My daughter left to go live with her dad in the States yesterday. I’ve had a headache ever since. We have a low pressure system sitting on top of us and I can feel it weighing me down. And I’m still in shock over my daughter’s departure, which is also weighing me down.

On the bright side, with her away, I will have a lot more much-needed time for myself and my work. But she’s my best friend on many levels. And she left a big hole in my little universe when she got on that plane.

I can’t call her today because she’s off already, with her new school, on an overnight field trip. They are studying straw-bale construction methods and went to look at some examples of straw-bale buildings. And they are camping tonight, in Colorado high-country, in October. Talk about cold. Better her than me. So anyway I’ll bother her when they come down from the mountains tomorrow. I hope her first “day” of school was good.

I just brought to 50 the number of blogs I subscribe to via Bloglines (no wonder I don’t get my work done). The newest addition to my list is La Gringa Mas Bella, which is written by an American woman who is married to a Mexican man.

She’s witty and funny and tells it like it is. But she’s wrong about one thing, her tag-line says that she’s married to the BEST Mexican guy on the planet, but that’s me honey, not you!

Read on: La Gringa Mas Bella

Here are a few of the other 49 blogs I subscribe to:

• 1603 Katrina – A fellow alum from my college helps tear down historic but rotten buildings in New Orleans.
• New York Hack – The blog of a NYC cab driver named Melissa Plaut, she’s just published a book too.
• The Multiverse According To Ben – The blog of Dr. Ben Goertzel, artificial intelligence guru and another fellow alum from college.
• Hell’s Half Acre – Travelogue – A mom of 4 writes about their travels and their time living in the Riviera Maya.
• SimpleBits – Master web designer Dan Cederholm’s blog. His work puts the rest of us to shame.
• Julie Zickelfoose – Artist, writer, and close friend of a close friend. Julie takes lots of pictures of birds, something I can’t do with all these cats around.

I’m happy to say that we found a home for the Golden Retriever street dog who followed us home the other day.

The lady I mentioned previously, who already had a Golden, is the one we chose to take the dog. We were pretty pushy with her and asked to see where she lived, so we could be sure the dog would have a proper yard. At first she thought we were being rude, but then she realized that we were just trying to be careful.

After we nosed around her house, she came to our house and met the dog. We got to see how she treated the dog and we were comfortable that this woman would provide a good home for our new friend. And away they went, straight to the vet.

So now Sam is back to being an only dog. And there’s no more dog slobber on top of his head from the overly friendly Golden who wanted to lick him to death.

This is ridiculous. I don’t even want to say it. I can’t even believe it.

We found this dog, see. Well, actually, she followed us home from our run with Sam yesterday. So it’s really not OUR fault, see. We tried yelling and waving our arms impotently at her. But she just kept following.

She’s pretty. And pretty huge. She a Golden Retriever, likely pure bred, although she might have a spot of Irish Setter in her (given how dumb and how leggy she is). My guess is that she’s about 14 months old. She’s got big paws and clean sharp teeth and way too much energy. And she’s got a heart of gold.

When she started following us the construction workers nearby said that she’d been hanging around for some weeks, and that she was a street dog. But from her demeanor she seems like she must have had people before, and that she’s been lost for some time.

In this city I don’t have much hope of finding a previous owner. (And my husband is of the mind that if they lost her, with no collar and no tags, they shouldn’t get her back.)

When my sweet neighbor across the street saw the dog she immediately called and placed an ad in today’s paper saying the dog was available for adoption. And being that this is one of those dogs that people actually pay money for, we’ve had 5 or 6 calls today.

So hubby has been interrogating each of the callers. Do they live in a nice enough neighborhood (meaning: can they afford to take proper care of her)? Would they want to breed her, or would they get her spayed? Why do they want her? How big is their yard?

One caller has a 4-year old Golden already. And she says she would spay the dog immediately and only wants her for company. So she’s the top candidate on the list at this point. We don’t want to support breeding more animals when the streets of Cancun are full of street dogs.

(Every time one of my friends buys a pet I curse them under my breath, but please don’t tell them that.)

When I mentioned to my vegetarian daughter (a vegan wannabe), just moments ago, that I had forgotten to buy eggs at the store she said “Good, I don’t want you to eat eggs anyway. Eggs are like abortion, except you eat them.”

Oh the mind of a 13 year old, she knows it all but is still innocent. And with that simple comment she solved the issue of what I should eat for dinner. Nothing! I’ve lost my appetite, thank you.

I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who are writing and wishing me well. It means a lot to me to have such fine friends and caring fans. I’m going to miss my daughter, but I also know in my heart that she will be fine there in Colorado. And I also know that nothing is forever. Hopefully we will be under one roof again soon.

Just a quick update. Sam is fine after being tumbled by a car. He’s had no lasting side effects. His scrapes are healing. I don’t think he has learned his lesson yet, however.

I might have a future owner for that beautiful orange tabby street cat I rescued. But I’m not sure. Meanwhile I fall more in love with her each time I chase her down and pick her up and force lovin’ on her until she purrs. And guess what? She’s getting a little fat now, I guess starving on the street makes one hungry, for life.

Real estate continues to be busy. Lots of inquiries and much to do on that front.

We are going to be offering beach front condos on a gorgeous beach just north of Playa del Carmen for under $100k usd each…we expect to be very busy with that, but we are still working on the marketing plan, so you just have to wait until we’ve got it figured out.

I’m turning down web site work right and left. I did succumb to the begging an pleading of one old, old friend and agreed to help with a small project. (He really only needs me to guide him, I don’t have to muck around in too much code.) But I’m actively turning down proper paying work so I can have some hope of finishing the work I’ve got promised now. I get tired just thinking about it.

Oh and my husband bought me a lovely sapphire ring for my upcoming 40th birthday. And lovely sucker that he is, he gave it to me EARLY! So I’ve got a beautiful rock on my finger now. I hate to sound like a vapid materialistic wench, but I honestly do feel a deep contentment when I look at that beautiful stone. It somehow symbolizes that I’ve arrived somewhere, and I can celebrate this moment forever, it has a deep meaning. I don’t know if that makes sense to others, but I’m happy with my new rock.

I’m just back from a quick, last-minute trip to Colorado. It cost and arm and a leg. And has delayed everything I was already behind on from getting finished. But it was a needed trip.

My daughter has made the decision, with my and her dad’s support, that now is the time to return to the US to live. Originally we all planned that she would move back there next school year. But various things have come to a head and now is the proper time.

I have mixed feelings. First and foremost I’m happy for her because we’ve found an excellent school for her there and I truly believe that she will be happier there than she could be in the bilingual school she was attending here.

She will be living with her dad, his wife and her half sister. So she will be with family. And she will live in the town she was born in, so it’s truly home for her. And she will be able to ride her bike and/or the bus to school, which she could never safely do here. (And, dare I say it, that town has more going on in it than Cancun will ever have.) So there is a lot of good inherent in the situation for her.

But I will miss her like crazy. And she’s not happy about being away from me either.

Much of my energy for the last 4 years, since coming here, was invested in making her happy and comfortable here. And now it seems that I didn’t manage to accomplish that, at least not all the way. But I did manage to become exhausted trying.

And this change makes me wonder how invested I really, truly am in being here at all. Should I drop everything and go try to find a job there just to be near her? How much of this life would I miss? Is she going to be ok without me? Is her father going to teach her to be like HIM? Ack! There are just too many things to worry about.

What I will probably do is wait and see. I’ve got a US phone line in the house. She’s got a cell phone. It’s a local call for her to call me. So I guess I will just impress on her that she needs to call me all the time and keep me up to date on her life. But yuck and a half, we are not made to be apart from our kids.