Giant memoir and magic village

A deadline has been met. The first draft of a very lengthy and plodding War and Peace-like Paris memoir manuscript has been sent to my developmental editor in New York City. There are not enough exclamation points in the world to punctuate that sentence so I'm going to leave them out and go for "calm and understated."

At this point, that beast of a book is 5,000,000 words and is so, so boring. I've stared at the words I wrote back in Paris for so long, they have lost all meaning and I've lost all perspective. I can no longer differentiate between "an interesting story" and "a stupid snoozefest of a story" so said, "f*ck it" and threw everything into the soup.

I included a story, only a few paragraphs long, about me exchanging compliments with the man who owned the boutique outside our building. I included long aimless tales of searching for bottlecaps in the streets with Lucien but -- spoiler alert -- sometimes we didn't find any. I included three pages about a dinner where the climax, and only remotely mildly interesting thing that happened, was Coco pelting me in the head with a piece of pineapple.

I have no idea what I'm doing. I vacillate wildly between joy -- "this is going to be a great book!" -- and despair -- "this is going to be a f*cking terrible book!" I'm hopeful it will be made more clear after a couple rounds of editing; I'm hopeful my editor will be able to wade through the muck and pull out some diamonds.

The only downside to devoting these many months in Mexico to compiling my humongous manuscript is I haven't lived life to the fullest in Mexico City. From the time the kids head off to school to the time they come home, I don't move much. I stare at my laptop screen, sometimes blankly, for hours -- write delete write delete -- and play with fidget spinners when the words refuse to do what I want them to do.

Mario, our driver, texts me a daily anxious, "Are you sure you don't want to go anywhere today, Ms. MJ?" Paulina, our housekeeper, may suspect I'm agoraphobic and definitely suspects I'm emotionally unstable by the way I scream while aggressively manhandling the backspace key. I don't think Paulina has ever seen me put on real clothing (it's the pajama and yoga life for me) and go outside, but perhaps she also firmly believes that it's in the best interest of the general public.

My submission deadline was the day before my bestie from Seattle arrived. We set that submission date intentionally. I didn't want the book hanging over my head while Seattle Mom was here, didn't want to be distracted to the point of suddenly yelling, "Yes! That's how to make that toilet paper story really pop" and taking off in the direction of my laptop, leaving Seattle Mom confused and alone in the dust of Teotihuacan.

Distraction free and climbing pyramids again
I will never tire of them

Seattle Mom was our final visitor. I loved seeing all my favorite tourist sites one more time, loved seeing yet another friend who never thought they wanted to come to Mexico City fall in delirious love with the place. Seattle Mom walked through our neighborhood agog, absorbing all the sidewalk cafes lining the streets and the impeccably dressed waiters and the beautiful parks full of lounging people. She said, "It feels just like a European city except everybody is warm and friendly!"

Templo Mayor, the Aztec ruins in the middle of the city

sitting on top of a pyramid looking over at another pyramid

I'm back again, Frida, I can't quit you

we ate the best food

and this is by far the best picture we've ever taken together with a toilet in a castle

We took Seattle Mom on a day trip to Tepoztlán, one of our favorite towns about an hour outside the city. Tepoztlán is charming, not touristy, surrounded by mountains. It's the type of authentic Mexican town where cars often share narrow streets with old men riding burros.

Tepoztlán is one of the dozens of "Pueblo Mágicos," or "magical villages" to be found throughout rural Mexico. Pueblo Mágicos are villages whose cultural, historical, or natural treasures have been deemed -- surprise! -- magical. They transport visitors back in time, far from cheesy all-inclusive resorts and buffet dinners and cheap fruity cocktails with tiny umbrellas in them. The Pueblo Mágicos are truly the Mexico worth getting to know.

The Tepozteco pyramid sits atop a mountain overlooking Tepoztlán. The hike up to it was originally described to us by friends as "a moderately strenuous walk, just a lot of stairs" but in reality was "a stupid hard climb with no 'stairs' to be seen, only slippery boulders occasionally placed in stair-like formation, better suited for a mountain goat to climb than a human being."

It seems our friends and I

do not share the same definition of "moderate"

nor "stairs."

It was much harder than we anticipated. It was also crowded. We also had Lucien and Coco but, thank the ancient Tepoztlán Gods, they were intrigued and excited by the complexity of the climb instead of made crabby by it. They did not complain on the hour long slog straight up the mountain, a fact that seems to lend credence to the belief Tepoztlán is magic.

Something had gone terribly wrong with our hats

by the time we reached the top. 
Seattle Mom's no longer wanted to hold its shape
and mine sat ten feet off the top of my head.
Everything else was great, though.

Seattle Mom doesn't speak any Spanish so I was in charge of our Spanish-speaking needs during our Mexico City wanderings. It made for some great comedy. Sometimes I would ask a question and get an answer back in a rapid torrent of unidentifiable words. As the speaker spoke his incomprehensible message at inhuman speed, I would turn to Seattle Mom, smile big and say, "I have no idea what's happening right now." Then we would laugh and laugh and walk off, never having learned the answer to our question. That's OK, we like a little mystery.

I'm not sure what I told this server 
when he asked what ingredients we wanted in our salsa. 

But I must have told him something 
because he hand ground it right there in front of us. 

Alex and Coco are back in Seattle for two weeks. It's a long story (and one that caught us by surprise) but to make it short, the only way to guarantee Coco's spot at her school in the Fall is to have her finish out this academic year as a "short term returning student." Alex had to go back to Seattle for meetings anyway so I packed her a suitcase and off they went. 

Her return to her old school was glorious. She was treated as celebrity. I hear there was a lot of hugging, squealing, jumping up and down, and crying. Coco loves her friends and her teacher in Seattle and has talked about them near constantly since we landed in Mexico over six months ago. It's obvious Coco left her heart in Seattle and I'm happy she's been reunited with her people.

I've never been away from her this long, though, and it's weird and I don't like it. At least I know she's in capable and lovably nutty hands. I called upon our circle of friends for help with childcare and ended up with a complex spreadsheet entitled, "The Coco Shuffle." Coco has indeed been shuffled to school, to houses after school, to birthday parties, to sleepovers, all by our people while Alex attends work meetings and late work dinners. We are lucky and grateful.

There was another happy reunion in Seattle --

Natani apparently "lost her bananas" when she saw Coco, one of her two most cherished tiny people in the world. She was later inconsolable when Coco got back into the car to head to the next leg of her shuffle. She sat at the window and whimpered for hours, straining for another glimpse of her favorite girl out the window.

My heart hurts for her. I promise she's coming back for good soon, doggo.

Lucien and I are enjoying our one-on-one time. It's such a rarity. It reminds me of Paris in a way, just The Loosh and I taking on a foreign city all day long. We are celebrating our time by going out to eat often at our favorite restaurants and watching many movies, some at the theaters but most at home after school. We're being selective about what we watch, choosing only the most promising titles from the Netflix and Amazon Prime menus, such as this obvious award winner --

Now that the manuscript is out of my hands for a whole 4-6 weeks, I've got time to blog again. There's so much to catch up on, so much I'd like to capture before we're gone. I sure hope I get to it all. I should also leave the apartment sometime soon so Paulina and Mario can stop worrying about me.

Tired wannabe author out,
MJ


PS. For the record, it wasn't a misnomer. That was truly a big ass spider --

Visit of visits, Post of posts, Guide of guides, you get the idea

Señor Scowly -- a.k.a The Crabby Doorman -- quit. We didn't even get a warning, no chance to say goodbye, not that he would have wanted to say goodbye to us anyway.

We came down one morning expecting to see his usual frowny face opening the door for us all angry and jerky-like, ripping that door open as if the door had disparaged his mother, but no. We saw only smiley Carlos training a new guy, smiley Arturo.

I'm going to miss Señor Scowly. I'm going to miss the times I stood outside the door of the building, hands cupped on either side of my face to peer through the glass, only to see Señor Scowly standing in the middle of the foyer listening to angsty music blaring from his iPhone, his eyes closed, singing every word from the heart as if the words were ripping said heart right out of his chest.

I would knock on the door but his angsty music was pretty loud. It would sometimes take a handful of minutes for him to open his eyes and see me standing there, waving hopefully from the other side of the glass. He'd open the door but would also make it clear by his facial expression I'd ruined his moment.

I'm going to miss approaching the building and wondering if I'll actually get in. Plus everyone in Mexico smiles at me all the time; it was refreshing to have just one who unabashedly hated me and didn't care if I knew it.

My family was just here for a visit and it was the best visit in the history of visits. In other words, brace yourselves for what could be the longest post in the history of posting.

It will never get old.

Just walking around and suddenly bam, mariachi party 

My family's visit was made more special by the fact it nearly didn't happen. Dad has been having trouble with numbness in his leg that comes on without warning, making it difficult to walk and putting him at risk for falling. He decided a couple days before they were to arrive that he couldn't come, that he would be too preoccupied with his walking troubles to enjoy the visit and would therefore bring the rest of us down, too. He wanted my mom and brother to come without him.

Well hell no, Dad. That just will not do. That WILL NOT DO.

I'm happy to say Dad changed his mind the day of the flight. We talked beforehand and eventually came to the conclusion that even if he didn't feel comfortable doing the walking tours or moseying through museums for hours, just sitting here in our apartment with its view of Mexico City, or sitting in the rental house we'd booked for a weekend with its view of San Miguel de Allende, was better than sitting in his house alone in Colorado.

Plus, the food. You don't need legs to enjoy the food and isn't the food the absolute best reason to come to Mexico? Food. FOOOOD.

(Related -- my pants don't fit anymore.)

I talked to my sister, Raba, before my parents and brother arrived and we both adamantly agreed that climbing the pyramids at Teotihuacan was out of the question given Dad's leg. It can go numb without warning and he could fall all the way down the steep stone stairs, especially since several sections do not have anything to hold onto.

We had to go see it, for sure, because Teotihuacan is one of the most impressive places in the world but we would stay down on the ground. No doubt about it, Dad should not go up there.

A few days later, of course, we went up there.

taking a breather halfway up Pyramid of the Sun

(Pyramid of the Moon lurking anciently in the background)

My dad is a strong willed man and the poster child for dogged determination but he's not reckless. He knew he could do it so I knew he could do it. But I still climbed behind him the whole time, arms outstretched and thinking, "oh my god oh my god oh my god if he falls, Raba is going to kill me."

"Chill out daughters, it wasn't that hard."

Top of Pyramid of the Sun

Mom and Dad strolling through Teotihuacan like the bosses they are.

We took a long weekend and rented a house in the gorgeous colonial town of San Miguel de Allende. San Miguel is commonly known as "Gringolandia" given its large population of retired English speakers. There's also a popular joke about needing an American passport to live there.

Well you can't blame them, those English speakers know a good thing when they see it. San Miguel de Allende is one of the most perfect little colonial towns. It is almost too perfect, too pretty, too charming, too UNESCO heritage-y. I felt the urge to break a few windows to take it down a peg, or at least smear some dog shit around on them to mess it up a little bit. Is it normal to be jealous of a town? I have problems.

But look at this stupid perfect place.

(pic courtesy of Dad)

(pic courtesy of Mom)

(pic courtesy of me)

Dad walking around the back terrace of our rental house.

See what I mean? Needs dog shit on the windows.

Our rental house was smack in the middle of the action, just one block from the main square. The owner of the house was there to show us around when we arrived and we all detected a slight edge, something slightly off about him. He was nice but it seemed he had to work hard at it, as his teeth were often clenched. All was made clear later when Alex and I found several How To Control Your Explosive Rage books in his bookshelf. Then we were all like, "Yes, that was totally it, he was just trying hard not to punch us."

(I won him over later when I emailed him several times asking about the art in his house, which was spectacular. He loved talking about his art. And then we were friends, phew.)

There were many weddings that weekend. San Miguel weddings involve the most delightful traditions. There are ten-foot-tall puppets representing the bride and groom dancing around outside the church, and a "tequila burro" that walks in front of the post-ceremony procession through the cobblestone streets from which tequila shots are served from barrels on his sides, and a traveling mariachi band that accompanies the procession and makes everyone within earshot happy.

There were at least half a dozen wedding processions through the streets in two days. They looked like so much fun, I'm now planning to divorce Alex and re-marry him in San Miguel de Allende -- that is, if he doesn't piss me off in between. We'll see.

This wedding celebration walked past our rental house after midnight.

I ran out in my pajamas to take a picture of them.

Look at that tequila burro.

As for what else we did, we did a lot. We hit the must-sees, such as the Frida Kahlo Museum and the Diego Rivera murals at the Belles Artes and Palacio Nacional. 

We also ate lunch in a cave --

hours before everybody else because nobody here eats lunch at noon

-- and we visited an ancient archaeological site in the middle of nowhere called Cañada de la Virgen accompanied by the most enthusiastic guide who's ever guided. Our guide, Alberto, is an archaeologist and he loves his job very much. His eyes would regularly glow and widen, near manic with excitement, so on fire was he with his chosen field. It sometimes felt he was about to lose his composure entirely, grab us all by our slender shoulders and shake us, shake the love of archaeology right into us, goddammit!

He was an extremely likable and extremely enthusiastic gem of a tour guide. 

Look how hard everyone is trying to keep up with Alberto

and the mass quantity of excited information flying at their faces.

Bala and Coco enjoying archaeology

After the archaeology, Alberto took us to a nearby Mexican ranch for a traditional Mexican lunch. There, sitting on the back porch of a humble abode somewhere outside San Miguel de Allende, I ate the best mole sauce I've ever had. It was the best mole in the history of moles.

MOLE!

I learned at this lunch you cannot take a picture of mole sauce

without it looking like poop sauce.

 Just take my word, it was perfect.

I don't think the visit could have gone better. My parents and brother fell in love with Mexico, with the warmth of its people and the beauty and history of the country. I think they fell in love a little bit with our driver, Mario, too. Mario drove us everywhere, helped us communicate when Spanish failed us, carried bags, acted as tour guide, bought Mom medicine when she caught my cold, made us dinner reservations, and on and on and on -- and he did it all with a laugh and a smile.

My family didn't want to leave and I didn't want them to leave because even after ten days here, I still had about two weeks worth of stuff to show them. That's the beauty of Mexico City.

I'm so glad you made the decision to come, Dad.

Because someone had to play with Coco

and her bouncy balloon thing

for hours.

And I'm glad it wasn't me.

Happy belated Mother's Day to all the mamas out there. Mexican Mother's Day was last Wednesday. It's a big deal around here, I was wished Happy Mother's Day wherever I went and was given roses by the security guard when I left a nearby department store. Coco even had the day off from school in honor of the occasion. My Mother's Day gift is having a kid home from school? We should talk about that one, Mexico.

We only have a few months left here. I don't want to go home. I will hang onto Mexico by my fingernails until someone pries them away and shoves me onto a plane because I love this place -- plus my home country has gone and lost its damn mind. It's a real shitshow up there.

In the meantime, I will eat mole, and smile at the people, and enjoy the sun,
and pretend it is not the end of the world as we know it.
MJ

Idealism, harmonicas, electrocution

Lucien's 5th Grade class is holding a mock election. Groups of like-minded students have joined together to form parties based on changes they'd like to see implemented at the school. They are currently campaigning to woo supporters from the lower grades and come election day, one party will emerge triumphant.

I'm not sure what happens for the winners of the election but it must be a big deal because Lucien is taking this more seriously than he takes choosing an ice cream flavor. That's a hefty statement because my kids stand in front of the ice cream counter for an excruciating amount of time, discussing the negatives and comparing the virtues of each flavor, as the line behind them grows and grows and I lurch around the store pulling my hair out and screaming, "OH MY GOD, just get cookies-n-cream and be done with it!!"

Lucien's group has formed "The Earth Party" and is running on environmental issues such as using less plastic at the school and improving the recycling program. The Loosh sits at his computer after school putting together graphic PowerPoint presentations full of whales who've died because of the gigantic wads of plastic bags in their bellies and malformed turtles who've grown up with six-pack rings around their shells.

The Loosh spots a plastic bag floating in the water at Xochimilco.

An enemy of the environment in our midst.

I had to threaten him with bodily injury to keep him from jumping in to retrieve it.

Lucien is pumped about the election and often, while showing me his latest depressing PowerPoint presentation featuring gigantic "garbage islands" floating around in the ocean, says chirpy things like, "We are going to win because this is everybody's future! Everyone wants to be healthy, and everyone loves animals and doesn't want to hurt them! We're gonna get so many votes!"

I tell him yes, he's got an excellent shot at winning but I say it with a sinking feeling in my stomach because I know one of their rival parties is the "Prices Go Down Party" and they are running on a platform of cheaper snacks at the snack bar. The rumor is they are also bribing their young voters with fistfuls of candy at recess. The PGD is not running a clean campaign; it wouldn't surprise me if they have shadowy ties to Russia.

The Earth Party learned of the PGD candy handouts so decided to counter by handing out seed packets kids could take home to plant. That was one of the sweetest things I'd ever heard from my excited smiley-faced son and it made my heart explode but still -- bottom line is it's "less plastic in the oceans" vs. "cheaper snacks" to an electorate of 3rd and 4th graders.

I'm afraid Lucien is about to learn a very harsh lesson about idealism in politics. I hope it strengthens his resolve and doesn't break his little Earth-loving soul. Because we're gonna need him.

Alex's parents and cousin were here recently for a brief but action-packed long weekend visit. One of the first things we did was the mandatory visit to the Frida Kahlo Museum in Coyoacan. We met a man in line there from Portland, Oregon, who had not purchased his ticket in advance -- an unfortunate rookie mistake at the Frida Kahlo museum -- and was bummed to hear he was going to have to leave our short pre-ticketed line to wait in the two-hour non-ticketed line that snaked down the street, around the corner and out of sight. We felt sorry for him and wanted to help him, such a nice guy and our fellow Pacific Northwesterner.

So Alex concocted LIES.

Alex told the ticket taker at the museum entrance that not all of our tickets had printed when we purchased them online but we hadn't realized it until that very moment. We had in our hands only seven tickets, not the rightful eight! As Alex went on and on about his frustration with the unreliability of the online ticketing system, even waving his arms around convincingly for emphasis, the rest of us snuggled up to our new friend, Joe, and attempted to look very familiar with him. The entrance guy let us all in, likely just to stop Alex from talking.

Joe was grateful and stuck with us to chat. Joe is a cool guy, a professional harmonica musician on tour in Mexico City. I didn't know professional harmonica was a thing, either. His specialty is tango harmonica (!) so he travels the world playing tango festivals and doing guest appearances with symphonies. As thanks for saving him two precious hours of his life, Joe says he'll pop by our house someday when he's in Seattle for a gig and treat our friends to a harmonica concert. We exchanged emails and we will take you up on that, new friend Joe.

Frida Kahlo, bringing the people together

P.S. We made a donation to the museum in the amount of Joe's ticket. We would never cheat Frida.

Diego, maybe, but not Frida.

The next family weekend tourist stop was Xochimilco.

Xochimilco is rich, long ago Mexican history but it doesn't look like it. Mexico City was originally built in the middle of a lake back when the Aztecs ran the show -- easy to defend, yo --and was surrounded by canals but then the Spaniards took over and drained most of the water. The canals of Xochimilco are all that's left of the once huge and intricate Aztec canal system.

The grand history of the area is made slightly less epic, perhaps, by the fact Xochimilco is now a place people go to have loud raucous drunken floating parties. It is not a calm contemplative place where you reflect upon your minute and insignificant place in time; it is a boisterous, colorful, obnoxious place where you get a michelada for less than 20 pesos.

Music blares from speakers on most boats. Mariachis play from others. Vendors constantly pull up alongside you offering beer, or cheap trinkets, or roasted ears of corn. Boat collisions are common when the canals get crowded. You must keep a sharp eye out and yell, "Incoming!" so everyone in your boat can grab onto something stationary before they lose footing and get tossed over the side.

No, Xochimilco is not calm nor educational but it is a lot of fun and we love it --

Coco dancing at the back of our boat

 to the tunes of a mariachi band on a nearby boat
and swinging her brand new Slinky
(we are about to get rammed by those boats behind us so hang on, little girl)

Mexico, you are truly something special.

We asked Mario for a dinner recommendation on the way home from Xochimilco and he said he knew just the place, then picked up the phone and made us a reservation on the spot. We pulled up in front of the restaurant a few hours later and -- holy hell, Mario had perhaps misread our intentions. We wanted a hole-in-the-wall taco joint only locals know about but he instead dropped us off at the San Angel Inn, widely regarded as one of the nicest and fanciest restaurants in Mexico City.

Men in tuxedos, or at the very least crisply tailored suits, and women in gorgeous dresses and high heels dominated the scene. Our post-Xochimilco windblown and sun drenched selves stood out a bit. All of us were wearing shorts or jeans, t-shirts and tank tops, and one of us "may" have been wearing socks with sandals. One woman laughed blatantly in our faces after looking us up and down in wonderment. Screw you, lady, long live the San Angel Inn Rebels.

At least they didn't refuse us entry. You overshot that one, Mario, but you were right, the food was definitely tasty.

Coco is exhausted by the day, she does not care 

we are seated in one of the finest restaurants in the land,

and that we are doing so wearing shorts and sweatshirts.

The next day we took Alex's family to Valle de Bravo, a colonial town a couple hours away from Mexico City by car. We cautiously asked Mario for a breakfast recommendation on the way there, then pointed at ourselves over and over for dress code clarification. He got the second one right, stopped at a small string of restaurants along the highway and led us into a tiny, rough-around-the-edges place with three women at a gigantic stove in the corner of the dining room.

The food, frankly, was better than what we had at the fancy San Angel Inn. It was perfect, cheap, simple, pure homemade Mexican food. The chilaquiles with chorizo are still on my mind and may be forever. Best of all, nobody cared what we looked like.

And most random of all, there was a photo of Hugh Jackman hanging on the wall over my mother-in-law's shoulder. In the photo, he's standing at the very gigantic stove in the very dining room in which we were seated with the very women cooking our breakfast --

That's pretty random, Mexico.

How did Hugh Jackman find it? Does he know Mario, too?

Mario earned his pay that day because Valle de Bravo was a mess given the three-day holiday weekend. Traffic was more "stop" than "go" and more "infuriating" than "not infuriating" because colonial town streets were not meant to hold cars. They were meant to hold people and horses, and not many of them at that.

Valle de Bravo was crowded. And hot. The combo made me slightly mental. We ducked down side streets to avoid clogged main drags and stayed in the shade as much as possible. Also, for whatever reason, fireworks were being set off at random intervals somewhere near the main square, which did not help things. The fireworks were so loud and startling, we all jumped a mile every time one exploded over our heads. I soon became a very twitchy tourist indeed.

But it's true, Valle de Bravo is very pretty. 

We signed up for a private boat tour on the lake in an attempt to escape the chaos. The jostling crowd that formed as all of the waiting people tried to get onto their boats made Parisians look downright civil in their line-waiting capabilities. It was that bad. You often need to embrace the chaos and disorder of Mexico, just go with the flow, but sometimes I am not in the mood to do that. I am ashamed to admit I considered pushing many Mexicans into the water but thankfully I managed to resist the urge.

The kids think it's hilarious to pretend to be asleep.

Kids are weird.

The boat tour was very enjoyable and relaxing until Alex began to feel seasick. He was able to hang in there for the duration but it made the last half of our tour a little more tense; the lake we were on supplies water to Mexico City and we desperately did not want to do anything gross to it.

Before I go, I want to mention a game that is often played late at night in Mexican bars. Alex and I went out with a group of co-workers and assorted friends over the weekend to Plaza Garibaldi, a.k.a. the birthplace of mariachi music. It was a raucous evening involving tequila and mariachi and electrocution.

Shit gets real when you're up until the early morning hours

at the birthplace of mariachi

I don't know why electrocution is a fun thing to try in Mexico, but it is. You sit in a circle with your friends, hold hands, and a guy just electrocutes you all. He starts with a very low current but keeps jacking it up until one of you is in so much pain you let go and break the circuit. Then everybody laughs and howls and makes jokes like "hope nobody has a pacemaker!" and "What's my name again?" -- although that last one may not have been a joke, he seemed legitimately confused.

We are proud (?) to say we all made it until the end, 

the highest current safe to pump into humans for fun.

Weirdest stuff. I just don't even know. But it's true we bonded and had a good laugh over it, even if my right arm is still tingly days later and I can't grasp my toothbrush very well anymore.

Spring Break is coming up starting this weekend so we're heading to Costa Rica for 16 glorious days. I have been meticulously planning this vacation and am very excited. From what I hear, we are never going to want to leave Costa Rica even though we will be near eaten alive by bugs and likely sunburned beyond recognition. That's Costa Rica's inexplicable magic.

Until we meet again, here's our new friend Joe playing the famous "La Cumparsita" tango on his harmonica --



Pura Vida!
MJ