The Castle at night

I love living in the castle. It really makes me want to get on with my life and build my own castle at the farm. Even though it's hot and buggy here, sometimes the beauty is just almost crushing.

Tepoztlan

When I was at Mariana's one of those times that I went to get Firulaisa spayed, I stopped for a sec at the gateway to the cathedral and got my picture taken in front of this wall mural made of seeds. It's pretty cool!
I wish I'd had time to explore more and climb the mountain to the temple. But staying with Mariana is difficult. She is very hard to get along with because she has to be in control all the time, she's a drama queen, she never listens to anyone else, and she smoke ay too much weed - so much that she has no control over her emotions. She says ridiculous things and changes her mind with every stray breeze. She nurses a hatred for the US and insists on sounding off with hare-brained political analysis that she does not really understand. Sheesh. I had to stay because I love the dog. But for real, Mariana's a little tyrant and I never want to have to stay with her again.

Cheaters

My students took their final exams last week and during the first class - the 9am nursing class - I confiscated THIS!
I noticed a piece of paper sticking out from under the test of one student and she was holding her arm over her exam in a suspicious manner. So I walked over and picked up her paper and this little, tiny, cheat sheet was smiling up at me.
I think that more of them had a copy of it. 5 people failed the exam. I think they had just not studied at all because they were planning to cheat and then when I put them in alphabetized seats and busted this one with the cheat sheet, they got too scared to use it. I was proud of myself :)
My only problem was what to do.
I confiscated the cheat sheet and let her finish the exam. I ended up subtracting 2 letter grades from her exam. She failed the course when all was said and done. Hahahahaha!!!!!

Tuxtepec Market

at the risk of making myself crazy hungry, I'm gonna post a few pictures from the local market in Tuxtepec. I rarely shop here because the shopkeepers are very aggressive and they yell at me when I walk in and talk fast and don't shut up to let me think. It makes me confused and I'm likely to walk away without buying anything. So their stupid hard-sell tactics don't do them any good. But still, it pisses me off to go to the market specifically for something and then leave without it because of asshole sellers.

Holy Key

You can even get the Virgin Guadeloupe on a key here.
So you can call upon divine help to get your locks open, I guess :)

Pineapple Jenny

Tuxtepec is a pineapple producing town. And they use the pineapple in a lot of their iconography - although the name really meas Rabbit Hill in Mixtec.
But the pineapples do grow to enormous proportions here. And they use them as props in the most popular and famous local dance they have, the "Flor de Piña."
I'll post pictures of the Flor de Piña later, for right now, here I am in front of the university with out very own small pineapple mascot. And here I am downtown with a bigger specimen.

peaches

Or something like that. They call these birds peaches. They must be in the corvid family, because a guy was telling me this morning that they can really tear up a corn field.
But they look to me like dinosaurs. I'll try to get a good closeup eventually, but this little group was pretty cute. The people here don't really like them. But to me they are totally precious. And dinosaurish :)

Tuxtepepper

This cute little shop is on the way home from the Tux van. We walk by it almost every day. This is where Maggie buys her coffee and I usually buy my garlic. I think I'm gonna start buying my granola there too.
But I want to talk a minute about peppers. Seeing the big bins of peppers everywhere here, makes me think that a lot of women are doing a lot of cooking with these peppers. And I have no idea how or what they are making.
I wish I knew.
And I wish I could cook something with them.
These peppers make me daydream of spicy, beautiful, mouthwatering, dishes. Of traditional kitchens and talaveraware and pots of beans steaming in pottery cookers.
It just seems a shame that I will probably always wonder about them.
Maybe one day I'll have a chance to find out what they do with them and what they taste like. Or maybe I wouldn't like it.

Earthquake Signs

I can't remember the exact day, but one day last month I was sitting at my desk in my office in the morning, talking to my mother on the computer, when the floor started to slide back and forth a bit. The building was shaking and I thought it was a big truck going by outside, but there aren't any roads or big trucks. So I realized it was an earthquake and probably a big one. When I heard something crash and break in the hallway I told my mother I had to go because there was an earthquake. I ran outside. The motion had stopped and there weren't any noticeable aftershocks.
I later found out that it had been over 6 points on the Richter scale and originated in Veracruz.Scary, that, since there is a nuclear power plant in Veracruz.
Anyway, when I got home, I documented the movement with this picture. You can see the little camels and bottles overturned and you can also see the clean spots where the coins had been lying until they got sloshed aside in the quake.
Thank goodness for my slovenly dread of dusting or I'd have very little evidence of this earthquake.
For the record, I've felt three earthquakes since I've been here, but there have probably been more than that.

Tortillas in Tepoztlan

I want to write about tortillas. There is a trend in Mexican tortillerias to add flour to the corn meal, adulterating the tortillas. This is such a problem that I have seen many tortillerias with signs proclaiming their tortillas free from additives, "100% puro maiz!"
In the market in Tepoztlan, though, they do things the old fashioned way. You can go there and buy handmade, real, 100% corn tortillas, for about 9 pesos/dozen. I ate there one day, when I was staying with Mariana for those 10 hideous days. And I took these pictures for posterity. Actually, at this stall I ate one sope and one quesadilla. They were fantastic.

Firulaisa, my almost dog

This one might make me cry. But I went to visit my friend Mariana back during Semana Santa. She lives in Tepoztlan (pictures to come in a subsequent post) and she had this dog living at her house that she called Firulaisa. Firu is a wonderful, sweet, awesome dog and I decided that if I could, I would bring her home with me.
I bought my ticket to come home in July and the guy said that I could bring her on the plane, no problem. He said there is a special section under the seats that is pressurized and airconditioned so it doesn't matter what time of year the dog is traveling. He said it would cost me $200 hen I got to the airport.
So, I went back to Mariana's (at great personal expense) taking over a week off work, to get Firulaisa fixed because she was pregnant.
I spent 10 days in hell listening to the idiot Mariana rant about politics that she doesn't understand and lose all control of her emotions. She gets high all the time and has no clue about much. she is completely self-centered and ridiculous.
Anyway, after this miserable trip (but I DID manage to get Firulaisa fixed) I called to check on my reservation only to find out that NO I can't take the dog.
It was going to cost me over $600 to take her. And I don't have that kind of money.
So I don't have a choice. I have to leave her.
I hope I can save some money and somehow find a cheap flight to Mexico in the fall, when there is not an embargo on animals traveling. Then maybe I can go get her. I hope she's still around by then.
I love this little dog.

Mr. Egg

I keep having these epiphanies that I need to use this blog instead of stupid FaceBook. So I'm gonna try to get back into the swing of it.
This is a store that we pass every day coming home from work in the Tux Van. I love the Mr. Egg sign. And, you can't see it in the picture, but there are bins of ground corn alongside the sacks of dog food and animal feed. If you want to make corn bread, you can't get cornmeal any other place. You have to go to the animal food store. Heh heh.