It’s great to be married to a goofy person.
I went to a high school basketball game last night. When I bought my ticket they gave me the senior discount….without asking.
Shit.
Today I have to go back to work.
We just got back Mexico on Wednesday, and life has been pretty hectic around Casa Keller since, so I’m just now sitting down to write about the trip. We were in Cancun, we’d booked our trip before the Wilma and our hotel must have been one of the first to get back up and running. Most are not yet in business. Some of the bigger hotels are still in the process of being gutted, so they can be completely redone inside. I think only about 10 percent of the rooms are actually open. Which of course is killing the economy. Walking through downtown, past empty restaurants, you’re practically dragged into them by shills in front of every one. It was nice for us because it wasn’t crowded, but for the people, this must be a very tough time.
We stayed at the Imperial las Perlas, a three star hotel, the first hotel on hotel row before you get to downtown. It was clean, the people were friendly and helpful and most things worked. Our first room was absoutely the worst room in the place. In the back, on the first floor, our view consisted of the back of a pickup truck. On the second day we asked to be moved and got a bigger room, overlooking the beach. Once again the squeaking wheel gets lubed.
We were there for four days, we spent one day going to the ruins at Chichen Itza, a couple of hours inland, where the famous Mayan pyramid is. The Mayan’s motto must have been “A virgin a day keeps the Sun God at bay.” They felt that if they didn’t sacrifice a virgin every morning before the sun rose, it wouldn’t come up. Now these folks had a very sophisticated understanding of mathematics and astrology, wouldn’t you think they’d figure out that the sun would come up anyway? I guess it’s the same old story of religion keeping power over the masses. Not much different than forty percent of Americans not believing in evolution I guess.
Then we took the “Jungle Tour” which really wasn’t a jungle tour, but it still had a high fun factor. You get in these tiny fiberglass speed boats with 35 horse outboards (they’re really not as safety crazy in Mexico as we are) and buzz around the Lagoon for awhile and then take a channel through the mangrove swamp to a coral reef in the ocean, where you snorkel in a national park. We had a great time and Beck even overcame her fear of water to snorkel with us. We saw some wildly colored fish, some of which looked like argyle socks.
On Christmas day we had an amazing dining experience. I’m usually not into the audience participation thing, but these guys put on a show that gets everyone rockin’. We had so much fun. These people put on an amazing show, even though they were up until 5 am on Christmas Eve, their biggest night. They had several dwarves, one in a devil costume patrolling the floor and joking with the customers, and the waiters just wouldn’t let up with the joking around. It was such a hoot. Perico’s is the name of the place, don’t go if you’re looking for a quiet romantic dinner.
Random observations on Mexico, vacations in general and travelling with your family.
I’d like to blame the water or the food, but it started before we left, I was having a nasty flair up of Crohn’s disease the whole time down there. It didn’t keep me from having a good time overall, but it made me kind of crabby and weak at times. And nervous about finding a bathroom fast enough.
Speaking of bathrooms, I have a little bit of a hard time with the not flushing your toilet paper thing. As an American, if feel that I have the unalienable right to flush my toilet paper. Putting your dirty toilet paper in a waste basket next to the commode seems like a violation of my privacy.
Every vendor made their products themselves, they’re almost free for you today, and if that’s not cheap enough….how much do you want to pay?
On the plane ride back, there were lots of empty seats, so I took one in the exit row. I was wearing shorts and had my jeans in my backpack, ready for the cold weather. There was no one around me, so I moved to the window seat and quickly slipped off my shorts and into my jeans. My daughters were disgusted when I told them what I’d done. Lucia said, “Don’t ever do anything like that again. That’s such a creepy old man thing to do!” I was kind of proud of myself for pulling it off undetected.
Travelling in strange cities can be very stressfull. The first night we went downtown, we ended up unexpectedly in a place where we had to transfer busses to get where we wanted to go. After solving a communication problem with the bus driver, I figured out what we needed to do. No one believed me. They wanted to take a course of action that could have gotten us completely lost, and would have at least resulted in way more walking than I wanted to do. Even though I’d been downtown once already, had been to the place where we wanted to go, had corroborated my understanding with one more local, and was very sure of what we should do, they kept arguing with me. I popped a bolt. One of the passers by, “Senior, be nice to the lady, you’re on vacation!” The street vendor who I’d confirmed my directions with came over and calmed me down and backed up my side of the story. Ah vindication. Good thing we skipped our original destination and went to Perico’s right away.
On the first night, we found ourselves without cash, because of poor planning and a mistaken confidence about places accepting credit cards and the availability of ATMs. Long story short: we ended up eating at a buffet at another hotel, because they took credit cards. The food was mediocre at best. They charged us 250 pesos each, so about a hundred bucks total. Perico’s came in at less than a hundred, with drinks, great food and the amazing show! The next night we had a great dinner in a beautiful outdoor setting, including drinks and a flaming mango dessert for under forty dollars.
If you go to Cancun, go downtown. Get off the hotel strip and into the city. Some of the Anglos at the hotel were afraid of getting into a “bad nieghborhood” and I suppose that’s possible, but we never felt uneasy in the least.
For more pics from our trip click here.
Last night at the Gopher Women’s game against Iowa State, I was two feet away from Lindsay Whalen! Our seats are in the front row of the balcony at Williams Arena, and in front of that is a press row, that is usaully empty for women’s games. Down a little way, at center court, is where the radio announcers sit. At half time she came up to do an interview. I saw her coming toward me along the press bench and thought that she was the runner that brings stats to the radio people. Then I thought, that girl looks familiar. As she went by I had her and the banner hanging from the cieling commemorating the retirement of her jersey right in my line of site. Then as she went by, I confirmed her identity by checking out her butt. Yep, awesome glutes, it’s her. I’ve had brushes with fame before, Art Garfunkel and Dick Gregory in Central Park and peeing with Ted Turner at the ’91 World Series, but so far that’s by far the most exciting. When she was returning to her seat she touched my jacket that was laying on the press bench. When she had already passed me I said, “MVP next year Lindsay?” She turned and cracked a smile.
OK OK I’m a little wierd.
Woohoo! Eleven days off for the price of four! And the family’s spending Christmas in Mexico.
Today, on public radio, I heard a feature about a guy who never spends money, gets everything he needs from dumpsters. I don’t think he was indigent, it was more of a political statement for him. They were interviewing him about his Christmas shopping. He said he wouldn’t want to give a gift that was tainted by profit. Tainted by profit? WTF. OK maybe Christmas has become too commercial, maybe our society is a little too materialistic. But profit is not EVIL! If there weren’t profit to be made….the stores he’s freeloading off wouldn’t be there to fill up his dumpsters. If there were no profits to be made we’d all be looking for food….and there’d be no fucking dumpsters to dive in.
Oh and another thing. People who second guess your medical treatment really bug me. I’m sorry…where was it you went to med school? As far as I’m concerned, when you get free advice, you’re getting what you paid for!!!
It’s snowing, lightly with medium size flakes, not much wind. Winter is at the peak of it’s beauty.
I’m taking the day off to drive down to Ames to bring this one home for Christmas Break. I hope the snow remains so benign.
We’ve had a house guest for the last couple of weeks. I first became aware of him when I came downstairs in the morning and I saw Ollie and Beck posed like a couple of German shorthairs on a grouse, staring at the base of the refrigerator. It didn’t take a genius (I am of course a genius but it didn’t take one) to guess that we had a mouse. Like most problems we face we tacitly decided to ignore it and hope that it went away. Maybe we figured it was Ollie’s job to handle small rodent issues. After all he is a cat, sort of. Ollie’s concept of his job description was to stand guard and make sure he didn’t get out of the kitchen. He took up a position in the entry to the kitchen and stared at the cupboard below the sink for hours. I’m not sure he’d know what to do if the mouse ever came out.
Beck doesn’t work on Mondays, a situation that I’m wildly jealous of, but that’s another blog. So on her day off she went shopping and brought home a mouse trap. When I got home from work she excitedly called me up to the kitchen and opened the cupboard so I could see an empty mouse trap. “He’s gone!”
Apparently she’d trapped the little bastard but he’d managed to get out. “There he is!” He must have been injured and stunned because he was sitting on top of the plumbing under the sink, not making any effort to get away. I got my work gloves reached in and grabbed the little pest and took him out to the garbage can. He will either die out there, chew his way out and move back in or since they pick up today, be transported to a landfill and think he’s gone straight to heaven.
I’m looking out my window watching a fox just outside the fence. She’s stalking something.. Boom just pounced. It’s a beautiful little one, all bushy tailed and thick coated. Not the mangy ones you see sometimes. She just trotted away. I love foxes. Four years ago our area had a bad problem with rabbits. I’d have a half dozen in my yard methodically destroying my garden. And then the foxes moved in. You see them all over now. And you rarely see a rabbit. I love foxes.
Speaking of fox trots, I danced my ass off last night. My wife’s company had their Winter Solstice Party. It was held in the old Milwaukee Road Depot in downtown Minneapolis. Just a beautiful turn of the century Renaissance Revival building that was closed in ’71 and sat empty until a couple of years ago. They’ve restored it and put an ice rink where the trains used to come in. Great place for a party.
Rebecca has worked a Martin/Williams Advertising for 28 years. Longer than anyone. Steve Collins, the retiring president was giving the traditional toast before the dinner, toasting the fifteen people who’d been there more than twenty years, saying that he’d been there longer than almost anyone, anyone except for one woman….”the Grande Dame of the agency.” I about fell out of my chair. That’s going to be good for so much teasing. She wouldn’t even stand up and acknowledge the toast. The thing is I’m sure that the hordes of youngsters that work there were shocked. They must think she started when she was five. She really looked hot last night. A glittery top with tight black pants…the woman has an amazing ass for fifty. And her skin, her amazing skin….which is like velvet, completely void of wrinkles. She was almost forty when she stopped getting carded in bars.
Now I’ve been kind of a curmudgeon at these things in the past, I sometimes have a hard time being around a lot of drinking people, but last night I overcame my natural grumpiness and had a great time. One thing that contributed to my fun was the fact that you will rarely run into such a concentration of truly beautiful women. If you like tall blondes, you might just have a heart attack. Tall blondes that weren’t afraid to wear heels. Don’t think I’ve ever had to look up to make eye contact with that many women in one room before. And it wasn’t just tall blondes either. There were women who could have passed for Tinkerbell and pretty much everything in between.
OK, OK I’m an incredibly shallow sexist pig. I’ll cop to that.
Great basketball movie.