Today Sam (our maniacal dog) ATE one of my brand new Teva flip flops! Freshly imported from the U.S., I had had them shipped to my mom who then lugged them down here when she visited a few weeks ago.

I’m pretty neurotic about shoes. I’m not into the fashion of them too much, but I want them to be good quality, I want them to be comfortable, and I don’t want to overpay. Every single pair of flip flops I’ve seen in Mexico is cheap and uncomfortable OR wildly overpriced while being of suspect quality.

Meanwhile my last pair of Teva flip flops lasted me more than 9 years, including 3 years of near-constant use. And I paid only $20 usd for them. When the strap finally wore through on them a month ago I actually broke down and cried!

Naturally I wanted to repeated this success story.

But these new flip flops seem to taste too good, they were doomed from the start, in fact I should have just fed them to the dog, on purpose, and saved myself all this grief.

Sam has been sneaking away with one or the other of these flip flops since I got them. But normally I am right on top of things and rescue my shoe before more than a few holes are punched into it by those razors he calls his teeth.

But not today, today I had my US phone line, my local phone line and my cell phone all ringing at once, all while I was chatting with one of my fast-typing friends in Messenger. It was pure chaos and every phone call was important.

I didn’t even notice the flip flop was missing until he’d been chomping away at it for more than 10 minutes.

Now my flip flop has a huge bite taken out of the heel. Now it looks like the only surviving wreckage after a vicious shark attack. That dog will be the death of me, and especially of my flip flops. I might add that I cannot FIND said bitten out part, I’m quite certain it’s inside Sam’s tummy right now! And I wish him much indigestion for his fine effort, the little wretch…

I wonder if Teva will give me a discount on a new pair if I complain they made them taste too good?

Please, Teva, please, make me a pair of flip flops that tastes like something my dog will hate, broccoli or lentils or oranges, or medicine, he hates all those things. Just don’t make them taste like cat shit, because he LOVES to eat cat shit!

Life in flip flop land is depressing with no flip flops, I’m telling you, I don’t know how I’m going to force myself out of bed in the morning.

I just came across a decent English translation of the Mexican Constitution:

– Mexican Constitution – In English

It’s seems I haven’t blogged about my life in a bit so I’ll try to catch up a little here.

For those of you keeping up with me I’m just coming down off having my mom visit us here, it was the first time I’d seen her in about a year. She’s now 70 and that’s a bit hard for me to “get”, my mom is mortal and is aging, I’m not glomming onto that one very readily. But she’s in very good health, gets a lot of exercise and eats better than anyone I know, so maybe I can stay in denial about her mortality for another 20 years or so…let’s hope.

Another bit of news is that we are actively rental property hunting. We are hoping to buy an apartment or a small house that we can rent as a long term rental. Looking is a major pain in the neck, lots of details and lots of running around, but I adore looking at real estate so I’m secretly loving it.

We actually made an offer on a place the other day, it was a bargain and we instinctively knew we shouldn’t let it get away. But now it appears there’s (what a surprise) some kind of problem with the title of the property. So we may be walking away from that deal in a day or two.

As for work I have a lot of stuff going on. I’ve got quite a few projects going on, each in various stages of completion. I’ve also made a decision and I’m going to be changing the focus of my work sometime in the next few months, once I’m caught up. So more on that one later.

Oh and a bit on Sam, he’s gained about 7 pounds since we got him. He’s filled out some and he’s grown a bit too. And we finally figured out what was going on with his skin condition and we are successfully treating it now. We took him swimming the other day (I posted a pic) and at first he was a nervous ninny, but after a bit of prodding he was out there in the ocean swimming all over the place. Sam has a heart of gold and it’s hard to remember life before he lived with us.

Well, that’s about it for now.

We took a day trip 15 miles down the road to Puerto Morelos. I always love being there. Below are some of the highlights and lowlights.

Sam’s first time actually swimming

A door I liked

Nice stone work

A boat wreck

People live here

A Land Rover Discovery with Virginia plates being held up by stumps of palm tree

Nice paint job

I just got yet another email from yet another well-meaning acquaintance. She forwarded an email that has been forwarded at least 5 times before. She left the headers of each of the previous forwards intact, which means that ALL of the email addresses of all the people who’ve received this email before me are present in the top of the email.

Great. Lovely. Just what I needed. Another email that forces me to scroll past a mile long list of header info just to read. Scroll and scroll. Way to dilute your message there. Way to make it a job instead of a pleasure to read your email. I promise you I will NOT FORGET THIS!

What if your stupid email isn’t interesting enough to warrant all that frickin’ scrolling? What then? Then I’ve just wasted all that energy scrolling down the whole email. And I’ve put some wear and tear on my mouse.

Excuse me but it’s OK TO TRIM THAT SHIT OFF! The email is not going to self destruct if you trim the headers. It’s not going blow up your computer if you get rid of all those email addresses and To’s and From’s and Sent Date’s and Subject lines.

Christ almighty, some people should be required to pass an emailing test before they are allowed to inflict their bad humor on the rest of us!

I swear!

I had an urge to make art. But when I opened the program I make art in a poem slipped out.

Slipping

I have a thing about my hair. Like it’s proof there’s a god. Or proof that I’m a goddess. Or something.

Maybe my ego is in my hair?

Still, my hair often looks like shit. This is primarily due to the following factors:

• I don’t often care about being a goddess
• I don’t believe it’s right to pamper my ego
• I never blow-dry it
• I do not color it
• I do not put highlights in it
• I almost never brush it when it’s wet
• I almost never brush it when it’s dry
• Did I say I don’t care?
• Did I say I don’t brush it?

But occasionally it looks amazing. Once in a while it shows all its colors. Occasionally it’s beautiful. Today was one of those days.

A Good Hair Day

File under: It’s my blog so I can take stupid pictures of my hair if I want!

People often ask me if I like living here. And depending on where they live, and, if they live here, depending on how long they have lived here, they expect a different answer from me.

Usually when people don’t live here, they ask me how I like it with baited breath, fully expecting me to tell them that secretly this place far exceeds their already high expectations of it. These people seem to have a fragile sense of the realities of living here and almost actively want me to confirm the good, and not reveal one single bad thing. I usually treat these people with kid gloves, telling them truthfully that I love it here but not all the time, and not revealing anything that is not already obvious.

When I meet people who have just moved here they naturally ask me if I like it here. And depending on their own reasons for coming here, and depending on their own socio-economic realities, they are expecting different answers from me. When people come here with money, and do not need to make a living in this economy, they can get quite comfortable relatively quickly. In fact these people are not all that likely to ask if I like it here, because they do, and they are content with the choice they have already made.

But when someone comes here needing to earn a living they are forced to look this economy in the eye, and to recognize the realities that others do not have to face. When these people ask me if I like living here I am honest, but always couch my answers in the form of gentle advice, I do my best to help them find comfort here, I try to help them adjust.

Then there are the people who have lived here for a while, several years at least, long enough to adjust. And when these people ask me if I like living here there is no fudging, there are no games, I don’t worry about what I say, I simply speak the truth to them.

And that truth changes daily.

But most of the time I say good things, I think.

When I bitch it’s about the mafias and the corruption, it’s about the greed of the politicians and how they can’t fix the potholes in the roads or teach people not to litter. I complain about the inefficiency in the way businesses are run here, and the inefficiency inherent in the way many Mexicans think. I complain about the lack of any kind of real culture here. I complain about the stress my husband’s job puts on him. And the lack of mountains.

But the things that are right here are deep important things, things that haven’t ever been right in my life before. And those things involve the peace of owning a house out-right and living debt-free. And the friendships I’ve developed here are deep, important, life-long, close ones. And I’ve learned to be patient, to wait for and prepare for, and appreciate the things I want. And I’ve learned to set long-term goals and work toward them slowly. And I think most importantly I’ve learned that life isn’t supposed to be perfect and that I shouldn’t pressure myself to get it all right all the time.

I think in a fundamental way this place has taught me how to be happy. When I came here things were wrong. There was much to fix, much work to do to achieve any sense of accomplishment or contentment. But we’ve done that work, we’ve met goals, we are working towards others. And for myself I think I’ve stopped hanging on so tightly to perfection and I’ve learned how to just let it be ok to be happy.

Terracotta Sun

Flowers

Terracotta Moon

Moopie in the Window

Sam Upside Down