On a Sunday morning, my landlady opened the foyer door and called out, "Miss?" She does this sometimes because it's easier than tapping on the door and waiting from me to run downstairs and unlock it. Usually, she is bringing me food. On this particular weekend, she and the family had been to a party…
Sleep Schedules
The karaoke party started at three a.m. Maybe it's my Northern European genes, but my body thinks--nay, truly believes--that it should be resting when it's dark outside. I go to bed too early and wake up too early for a part of the continent where people don't eat dinner until ten o'clock at night. So…
La Plaza de Armas
"The Plaza de Armas (literally Weapons Square, but better translated as Parade Square or parade ground) is the name for the main square in many Hispanic American cities. . . While some large cities have both a Plaza de Armas and a Plaza Mayor, in most cities those are two names for the same place."…
January
January is a miserable month in Louisiana. In the first place, there's the big let-down because all the excitement of Christmas is over. The tree comes down January 7 (if not a lot sooner), there's a depressing can or box of crumbly fudge or cookies still lingering on the table, and there's no money left.…
Desperados Waiting for a Plane
Coming back to Mexico from Christmas vacation, I had planned to leave at 4 a.m. to catch a flight at 6:10 to Dallas, make my connection there, and be back in Torreón by two o'clock. Then I'd have time to unpack and go to the supermarket and the next day, run errands and go to…
King Cake
I was feeling a little bummed on the morning of January 6. I remembered it was Twelfth Night, and I wanted King Cake. While I was in Louisiana for Christmas, I considered bringing the King Cake recipe with me back to Mexico. I found it YEARS ago in a book in the Calcasieu Parish Public…
Holiday Travel
Unexpected events make me very uncomfortable. So I'm trying, with moderate success, to teach myself to expect the unexpected. Lucky for me, there is a Facebook page for the school, and since a number of my coworkers left for Christmas vacation a day ahead of me, I saw numerous photos and comments about airport delays.…
stress relief
The week before Thanksgiving I wrote: I appreciate my former coworkers. I didn't understand, really, why they would be so relieved, and vocal about their relief, when a long weekend or holiday approached. I would get anxious because a day off just meant that things would be tougher when we came back. A day off…
Flowers
There aren't many flower beds here in this desert town. The centers of the main avenues are mostly bare dirt littered with trash and lined with diseased palm trees. But the walled streets, no matter how poor and dirty, have bougainvillea blooming all over them, and flowering trees. There are flowers everywhere here; they just…
Laughter is the Best Medicine (Especially When Taken with Soup)
When the weather started getting cooler, I really started to miss my soup. My joints were grinding and my muscles stiff. School was stressful. I started imagining clear golden broth with cilantro floating in it, and fresh jalapeños. The stuff in the box from HEB is barely stomachable, and the soups from the deli in…
