Puppy Chow! Yum!!

Hey All,

Just a short update this week because last week I was lazy and posted on Wednesday. Not a whole ton has happened since then, but we'll see...

I have been looking for powdered sugar ALL over Zihua for about two weeks. For those of you who know Zihua, this is weird because we have all seen it at Comercial Mexicana (owned by the Costco company and my go-to store) and Bodega (owned by Walmart - EW - my 'only go to in an emergency because Sam Walton and fam are evil and they don't need my money' store). Well, I couldn't find it at la Comer and so I asked and two people looked at me as if I had asked for frog's legs. Then I went to Bodega (ew) and had the same experience. I checked the other little supermarkets and scoured Waldo's (dollar store, hugely amusing) to no avail. I wanted to make puppy chow (the human snack, not actual dog food) and was being thwarted in my efforts. FINALLY, yesterday I found it in la Comer, no thanks to ANY of the CM workers, just by luck, wandering down a random aisle. YES! So this morning I made puppy chow... apparently not a great idea as I haven't stopped eating it yet... but it's the small pleasures in life... and life is too short.. and any other cliche that will help me justify my vice of chocolate! (Pako likes it too, shockingly enough).

Went back to the Tech yesterday. I had all of 7 show up and then 2 left at 9:50am. Needless to say, it was a pretty laid back class. It was fun to be back; apparently I really did miss my kids over break and didn't even realize it. How strange. The class went quickly and there are only 4 more Saturdays


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All of the above was written about a week ago... turns out, I'm tired! Those of you who know me, know I'm NOT a good sleeper. Not even close. I have not been sleeping well for about 3 weeks and it's catching up. Not to worry folks, I've been here before and most probably (ugh) I'll be here again. The good news is that I'm exceptionally good at reading myself and not pushing past my limit. Hence me staying in bed ALL Sunday and not writing blogs.

What has happened in the last couple of weeks?

We had that big earthquake and since then the mornings and nights have been quite cool, dropping down to 60s again. It's the beginning of the rainy season (though it hasn't rained yet), so it's strange that it's actually getting colder... It's too good to be true, which means, of course, that it can't last.

I managed to avoid giving myself a brain aneurysm when my boss (Ricardo) totally forgot that I was giving an exam and not only scheduled a guest speaker during my class, but forgot to make copies of my exam after me reminding him for 3 days straight. I just smiled and moved my exam back a day, so that I had time to do everything I needed to do. I didn't even swear at him in my head. I tell you, I think I'm growing up.

Pako and I talked to his friend, Juan Carlos, aka 'el chef', who may be handling the food for our wedding. He had lots of good ideas and advised us to look into somethings before making up our minds. When people find out that the wedding is still 10 months away, they laugh at us and look at us like we're crazy. Then they make a comment about me being from the States and being hyper organized and ahead of the game. Hmmm. I like to call it - not procrastinating till the last minute because I prefer to avoid becoming a bridezilla, but if you want to call it hyper-organized, go right ahead. I will just direct my bridezilla-ness your way. Get ready.

Pako continues to distribute beer, a fact that makes both of us very happy! His contract may or may not be up next week (we're not sure), but if it's the case that he's downsized again, at least we got 5 full weeks out of them this time. We're just wearing them down until they have to hire him full time because it's too much paper work to hire and fire and re-hire. He's also been playing a lot of soccer with his co-workers, which makes him happy and also those coworkers who happen to be on his time. Even the big boss kicks balls around with him. Turns out, he's a bit of a Sol soccer legend. A fact he has not let me forget. Big whoop.

May is rapidly approaching which means holidays and half days and then June! English classes are done by June 15th... WOOHOOOOOO! I'm done at the Tech on May 15th and I'll miss that class, but I will not miss waking up early 6 days a week! June and July mean all sorts of rapid-fire fun including seeing my extended family who will spoil me with home cooked food and goodies, my parents, a Madison reunion/wedding, my best friends in the whole world and my beloved VW beetle. I can't wait!!! Cheese curds! Caribou Coffee! Dairy Queen! YUM YUM YUM!!!

Ok, time for me to easy myself into bed and await what little sleep visits me. Don't worry, my friend Karen is going to be a doctor and I'm confident she'll figure out what's wrong with me. Or at the very least, she'll have access to the good sleeping pills :) (Kidding, kidding).

Love to all! Until next week (or the next time I have a spurt of energy!)

Leyah

I'm all shook up!

Hey kids, I’m back!

Last night (or this morning, Wednesday, April 14^th, 2010) there was an earthquake big enough to wake everyone in Zihua and give us a momentary scare! The epicenter was in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, which is only about 2 hours from Zihua and it measured 4.9 on the Richter scale. It happened at about 12:50am and I was really quite asleep. Being that I live in a large apartment complex, with hundreds of 10-apartment buildings, most of which have Persian slatted glass windows, earthquakes big or small are noisy things here. The windows shake and the noise is such that you’d think someone had a can half-full of marbles and was shaking it right underneath your nose! It only lasted about 25 seconds (which was enough for me to dig my frightened fingers into Pako’s forearm) and luckily there was no damage and no death!

The last week of my Easter vacation went far too quickly for my liking! I did a lot of work planning lessons, writing final exams and analyzing textbooks for next year’s secondary program. Looking over the 17 textbooks that Jeanne had left me, I was brought back to one school day last spring when I absolutely did not pay attention in one of my seminars. This particular memory sprang to mind because the subject of that class was ‘choosing a textbook,’ something which most likely would have been beneficial to me this last week, but at the time something about which I couldn’t be bothered. It’s funny, it seems that as you get older, the time between your actions and when you look back and shake your head at yourself is much shorter! It started in high school, when you look back at elementary school and laugh; then college, when you really, really laugh at high school. Grad school has you looking back at all prior schooling. Now it seems that I’m looking back at less than a year ago and tsk-ing my own lazy attitude that day in lecture. Sheesh, I’m making myself feel old!

I was absolutely dreading my return to Montessori, though it hasn’t been nearly as bad as I thought it might. It’s actually quite nice to see my kids again and I told them so. I think they either thought that I was being sarcastic or turned all mushy over break, but I meant it. It wasn’t all that gratifying to find that none of the annoying administrational problems had been solved magically over Easter, but you can’t have everything. We’re talking about childhood memories in my high school discussion classes and having quite a good time with it! We talked about games we played and I started to think about all the fun that could be had on a playground with a large group of kids: olly-olly-oxenfree, kick the can, freeze tag, sardines.. the list goes on! My students had a great time explaining different games to me and practicing their English. Total success of a lesson from a teacher’s standpoint – the kids didn’t even realize there were using the vocab and grammar structures we had gone over in previous classes! Score! Jason, the overly knit-picky supervisor, would have been proud and I would have said, with all the dignity and maturity that I could muster, nana nana boo boo!

My cousin’s exceedingly bright daughter, Taya, sent me a ‘Flat Sabrina’ as part of a class project. If you’re not familiar with ‘Flat Stanely’ he’s a character from an excellent children’s book with the same name, about a boy who gets flattened by a falling bulletin board and subsequently has great adventures as a paper thin boy, who can travel the world in an envelope.

Well, being an equal opportunity student, Taya the genius made a ‘Flat Sabrina’ and last week she slid under my door. Thus far, together, we have played hide and seek with 15 day old puppies, had a surfing lesson with the famous Zihua surfer, Pako, and taught high school and 6^th grade. Later we may go pay the water and electricity bills and buy some groceries… depending on our energy levels. I know she’s pretty tired from not sleeping well after her first earthquake. She’ll head back to Wisconsin next week, if, that is, some other adventure doesn’t present itself and she decides she’s ready to go.

Last Sunday, another beautiful mother and grandmother left us and I wanted to mention her because she was such an exceptional person. She was a great artist and encourager of the arts and also the mother of my godmother and grandmother of some of my favorite kids in the whole world. She will be missed!

The weather is heating up right quick and I’m reminded why I thought it would be fine to not have hot water at the apartment. That’s right, what is sometimes known as the rainy season or summer, but what I like to call the two-a-day cold shower season has arrived. That means big waves for Pako and a lot of red-faced, sweaty moments for Leyah. It’s almost enough to make you think that Minnesota winters might not be so bad… ALMOST. Let’s not go crazy. Then end of the school year is rapidly approaching (simultaneously hallelujah and holy cow that went fast!) and also my first year in Mexico! That means that my trip back to the Midwest is also within sight. I must say, I’m ridiculously excited! Plus, baseball season! Yes! It’s a good day, people!

Have a good week and GO TWINS! (and BREWERS, unless of course, you’re playing the Twins.. it’s the one MN team I’m attached to).

Leyah

PS. Here are some pictures of Lorena and Tito at the wedding two Saturdays ago and also a picture of the parents-in-law starting the dance party, plus a pretty sweet shot of Pako getting ready to ride a wave yesterday.

Oops... I lied about the pictures..

Hello friends and family,

Tis true, I am not uploading any pictures this week. I know it's more boring (or as my 6th graders might say "boringer"), but it just so happens that I didn't get many pictures at the wedding (I still may post them later) because no one else takes pictures and being the only picture-taker AND being the only 'guera' makes me feel distinctly tourist-like. Anywho, the wedding and its subsequent festivities were the biggest happenings of this past week.

You would think that since I have been off of school for a week now, with one more week to go, that I would feel relaxed. Not so. My boss left me with not a small amount of work (ok, she left me with a shitload of *cough* her *cough* work) and there's always the fact that Lorena's in town again and thus we hang out with her a lot. Not that I don't like to hang out with Lorena, I do, quite a bit in fact, but it means that I don't have all this free time during which to finish copious amounts of work.

One of the days (ok, 3 of the days) of last week were spent shopping for various items: a blouse for Petra, an entire outfit for Lorena, another full outfit for Tito (and you all thought I was the chronic shopper!), a shirt for Pako, wedding gifts, etc. We found everything we needed, luckily, and then the rest of the week was spent hanging about, playing UNO (a game at which I have about as much luck as I do for Loteria), creating new Loteria cards (which brought me an unprecedented 2 wins in one day) and playing with the puppies.

Pako has been working a lot :) because Semana Santa apparently causes people to drink astounding amounts of beer. That means that I got to see him between his alarm at 6:10 and his leaving at 6:40am and then not again until after 7. Long days, but the commission and overtime will be swell. He did have Good Friday off, which was, of course, good.

The wedding was Saturday night at 8. Petra and I, loaded with all of our clothes and cosmetics, went to Lorena's around 2. Then Lorena and I went up to aunt Luci's house (her son Ray, was the groom) where there was what can only be described as organized chaos taking place. About 7 people were in various stages of getting their hair done, make up being applied and removed, showers being taken, etc. Lorena and I got our nails done by a cousin who was quite professional. I must say, it's been about 6 years since I had acrylic nails put on and it's making my life a bit difficult at the moment. See, down here, it seems, the idea with fake nails is: the longer, the better. They were aghast at how short I wanted mine and that was with me compromising and leaving an extra millimeter or two. The result being, of course, that I am having a bit of difficulty typing this entry as my stupid nails keeping hitting two keys at once...

Then Lorena and I went back to the house and showered and got ready. The men were, obviously, already ready and waiting for us. We arrived at 9, only about half an hour late. The bride looked quite nice in a cotton dress with crystal beading around the neckline (no good pic to post..) and they both looked quite happy and relaxed. The ceremony and party were both held at Pueblito's, a restaurant in downtown Zihua. There were 2 keyboardists, both friends of the groom and a DJ (cousin to the groom, also the DJ for our wedding) and so there was a lot of dancing. Pako was tired and I still can't shake the slight feeling of stage fright that comes from being one of the tallest and definitely the palest of all guests, which led to not a ton of dancing on our part. We left about 2, which was considered ridiculously early.

The next day, the party continued at Luci's house, where the object was to drink all the left over beer (20 cases of the mini bottles, still quite a bit of beer) and eat all the leftover food. Neither goal was accomplished, but there was cranberry juice for me and I won two rounds of Loteria (before losing all of my money), so I was satisfied. We got to Luci's around 11am and then left around 8. It was an exhausting day. I can only imagine how tired the bride and groom felt!

That's about the extent of it. Today is Monday, April 5th and Pako and I have been engaged for one year today. I literally cannot believe it. Time has FLOWN! To think that I was still a grad student this time last year boggles the mind. Boggles! Pako had to work so Petra, Lorena and I went back to Luci's to help polish off more food (doing our part) and beer (none of us drank any beer, but we encouraged others to do so in our name). Then I came home and did some work. Ugh. Tomorrow's goal is to get all of the 1st week back's lessons planned. Then I'll make a final decision about text books for next year and draw up a pro and con list from Jeanne. From there, I'll tackle the logistics of planning a field trip to Refugio de Potosi, the coolest place to take my kids! Then maybe I'll have an hour or two, or maybe ever 12, if I'm lucky, to relax and pretend that Montessori doesn't exist before returning to the grind!

Hope everyone had a fabulous Easter! Being surrounded by Pako's who fam really makes me miss my own (though I quite like his family)! Miss you all and can't wait to see/talk to you from the same country dialing code soon!

besos!
Leyah