR HEADS. Over a tree-lined downtown plaza, which rang all kinds of panic in my lived-in-a-desert heart. It’s a good thing everything here is built with stones and coral. But the deepest impression made by tonight’s ceremony was that of the child-queen’s dress. It was a beautifully purple, sumptuous ballgown with an absurd train and layers and layers of floaty, glittery fabric, and, prominently displayed in the front, two GIANT SILVER SEQUINED PEGASUSES OMG.

I did not know before that I wanted such a thing but now I know I need one.

Valentine’s Day seems like a good day to do my rant about western ideals of modern love and romance. Consider this little proverb:

“It takes more than love to make a romantic relationship work.”

I don’t know if this is an actual cliche or if it’s one of those things that seems so obvious that it sounded like one the very first time someone realized it. Regardless, it is true because love is innately fantastic and fucking terrible.

You need a gigantic pile of other good stuff to balance it all out, or when the inevitable unpleasantness happens, you fall on your face. It can be one of those poor, bad times most folks’ vows warn them about, or–let’s pretend you have a wonderful, happy, fairy-tale quality life and there are no grey clouds EVER and your love is pure and eternal (which is a load of bunk, but OK)–one of you dies. Surely losing your Disney-style partner will tear out your insides and that is what your love earned you. Love requires mutual vulnerability, which is why where there is extreme happiness there will always be extreme pain.

However, if you have enough other good stuff it is not all doom and gloom. And that is why I wish that for just a short while, we could obsess over what indeed that other stuff essentially is, instead of continuing society’s mind-numbing obsession with love and romance, the knowledge of which doesn’t amount to a pile of beans in the long-term. Falling in love is easy! Romance is everywhere and transient! Anybody can have an affair with most anybody else and that doesn’t mean they should, or that it will last, or, rarest of all, that they’ll be happy.

Life is dripping with frustrating examples, but the kicker is, if we knew what that other stuff was, if we knew what it really takes–and no, the answer isn’t “work,” goddamn the Protestant work ethic–then we could all stop wasting our time and skip to being happy and/or move on.

That is what I’m talking about–being happy.

To have a good, happy relationship, you can’t be obsessed with the notion of romance or else you find yourself neck deep in expectations galore that only set you up for failure and frustration. Our culture beats the idea that we should be over our heads our whole lives, and if you don’t think so, consider personal ads. At this point in time it’s totally normal and acceptable and often suggested to place a personal ad for a romantic partner. But what about personal ads for friends or any other kind of intimate relationship? Go and try it and see what kind of “friends” turn up. I guarantee they’ll want more than just hangouts. You see, even the word “intimate” has been tainted by the OwR! But unromantic intimacy is SO very important and sometimes I feel like I’m taking crazy pills because its value is so infrequently expressed.

I think I take romance’s image so personally because of that 9 year relationship thing that I’m in. You see, people’s ideas about love offend me in the same way that a 1950s child wearing a plastic feather headdress and making “woh-woh-woh” sounds would offend a Native American. It is totally inaccurate, simplistic, and cheap. To claim an understanding with such an apparent total lack of any is insulting no matter the subject.

I am working on figuring out what that necessary other good stuff is and so far I have a three-part hypothesis: to make and keep a romantic relationship alive and healthy, all partners must possess respect, complimentary values, and a balance of power. You also need all those others things that all non-business relationships require, like actually liking each other, being able to converse easily, having a few things in common, and so on. But for an acquaintance or friendship to blossom into perennial romance you need R,CV & P.

Personally, I think respect is the most important factor because that’s the one that enables fire to ignite time after time after time. After all, being in love is not a constant thing. All things that burn exhaust themselves at least for a while, so it’s important to have the ability to fall in love over and over, and more deeply and passionately, throughout the duration of the relationship. To have fire you need the freedom and safety of respect. Freedom to explore yourself and each other and all that life has to offer, and the safety of the knowledge that regardless of how that exploration goes, if you fail or succeed, at the end of the day you’re not going to be looked down upon for it. I believe it is respect that allows the phenomena of adoration, for you can’t think somebody is “just SO amazing!” if you don’t truly marvel at their humanity.

Complimentary values are a bit more pragmatic, but oh so important for carrying out your romance in the world in which we all live. They will allow you to deal (or not deal) with jealousy, prioritize your time and lives, and make sure that everyone in the relationship feels that they matter and life is well spent. If it is very important to one partner to have children and the other never wants children, that’s bad romance joojoo. If one person likes to flirt and thinks jealousy is retarded and another partner thinks jealousy is a legit way of showing that they care, again abandon ship. The whole cat and mouse thing that the OwR teaches us leads many folks into such situations and it’s just not a water in which love can swim for long.

The balance of power rules over the other two. Each relationship can have totally unique and atraditional power structures but regardless of distribution it needs to even out “in the wash.” For example, let’s look at the much-criticized “traditional” western gender role romantic relationship. The masculine partner wins the bread and uses a stern hand with the children and the feminine partner reigns over the household and is sensitive and all of that. IF both partners honestly respect each other for the role they fill, and their own roles are in line with their values and are emotionally fulfilling, and each has equal power over different things (maybe the M earns the money but F handles all the finances, that sort of thing), they can have a healthy, happy romance together. Where we’ve run into problems galore is that these roles are NOT for most folks, and yet most try them out anyways because they think they’re supposed to.

When there’s an issue with any of these three factors, there will be tension. And where there’s tension there will be arguments, misunderstandings, etc. But if the foundation of respect is strong enough, you bet your booties you can realign the power and reassert the values of the relationship, too.

And you can fall in love all over again. <3<3<3

Almost without fail, when an open-for-business Veracruz taxi passes you they will signal you in some way. My guess is they think maybe you want a cab but forgot to look interested. Usually they just honk at you, which is annoying, but sometimes they have a “funny” honk sound, similar to an ambulance siren. The first few times I heard it I thought it was a car alarm, but today a cabby tried to coerce my fare with it.

The notion that people can forget to look interested is a belief that not only the cab drivers hold, but many, many dudes. Oh how I long for the days of yore where I could walk down the street without being hasseled. I want to say, “yes, I see you, stop staring at me,” but saying anything at all only seems to encourage them. I have tried being polite and just saying hello or good whatever, and I have tried rolling my eyes and looking annoyed, but either way you slice it they take any acknowledgment as an invitation to talk. This would explain why the local reaction to being talked to by someone you don’t want to talk to is to ignore them entirely. Vendors, dudes, whatever. It seems really rude to me, but if that’s the standard no wonder the fellas get so excited when that standard is deviated. A stupid cyclical thing.

Another irritating dude thing, is that they all know I speak English. I’ll be walking around or whatever, not saying a peep, and a leering dude will say something to me in English. Just as most folks in the U.S. know enough Spanish to say “pretty” and “lady” and things like that, everyone here knows them in English. It seems the cultural exchange is just strong enough to enable being a creep.

I did have one nice exchange with a muchacho yesterday, even though he immediately assumed I spoke English. I was waiting for the bus and a guy parked there and probably saw I was confused about him parking there, as that’s generally where the bus stops (it’s not marked, only a handful of bus stops are).

So he came up to me and said, “Bus?”

And I said, “Si, espero.”

“Uhm. . .uhm, it no. . .”

“Hay desviacion?”

“Si, si. Alla (pointing) two uh. . .”

“Dos manzanas?”

“Si, dos manzanas.”

“Ah, gracias!”

It was nice to have the opportunity to be like, “Hey, you don’t have to try to speak English, I am in your country and will use your language.” Take that Mexican expectations of gringos!

Just when I was beginning to accept the fact that my diet here is ridiculously low cal and I’m going to lose weight while I’m here (I’ve basically only been eating rice, corn, beans, nuts, vegetables, fruit, and a little bit of cheese) I found perhaps the yummiest junk food in the country, and it is sold at the tiendita next door. It is called Mante Chox and is a Bimbo product. We have many Bimbo snacks in the U.S. (at 7/11’s mostly) but the selection up north does not begin to represent the breadth of their product line. For starters, they are THE commercial bread supplier here; I haven’t seen any packaged bread that isn’t by Bimbo. But that’s beside the point–on with the reveling! Mante Chox is essentially a delicious mini cupcake that is filled with chocolate cream, and each package contains two of these precious little gems of trans fat goodness. Hoooooo yesss. When I bit into my first Mante Chox I felt like I was going home to mama. It tastes like comfort.

For my happenin’ Friday night I went to the mall. Awwwww yeah. And I bought shoes. Stereotyyyyyyyyped.

La Plaza de las Americas is a giant, U.S. style, multi-layered cake of a mall, with a cineplex, cascading waterfalls and a billion teenagers. It was hoppin’ with la gente. I’m not sure if it’s always that busy on a Friday or if it was because tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day, apparently a big to-do here. There were noticeable flocks of people in the jewelry stores and store-islands of Valentine’s crap. Balloons are the big thing here rather than flowers and little “regalitos” (”little gifts” that are tiny, less than an inch tall thingamajigs that say cutesy lovey things) instead of chocolates. I imagine flowers would wilt and chocolates melt. Hard candies and sweet breads (real ones, not the gross kind) are the rage instead of chocolates anyways.

Notably there was not a single chocolateur in the behemoth mall, but there were like 15 shoe tienditas, no kidding. The standard shoe store layout is interesting–they have one of each shoe out on display, and ALL the shoes are on display, usually behind big plastic cases. You go in and eyeball which ones you like then tell the employee the shoe’s number that you want to try on. I’m sure I waved my gringa flag when asking to see the shoes I liked because their number was something like 56,789. I’ve gotten pretty good with numbers, but they’re such a mouthful I’m slow in speaking them. I mean seriously, “cincuenta y seis mil, setecientos ochenta y nueve.” Oh well.

I had dinner at one of the food courts (this place has 3!) at a local chain restaurant called “Something las Gordas.” The something is in script and I cannot fathom what it says. It looks like “fa’ca” but as far as I know that doesn’t make any sense. They were awesome, though, by far the best food deal I’ve had so far. I had fried plantains (the big ones) with crema and some kind of cheese, a gordita with potatoes and chorizo, and a glass of radtacular horchata and it cost 46 pesos = $3.20! It was soooo good and I couldn’t eat all my plantains. They have a poblano and corn gordita I can’t wait to try.

Like any mall, my evening affirmed my belief that all teenagers everywhere in the universe are the same.

Two crazy things happened today that I didn’t notice until class let out and I was left with Spanish swimming laps in my brain.

First, there were several conversations today where I stopped concentrating on what people were saying and JUST HEARD WHAT THEY WERE SAYING. Woot, my friends, woot. The downside of this is that there were a couple times I didn’t understand a word or a phrase and I couldn’t look it up or ask about it afterwards because I wasn’t paying attention to each word.

Secondly, and this is the big one, I actually rolled my r’s today. Not EVERY time, but a big chunk of my attempts were successful. Every time there’s an “rr” (and every word that starts with an “r”) I try to trill it but my problem is that I don’t say “r” correctly in English, either. My tongue is in the wrong place. I was supposed to see a speech therapist to correct it (among other weird formations I came up with) back when I wore braces, but, for reasons best summed up by saying I had a tumultuous teenagerhood, that plan was never realized. So I talk funny–but not today!

Today I realized that maybe I will actually know and be able to produce Spanish. One would think I hoped that prior to signing up for this whole immersion shindig but no. I only knew that I had to try or I would kick myself forever. After all, there is school to return to and a career to build and babies to have. Now is the time for sorry attempts.

Except maybe this one isn’t so sorry!

The stupid food sociology has begun, my friends!

I went to a KFC today. Hells yes I am cool. It was actually really hopping, perhaps the busiest KFC I’ve seen. I was on a quest for the illusive Mega (which is like a Super Kmart, and apparently that’s all they have down here–tienditas (corner stores) and huge megaplex mercados–besides the big labyrinthine market downtown) and happened to pass by one. I ordered 1 bisquet, which amused everybody staring at the weirdo foreigner. “Si, solo uno, por favor!” I asked for honey sauce and confused the heck out of the cashier. What came with my biscuit was called “mermelada” which is usually just jam, but in this case I swear it was just strawberry flavored syrup. Like what you’d find on your table at IHOP. It was not so good, but the biscuit hit the spot. I hadn’t had any grains all day.

Speaking of grains, I wanted to buy some corn tortillas once I got to the store. I couldn’t find them and couldn’t find them (lots of soft flour and crispy corn tostadas, but no soft corn) and finally I asked a stocking dude. He said they didn’t have any, only flour. What!? What country is this? They freaking invented the stuff!

Another corny discovery: stuff made from corn (ala cornmeal) is de maiz, of course, but apparently when it is just corn in its natural state it is called “elote.” Corn on the cob is “elote natural.” I ate some esquites yesterday and, I gotta say, NOT AS GOOD AS SENOR MOOSE’S. Yep. I will do my part to conduct further research!

I wish I’d bought the Kraft mac ‘n’ cheese. I put up my nose at it at the store, but now that I’m home and I’m hungry for cena, gosh does that sound good.

OK, so I went to Mexico and got a little drunk, but it is cool.

Veracruz is very nice. There are a number of pushy vendors but otherwise folks are legit and everybody is friendly. Tonight I had a couple margaritas and then I had to have another because, hehe, the table next to us bought them for us OMG. I went out with one of my classmates, who has been here awhile and already amassed a little fan club at the zocalo (main plaza). It is all so silly. Everybody is great. I went on my little walkabout con charlante about the city and it is very easy to navigate, I had my first class and it was all stuff I am already rad at, so all is well in the world of hard knock immersion. Oh woe, woe is me.:P

Basically things only suck when I sit still and consider that I miss my sweeties.

When I stick my head out over my balcony this is what I see.

The same gulf as yesterday, new view.

OK, probably not the Arctic Ocean, or Hudson Bay, or the Sea of Othosk, but the rest of ‘em! OOOH YESSS.

1) Mustache.

2) Suits.

3) It is eating the mountains, I swear.

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I always used to feel like a Gonzo, but I think I’ve matured into a Fozzy.

And then the classic pumpkin pie. . .although I managed to already stray from my goal of strictly following directions. The recipe wanted sweetened condensed cream, at which I scoffed, so instead I put in heavy cream and lots of brown sugar. Also I upped the spices, but I don’t count that as breaking any baking rules.