Moving is deathness

Ok, so I'm unpacking today, and it's taking me ALL day because I have a severe case of the dawdle and also because Joel's in school so I'm the only one to make all the executive decisions (like where the hell do I put all this junk?). And I start to run out of steam at around 5:00, and alls that's left to do is find homes for all the miscellanea and stack all the boxes and vacuum up all the leaves that I tracked in earlier and I finally get it all done and everything put away and the house looks awesome and liveable and then hrack! There's a box under the tv. And not even, like, this is a box of dishes I must put away or this is a box of clothes I must hang up, but this is the last-ditch box that we flung everything into that wouldn't fit anywhere else, viz. this box is full of agony. I almost cried.



And now, apropos of nothing, I had no cat allergies in Mexico but had TERRIBLE cat allergies previous, so we're conducting an experiment wherein we unlock the little cat door that leads to our suite and let the comically-oversized grey cat (if he so chooses) to come into our home, and then we see if I am miserable. Maybe I am only allergic to Canadian cats.



H'adios, kids.

Reading is crazy!!

If I had the balls to wear a t-shirt with swears on it, and if I hadn't already worked through my lifetime quota of ill-fitting-but-hilarious shirts, I would rock this for sure.

Also, we have moved! Huzzah! Escuse while I unpack ALL DAY!!!

She sums up!!

Hello friends! I know, this is the least busy I will every be IN LIFE, and yet I refuse to blog. But this is me blogging.

Hrrrum....we've been staying at mine and Joel's parents' places alternately, and while I'm eternally grateful to them for housing us and feeding us and giving us somewhere to plunk our suitcases, I will be SO EXCITED to have my own space in which to make a mess and hang clothes up and rummage through the cupboards. You know how it is.

We've spent much of the past six days getting fatter, as both our sets of parents feed us very well and I have taken up excessive baking. Behold my strawberry tartlets!

Behold my black-and-blueberry pie!

Behold my sugar cookies!

Behold my bavarian cream eclairs!!!!!

Due to the fattening, we've also been going for jogs. The other day I stopped to pet this old eastern European lady's dog, and we chatted, and I mentioned how cute her dog was. 'He ees too feht!' she replied, and then thwacking him in the belly with one of her canes, 'Hey, fehtty? Ve'll shlim you down.' You and me both, puppy.

In our spare time, Joel's been playing Call of Duty and I've been plowing through my pile of books. Also, we bought this beautiful clay orb for my mother from Mexico, but when we got back, oh no! Orb is in pieces!!!

Joel likes puzzles, and I like fixing things, so we sat down with a tube of Krazy Glue and set to. I think I lasted half an hour. Joel, on the other hand, is a spatial genius.

Joel starts school on Monday, and I start school a week from. Oh yes, school! So, long story short my transcripts were delayed and didn't get to UBC in time and my application was cancelled, and I had to write a Letter of Appeal and wheeeeeeeee! They let me in! But by then all the awesome classes were taken, so I'm taking....history, or something. Who knows.

Dog days

Unlike in Thailand, where the streets are clogged with stray dogs, the streets of Mexico are clogged with owned dogs. Everyone has, like, six dogs, and they all run wild and mangy. But at least they are loved, so I guess it's a step up. Behold, my friends, the dogs of Mexico.

This is Babs, Greg and Alyson's dog. She is quite earnestly cute, if a bit snobby and cat-like in behavior. Also, she has epilepsy.

This is Chico. Chico is the most nervous dog I know, except maybe Dag (who has less cause, really), and also he hates me. This is maybe because I chomp him.

This is Banana. Banana is hilariously long in the body, and also exceptionally round. This is because she is terribly spoiled and will only eat wet cat food. She is my favorite dog.

These are tiny puppies from the pet store. I palmed their heads.

This is Dag, and these are his ribs.

Dag only comes by the house for a meal every few days, and he won't eat if you're watching him. He won't even come in the house unless you round up the cats and lock them in the bedroom.

This is Perro. He is a dog from one of the housebuilds, and is almost certainly diseased, but he is also desperately cute. I lasted three days before I petted him, and I didn't tell Joel. He has paint on his forehead, but it's not from me.

Also, we arrived home safe and sound.

Technology!!

I KNOW!! TWO POSTS IN LESS THAN 12 HOURS!!! I've returned to civilization.

Not only am I blogging in my pyjamas, but last night I showered without leaving the house!! (Have I not talked about our showering situation? Maybe four days after we moved into Gord and Carols [where there was no functioning shower, and if you wanted to take a bath you had to put a bucket under the faucet because it dripped and ignore the hoards of spiders living in the wall next to you] a guy came by to install a shower, which will be awesome for Gord and Carol when they get back, but which effectively negated our chances of ever bathing again!! So for two weeks we'd walk 15 minutes to the base to shower, or we'd head to the beach, or we'd stink. The day we left, the shower was sufficiently finished for a farewell bathing.) Also, I showered for a long time because there is no chance of us running out of water or propane!! Also, when I pee I can throw my toilet paper in the toilet and flush it, and I don't need to put on flip flops to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night!!! Excitement!!!

We fly out this afternoon. Fabulousment.

Mom, this one's for you.

Joel and I are in San Diego hitting the outlet malls HARD (3 pairs of shoes for $25!!! Five shirts and a pair of shorts for a total of $35!!!) before coming home.

.

Also, we met Genghis Khan Ghengis Kahn Gengeese Kaaaaaaaaaan an Asian.

I've become that lady who talks about her cats all the time

Ok, so, remember how we're babysitting some kittens? They're kind of cats now, all big and junk. Anyway, we've been letting them get away with stuff that we know Gord and Carol wouldn't have, and some nights ago (please Gord and Carol never read this) we left our bedroom door open and let them sleep in the bed with us. By which I mean that we let the girl-cat sleep in the bed with us and let the boy-cat step on my neck and meow at me all night, the little asshole. I didn't get more than two disjointed hours of sleep that night, but I was too tired and irritated to just chuck the cats outside and lock the door.

H'anyvays, since then, whenever the boy-cat was sleeping I'd come over and shake him awake, or poke him in the neck, or make loud noises. How do you like it, cat? Also, I would make a point of telling girl-cat (also known as 'Throat-beard') quite loudly how much my favorite she was, and how much more I liked her than boy-cat (really only known as 'Boy-cat').

Except then a few days ago, boy-cat ran away. He's always the first one in our room in the morning as soon as we open the door, and he'll be all up in our space, stepping on our books and kneading any exposed skin, but then one morning he wasn't there. That evening when we got home from the house-build, he continued to not be there, and the following morning he remained not-there. Which, kind of I'd be fine with, except that he isn't our cat. So we hunted all over the house in case he got himself locked in a cupboard and then died, or passed out from all the dog food he's been eating (seriously, this cat is such a douche. That food isn't yours!!), but there were no cat-corpses.

Yesterday morning, I got up to let Throat-beard in with us, because she'll come nestle down in between us and purr hard without trying to eat our bookmarks or our fingers or anything, and not five minutes later, boy-cat hopped up on the bed! He was dusty and exhausted (he slept the whole day) and had acquired this habit of sitting on my shoulder and rubbing his face hard against my cheek (which is actually kind of endearing), and besides all that, WHERE WERE YOU?? Oh, if cat's could talk.

I suspect him of having been off sowing his wild oats, and also getting lost because he's a bit stupid. Also, I suspect that girl-cat may soon get pregnant, and also that the babies will have extra tails and very low IQ scores. You know what I mean.

blogger needs a punch in the face.

I was going to post a photo of Joel quite precariously close to a wild dolphin, but blogger is again being a douche. Check Facebook for dolphin awesomeness.

The dolphin encounter resulted from our frequent beachings. Alyson's awesome parents are down here doing a house-build, and Tom likes to get cracking early (like, 8:30) and knock off after lunch to hit the beach for the rest of the day. Surprisingly, we're actually ahead of where we were this time last house-build, and we've painted the entire interior (which was tedious and sweaty until they cut out some windows, at which point it was simply tedious). The house is a lovely lavender. I will have photos.

Last night we went to the campos, which is where the field workers and their enormous families live. Children are treasured immensely in Mexico, which is awesome, but they're treasured to the point where everyone wants to have as many as they can, regardless of whether they can feed and clothe them or not (hint: most of them can't). It's sad and sort of angryifying to see so many ragged children running around when, dude, just have fewer of them. You'll still be a field worker living in a plastic-bag-house, but at least your child will have pants.

I am le starved. I am getting le fat because we eat lunch at the house-builds (today? Deep fried fish-tacos!!) and supper at the base (yesterday? Greasy-good enchiladas!!). We come home a week tomorrow. I am both excited and sad.

Volcanos!!!

Pre-blog essplanation: I had photos for all these things, but blogger is being a douche. Said photos should be up on Facebook soonly, but I don't have time to rewrite this post. Is ok.

Ok, so very quickly because supper is shortly, we went camping under a volcano on Friday. The road was mad sandy and only one of our vehicles had 4-wheel drive, so the other one got stuck. Often.



I did many dangerous things on that trip, including eat fresh mussels...



feed my finger to a sea anemone...



and try to hike the volcano in flip flops. I made it halfway before the smooth, steep rock face covered in loose gravel sent me back. Joel survived, but barely.



There are no good pictures of the crater, or whatever the top scoopy bit of a defunct volcano is called, but we climbed down in it and there was (oddly) a cool draft coming from what should be red hot magma. Huh.



On Sunday we went to Ensenada and did the touristy thing, like check out the giant golden heads. Also, I bought a poncho. Please don't judge me.



Hrmmmmm, I need to go upload photos onto Facebook. Adios.

Reverse tubal ligations for everyone!!!

Joel and I got to observe a surgery!!! Check it out, we are doctors!!

I didn't bring my camera into surgery, don't be gross. Also, in interest of not being gross, I will try to avoid going into detail. Also, Joel looks like Sub-Zero, no?

Ok, so the local poor-people hospital let us come in and watch a woman get her tubes untied (apparently a lot of Mexican women will do this because their husbands will leave them and they'll get new ones, and the new ones will want children). Joel's not technically in med school yet, and I'll never be in med school, but this bothers no one. The doctors were super jolly and the nurse brought us a stool we could stand on so we could see things, and the surgeons would hold up inside-bits and explain what they were doing and then Joel would get off the stool and I would get on and they'd explain again. Nice people.

I was kind of nervous, because you're never sure what you'll do when you're watching a human being be carved up like so much meatloaf. But lo and behold! Surgery is interesting! And fun!

When they first cut her open, they stuffed all these hand-towels into her abdominal cavity, to staunch the bleeding I assume. I'd totally forgotten about them, and then all of a sudden at the end they're pulling out towel after towel, like some sort of magic trick. But a creepy, bloody one.

Afterwards, the one surgeon was all, That was a pretty quiet surgery. You all should be in here when we're doing a C-section! There's people running everywhere and blood all over the place and then all of a sudden we pull out a baby!!

I think I'll spare you everything else (shall we say that fatty tissue is nasty, and leave it at that?). We plan on heading back for more (come on C-section!!) if we get the chance. Vive los countries without rules and/or privacy issues!!

Please excuse us now while we go camp under some volcanos.