count on me to bring the awkward

The photo to the left is Lucien making butter. It's a long story and I'm trying to avoid long stories today because they are making my blog posts go on and on for days. I'll discuss the butter when I learn how to truncate.

There were lessons learned this week in Mexico. One lesson I've learned is you're supposed to tip the people who bag your groceries. My grocery load is always sizable so the baggers, who are generally elderly and adorable, probably aren't too happy when I walk away with a single "gracias" and a smile. Smiles don't pay the bills, gringa. 

I noticed the guy behind me tipping the bagger (as in giving him money, not pushing him over) on my last shopping trip even though he was only buying a couple bottles of water. If that guy tipped for only two things, I should probably tip for my lots of things. I froze and observed those around me, which is always good operating procedure for an ex-pat. True enough, everyone was handing the baggers money on their way out the door. I nearly dumped my entire purse out in my haste to find pesos.

I won't make that mistake again. Look at all this learning I'm doing. 

I embarrassed myself pretty thoroughly this week. Julio, my friend Seattle Mom's driver, whom we met last time we were in Mexico City, came to our building to pick up something for Seattle Mom. I met him down in the lobby of our building. 

It's like I knew before it happened our interaction was going to be awkward because I went into it a little sweaty-palmed and bumbling. I could see he was coming in for a handshake as he approached me but I, for reasons I don't know, instead dove in for a cheek kiss. 

I'm not sure who kisses who and who shakes whose hands around here. What's the social protocol on that? Whatever the rules are, I'm pretty sure I broke them with Julio because he was not expecting the cheek kiss and it threw him way off. I could sense that, could sense his confusion and tension, but I still kept right on leaning in because you can count on me to bring the awkward.

I couldn't stop myself even though I knew I was doing the wrong thing -- and worse, I was doing it in front of witnesses, since Senor Scowly and his friend were standing a handful of feet away. Instead of backing off, I doubled down. I decided to show them all I stood firmly behind my decision to kiss Julio with conviction. So as I landed on Julio's face, and as Julio still desperately tried to shake my hand, I did a very loud "Mwah! kiss sound. Twice. The sound echoed in our modern sleek building entry. Such a weird f*cking thing to do. 

Did you know it is possible to cringe so hard that you can actually crumple and fold into yourself at the middle? It's like human origami. I hobbled back to the elevator after Julio escaped (that guy moves fast when he wants to) contorted with embarrassment. My old popular refrain from Paris days returned in that moment: "I am SUCH an ASSHOLE." Nice to have the ole mantra back again.

This week has been pretty awful because Lucien is sick and home from school for the third day in a row. Last night, Lucien was so sick I texted Seattle Mom, my soul sister friend back home, for advice. She's a nurse and is always a voice of calm and reason. I was having a stressful night; Lucien's fever was so high, and I didn't know how to call for medical help in Mexico if we needed it, and Alex is in Seattle for work this week. Seattle Mom said to push those fluids and take comfort he's lucid and talking to me normally.  

At that very moment, Lucien chose to sit straight up in his bed and start speaking absolute nonsense. The first thing he said, eyes staring at me in a creepy unfocused way, was "we have to get out of here now." GAH!

The non-comforting, non-lucid thoughts continued with things like, "you expect me to have two elements" and "I think wrong about this color." I snapped my fingers in front of his face, clapped my hands, tried to get him to snap out of it. The look on his face and the bizarre words coming out of his mouth did not stop. I told him to get up, I'd walk him to the bathroom. He said, "OK, good plan for sliding rats." 

He got up from his bed, pulled his pants down to his ankles, and hopped down the hall to the bathroom while saying something about people not being able to trick him for water. What the hell kind of eff'd up Mexican flu is this??

He doesn't remember any of that this morning and he's on the mend now. Hopefully he'll be back in school tomorrow and I can leave the apartment again.

Paulina babysat last Friday night so Alex and I could go out to dinner with two other ex-pat couples, both from Seattle. The company was hilarious good. Our dinner was delicious. Most noteworthy is Alex and I tried chapulines, which are fried grasshoppers. Eating grasshoppers is an ex-pat initiation rite in Mexico City so now we're in for real.

chapulines
tastes like crispy

I asked Lucien how Paulina got them to bed that night given the language barrier and he said, "She just kind of kept poking us until we moved in the right direction." I'm going to try that, I like its simplicity.

I've learned many things this week and will not make the same mistakes.
I will make new mistakes,
MJ

Mañana at ocho

There's a delicious tamale place across the street from our apartment. I have eaten more tamales in the past ten days than I have in my first 41 years of life combined. Our diets are so tamale heavy right now, I decided to be responsible about it and Google, "are tamales healthy?"

I'm going to keep what I read a secret and just keep eating tamales. They're not unhealthy if you ignore they're unhealthy.  Sshhhh.....I'm fine.

It got dramatic at the Papalote Childrens Museum

Speaking of knowing something you wish you didn't, now that I know how to use the doorman intercom phone thing on the wall, I wish I could go back to those first few days of staring at it blankly.  The doorman rings us occasionally for one thing or another and oftentimes Alex isn't home to answer. One day the doorman rang and I understood one word out of the entire torrent -- mañana. OK! Something was going to happen tomorrow.

I said, "Si, es bueno" and he sounded happy and said again "mañana?" and I said "Si!" because he seemed so pleased and tomorrow seemed a very good time for something to happen.  Then the doorman said two more words I understood -- "ocho" and "nueve," both followed with question marks and beats of silence. OK, I got this, he wants me to choose a time for the thing.

I chose "ocho" because why not.  Mañana at ocho seemed a good time for.... whatever.

When we hung up, I didn't know what I'd agreed to but was pretty sure we'd scheduled a time for our weekly housecleaning.  It had to be that. When Alex came home that night, I said fairly confidently I had scheduled the housecleaning service for 8:00 a.m. the next morning. He said, "OK, we'll stick around to meet them then go have breakfast somewhere."

Mañana at ocho came and went and nothing happened.  Nobody showed up, nobody called.  I shrugged at Alex, who shrugged back.  At 10:30, we gave up on waiting for whatever and went out for a very late breakfast.

We would have asked the doorman to clarify on our way out the door but it was the non-friendly doorman on duty and I like to walk past him as quickly as possible. We have two doormen -- smiley cheerful helpful Carlos (who had been the one to call me to schedule the whatever thing) and Señor Scowly, who rarely smiles, is never cheerful, takes his job very very seriously.

It's great to take your job seriously but Señor Scowly seems as suspicious of the people inside the building as the ones outside of it, which doesn't seem right for a doorman. We're not the enemy in here, Señor Scowly.

The Loosh puts the punk rock back into oral hygiene

Our apartment is a "temporary executive housing" kind of apartment and judging by what the kitchen is stocked with, it seems temporary executives don't like to cook.  It's stocked with a couple pots and pans, a half dozen spatulas and large spoons, and that's about it. There's no peeler, no can opener, no measuring cups or spoons, no large cooking pot, no baking dishes, you get the idea.

How am I going to make my craptastic homemade chili with no cooking tools? I very much regret my Vicodin-infused decision to fill the rest of our shipment container with Coco's stuffed animals back in Seattle. We should have filled it with our kitchen instead.

The not knowing where or how to buy anything is exhausting.  It takes the form of aimless wandering around the neighborhood paired with some fruitless shot-in-the-dark Google searches. Our grocery store turned up a can opener, so that was something, but we still don't have much else.

can anyone tell me where to get a cheese grater around here?

Ahh, the grocery store. For those who've been with me for the long haul since back in the Paris days (which Facebook recently reminded me began eight years ago) you'll remember the grocery store was a constant source of pain, embarrassment, frustration and anger for me. I won't rehash right now but let's just say more often than not, there was yelling.

I'm not going to have the same grocery experience in Mexico. Our neighborhood grocery store is a nice size, big enough aisles to move around comfortably.  Even when it becomes busy and congested, people wait, step to the side and let others pass as if it's no big deal. They all seem entirely too laid back for grocery shopping.

The kids went with me for our first grocery store trip and they wanted to buy a lot of fresh produce. "No way, kids," I said, "I'm not getting sucked into that produce trap." I remember all too vividly the Parisian weight-it tag-it yourself machine and the trouble it caused me. I refuse to head down that banana rabbit hole again.

I told Coco and The Loosh to stick with produce items that came prepackaged with little UPC stickers on the side, such as the nice gigantic bag of oranges. "But Mommy, we don't like oranges," they said. "I don't care," I said, "I know how to buy them."

On our second trip to the store, I pulled the cart to the side and whispered to the kids to watch what all the other people did.  Coco felt chatty in the middle of our produce reconnaissance so I hissed, "Shush, concentrate, this is serious, girl." Lucien soon reported, and I concurred, the other customers appeared to be just putting things in bags and putting the bags straight into their carts with no visible signs of stress. We then did a stakeout at the checkout line to make sure those bags were being handled gracefully at the finish line and nobody was getting yelled at.

I agreed to let the kids get two apples.  They wanted more but I said "let's not overdo it our first time" which made them look at me quizzically -- but I've been hurt before, many times, you see.

I gathered up our things with little trouble. The checkout lady was almost unnervingly smiley. I needed a validation stamp for my parking ticket and attempted to ask for it in Spanish but butchered the word for parking -- estacianimiento -- terribly. I tried again. The checkout lady stopped what she was doing to pronounce estacianimiento as slowly as she could.  I tried to mimic her, but nope, butchered again.

She pronounced it again, and again.  The lady behind me in line pronounced it, too.  They were smiling at me, and not even in a mocking kind of way.  I tried one more time, got it halfway right, and the woman behind the register laughed and said in English -- "Wee weel practous." I then pronounced "practice" for her correctly and we all had a good old laugh.

I don't know what the hell that was all about but I know I like it.

In other happy surprise news, the toilet paper I bought during our grocery shopping trip smells like baby powder.  I repeat, the stuff you wipe your butt with smells like sweet little babies around here. Alex has looked at me funny a couple times as I've walked past him pressing a roll of toilet paper to my nose but I don't care. If liking the smell of baby powder is a crime, please don't throw me into a Mexican prison, I'll stop.

I discovered another amazing thing looking out our apartment window at our view of the city; the very wealthy residents of Mexico City sometimes use helicopters to fly from one building to another to avoid the often gridlocked traffic below.

Most of the tall buildings we see from our apartment have helicopter pads. You can watch helicopters take off and land way off in the distance, or head out of sight towards the buildings of downtown.

rich person landing

I have so much to write about, blog, I can barely keep it all straight and will likely forget most of it. I must discuss the kids' school, and an Ode to Leo is most certainly in the works. A guy just dropped down onto my balcony on a rope, wiped down the balcony furniture and disappeared again over the side, so I may try to puzzle that out later as well.

Never did figure out what was supposed to happen at ocho,
MJ

No dice, pumpkin spice

Halloween is over so I can have a life again until next week when I start prepping for Thanksgiving. I will then have a brief life again until Christmas preparations begin, which will be alarmingly soon after the Thanksgiving meal has been consumed.

My grocery shopping for our annual Halloween party revealed America's perplexing obsession with all things pumpkin flavored and pumpkin scented.  There were pumpkin waffles, pumpkin lip balm, pumpkin coffee, pumpkin marshmallows.  I didn't investigate too thoroughly but I wonder how far it goes. I wonder if there are pumpkin flavored hot dogs.  I wonder if there are pumpkin scented suppositories, to remind you of Grandma's pumpkin pie when you take your butt medicine.

We need to get a hold of ourselves because if you truly cut open a pumpkin and take a sniff of the insides, or god forbid taste them, the experience will be more akin to day-old cat vomit than the deliciously warm and comfy scent those marketing geniuses have concocted.

Banister Abbey Parents Gone Wild Halloween 2014 was the best one yet.  It was the year I finally bought my own beer tap.  It was also the year I made sure to set our fire extinguisher on the counter before the party began.  I love my friends but they are definitely capable of burning down my house so it's best to have that thing handy.

I made the worms again

We had over 50 people this year, more than we've ever had before, and they were all enthusiastic, fully costumed, fully on board.  I dressed as Elvis Costello and didn't set my guitar down all night.  I couldn't.  My costume became nebulous without the guitar, something between a Blues Brother and a 1940s era hit man.  I smacked a lot of friends in their chests and shoulders with my guitar as I walked through the party but I think it was worth it to uphold my vision.

It's two Elvises and two White Stripes

Alex was a giraffe --

Animal costumes were popular this year

but what is up with that eagle cow?

A tarot card reader sat in the TV room and gave readings all night, some of which were life changing and had people crying on their way out of the room.  (That could have been the booze, though; too much of the hard stuff seems to have the same effect.) Our friends reported the tarot reader was amazing and right on point, minus the one lackluster review from a wife whose husband had just been told to come out of the closet.

Whoops.  I hope they don't come to the party next year costumed as a divorced couple.

has your life changed yet, Seattle Mom?

The final revelers left near 2:00 a.m. after one guest yelled, "You guys, seriously, MJ calls 911 all the time.  Believe me, she will call 911 on her own party if we don't leave."  I then placed the phone back down gently, grateful someone knew me so well, and understood who I am, at my core.

Here are my kids on actual Halloween, with a Victorian ghost up top --

Halloween

the only holiday that doesn't take itself seriously

exhibit A: my boy is a piece of bacon

As for other recent events, Coco had a starring role in her preschool's class play.  The play was based on an ancient theme, one that has plagued mankind for ages -- Coco had grown a pumpkin that was too big and she couldn't figure out how to get it off the vine.

One by one the other kids came by with helpful suggestions. There was a lot of tugging on the pumpkin -- a little melodramatically overacted, if you ask me.  After the 15th round of tugging and pulling and shrugging of tiny shoulders, Alex leaned over to me and whispered, "Someone give these kids a decent hacksaw and we're done here."

At the end they decided if they all pulled together they could get the pumpkin off the vine.  I guess it's necessary to suspend one's disbelief when watching a preschool play because I don't think even 20 tiny kids pulling together could rip a pumpkin the size of a Volkswagen off a 12-inch diameter vine.

I hit a parked car a couple days ago.  That was the start of a bad day.  Drop-off in front of Lucien's school is always a mess.  Parents are supposed to drive north down the street in front of the school to drop off their kids but there's always some dumb parent trying to come south.  You have to move over as far as you can to let the stupid idiot through. I moved over as far as I could which, I now know, was too far.  I pushed the limits of what was possible according to the parked truck I broadsided.

Lucien, helpful little soul he is, started yelling from the backseat, "OH MY GOD MOM STOP! STOP!  YOU'RE HITTING THAT CAR, MOM, YOU'RE HITTING THAT CAR" to which I replied through clenched teeth yet at full volume (I'm amazing) "I'M AWARE I'M HITTING A CAR RIGHT NOW, LUCIEN, THANK YOU."  The crumply crunchy screechy sound was my first clue, how about you, son?  What was your first indication the morning had gone to hell?

I left a note on the truck, not only because it was the right thing to do but because I knew Lucien would be running his mouth about it all day at school.  If I hit-and-runned it, it would take mere seconds for the school to track down the culprit thanks to the wise guy in 3rd grade.  I have no morals, really.

The truck guy hasn't called yet so fingers crossed he likes the modifications I've made to his vehicle.  Mine looks much worse, by far.  The entire side is torn up.  I may not get it fixed because it makes me feel kind of badass, gives me a little street cred, makes people fear me.

I returned from the school drop-off debacle to find Supermodel Neighbor (he's here working on the house again, both kids now believe him to be an uncle) pacing the house.  He told me he couldn't find his jacket, which he wouldn't worry about too much except his wallet was in the front pocket.  We'd gone out the night before to a friend's stand-up comedy competition (so fun).  We both remember him wearing his jacket home; it had been raining and we'd run to the car with jackets over our heads.  It had to be in the house somewhere, there was no other option.

So we ransacked it.  We tore it apart room by room all the while muttering it didn't make any sense. Then we went outside to search the car, which is when Supermodel Neighbor saw the torn-up side of my vehicle.  "What the hell....?"  he said and I said,  "Oh yeah, I hit a truck earlier,"  Then he opened the passenger side door and recoiled in horror, "WHAT THE HELL...?"  "Oh yeah." I said, "I forgot, Oscar (my dog) also threw up in the car this morning.  I should probably clean that up."

Supermodel Neighbor looked at me funny then, like he wanted to get in his car and drive back to Portland at that point but couldn't.  Because I had his wallet somewhere.

On a whim I called Alex to ask him if he had, for some unimaginable reason, taken Supermodel Neighbor's jacket to work.  And of course he had.  He was trying to return it to a Halloween Party reveler at work who had forgotten his jacket at our house thanks to the too-strong but delicious "Rosemary's Baby" punch.  Alex saw a strange jacket thrown over the back of a chair that morning, grabbed it and and hopped on his bike, whistling, believing he was doing a very good thing indeed.

The wallet was still in the pocket even after its ride to Corporate America.  I breathed easily again until I went to pick up Coco at school and stepped in a giant pile of dog poop -- dog must have been the size of a rhino -- right outside the school's front door.  A friend, who had been in touch with me via text all morning and knew of my struggles, witnessed this.  She went back inside the building and gathered up Coco's things while whispering to her and smoothing her hair, "Now be a good girl for Mommy, she's a mess today."

In good news, my pottery wheel instructor told me I was "a natural born potter."  I'll hold onto that nugget of goodness as I jettison my favorite pair of shoes towards the curb because I am never getting the dog sh*t out of all those crevices on the bottom.

That's mine in a nutshell.  How's yours?
MJ

Friends and apples

I had some time to kill yesterday between grocery shopping and picking up Coco so I stopped at one of my old favorite coffee shops.  The difference between coffee shops in Seattle and cafes in Paris is that there's angsty music playing in coffee shops and every single person is staring intently at a laptop.  No one even looked up when I spun in circles to dazzle them with my coat.  Harumph.

The coffee tasted like Seattle.  It tasted like hot memories ("hot" as in temperature, not as in sexiness.  Hey, that makes me wonder, does anyone have any sexy memories involving coffee?  If so, please share because I don't understand how that would work.)

As I got up to leave the coffee shop, I saw an old friend sitting at the table directly behind me.  We looked at each other in confused silence for a second, then realization dawned and there was joy throughout the kingdom.  He broke into a big grin, spread out his arms, and said my current favorite words in the English language: "YOU'RE BACK!!"

I love our Seattle friends.  I wasn't sure I would still like them when we returned but for the most part (we won't mention that one guy) I do.  My vision of a huge Welcome Home House Party didn't work out, mainly because we don't have a house and that appears to be a crucial part of the plan.  So we're seeing friends little by little, in small clumps, which works out better anyway because it prevents us from passing out from the emotions.

We met a small clump Tuesday night for drinks, laughs, and, unfortunately, some farts.  Farts led to more laughs, though, so we didn't mind. 

You hear it said all the time, but with real friends, time apart doesn't change a thing.  You just sit down and pick up in the middle of the sentence, right where you trailed off three years ago.  We must have left in the middle of a very raunchy sentence because that's where we started again.

 ...so where was I.... oh yeah, so about balls....

Not related to balls, but I'm thinking about joining the PTA.  The idea is scary.  I never thought of myself as a PTA member, and am picturing meetings with a perfectly coiffed blonde woman named "Muffy" wielding a gavel, but I'm pretty sure it's required to live in the U.S.A.  As long as they never ask me to bake anything, we should be good.

You know what else is good?  Amazon Fresh, the grocery delivery service.  It's not that I mind grocery shopping in Seattle, where everyone smiles at everyone and there's plenty of room in the aisles, but I've found it difficult to schlep a dozen heavy bags from our car in the parking garage up some stairs into the elevator and then down the hall to our apartment. 

There were a few close calls when Coco got on the elevator without me as I tried to round up grocery bags.  The doors started to close before I was ready so I shrieked a little -- "my baby!"-- but Coco just waved goodbye at me.  I got my foot in the door just in time and I swear that girl looked disappointed. 

My Paris baby is a real Seattle girl now.  The proof is in the shirt.  

So yes, grocery delivery is sometimes the way to go.  A nice guy delivered my most recent order.  He frowned as he handed me the bag containing a gallon of milk and some apples.  He said it was a "shoddy bagging job" so if any of my apples were bruised, I should call and they would deliver me some new apples that would be the very definition of apple perfection.

I laughed out loud.  It was funny he cared that much about my apples.  In Paris, they wouldn't have cared about my apples.  They probably would have stacked eggs and precious family heirlooms on top of my apples, then bulldozed the whole damn pile out of their way because they had places to be.  Then they'd say, "Oh yeah?  Your apples are bruised?  Suck it up, p*ssy, life's hard" as I shrieked "My apples!  MY APPLES!"

Seattle.  Paris.  I'm not saying one's better than the other but I am most definitely saying one is easier than the other.

 

Lucien's gym teacher approached me to introduce herself yesterday after school.  She said Lucien recently asked her if she'd ever been to Paris.  When she said "Yes," he asked her if she knew his street?  His old school?  His friend David?  Did she jump on the trampolines in the Tuileries?  If she went again, could she bring him a pain au chocolat?  Gym teacher chuckled and said Lucien is "just the sweetest kid."  Then my heart exploded.

Now that we're settling into some kind of daily routine, I'm finally checking items off my to-do list.  I have several friends who, after being told what I've done in a day, have exclaimed, "Wow, you're really gettin' stuff done!"  Since several have now said this, I can only assume my friends have held many secret meetings in which they discussed my inability to ever get anything done, including rolling out of bed and putting my shoes on the right feet. 

I'm gonna blow their frickin' minds when I register the car next week.

May all your apples be bruise-free this weekend, posse,
MJ