Post from Colorado
Just a quick post from Colorado. First off, I’m staying in a home which has no furry creatures in it, and it’s very weird. There should be cats at least. I always feel this way when I travel, the lack of critters screws with my head.
Speaking of critters, I’ve seen zero street dogs since coming here, but I have seen dozens and dozens of people walking and playing with their dogs in parks. I almost never see people walking their dogs in Cancun. Today I also saw a number of dogs that were hanging with their owners at outdoor cafes, that is another thing you never see in Cancun.
Since arriving in the good ‘ole U.S.A. I have been eating nothing but ethnic food. In Cancun I eat Mexican food and occasionally Chinese food when we go out and not much else. But here I’ve got my pick of food from all over. Today we ate at my favorite Ethiopian restaurant (they don’t give you forks, you eat with your hands). Tomorrow we will get Thai food. And one of the best things about eating here is that there are so many vegetarian choices in the restaurants. The only reason I eat meat at all is to make it simpler to eat in restaurants that don’t know how to feed vegetarians. So I’m enjoying being able to get good healthy vegetarian food here.
The only big bummer here is the stupid weather. People here are all excited because winter is lifting and it’s getting warm in that wet, freezing ass cold, Colorado kind of way, in other words it’s not warm but people here are so burned out on winter that they think it is. I’m freezing here. I slept under 2 huge quilts, with the heat on, and wore my sweatpants to bed. What is that? Why do I suffer from the cold so much? I’ve always been like this, even when I lived up here in the frigid north and was supposedly used to this weather I was constantly cold.
The good news is that my kid is doing really well here. She’s become a bike mechanic, and has decided she loves acting, she’s working out a lot, and her manners have improved. She’s doing well in school, especially in math. She’s taken to reading Scientific American every month and is now saying she wants to be a physicist. She complains that her dad is too attentive to what she’s up to, but if that’s her only real complaint then it ain’t much of one. She and I are having a nice time together. Today we bought some painting supplies so we can make some art together, that should be fun.
March 26th, 2008 06:25
Sounds like a great trip. I’m glad everything is going well (except for the weather).
One of the differences (that I immediately noticed) between Mexico and USA, in Mexico, dogs are dogs, in the USA, they are surrogate children.
March 26th, 2008 10:43
Scott – So far my visit here is great. The weather is fine, it’s just me, I’m just always cold here.
As for the dogs, in this town the city council passed a rule that says dogs can’t be “owned”, they just have human “guardians”. So the dogs here are not just dogs.
March 29th, 2008 13:30
I was just going to comment that I can’t wait to eat Indian food and Thai and all sorts of ethnic food when I go back to the states to visit (and then go on like a $200 shopping spree at Whole Foods).
Then I got to the last paragraph and I though- man, your daughter sounds cool as hell! She’s a bike mechanic? That’s just dope. She wants to be a physicist? That is freaking awesome! I hope she follows her dreams, sounds like she’s already a pretty cool individual!
March 29th, 2008 22:17
Hey Mexpat – She’s a cool kid alright. But today she wants to be a painter. We went to the Denver Art Museum today and she skipped around the contemporary art exhibits like a kid in a candy shop. There’s no telling what path she will pursue. I’m just glad to see her excited, I (almost) don’t care what she’s excited about.