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.

Vote for Isis - Win some whiskey!

I didn't win the liquor. But I thought this was about the coolest illegal maneuver anybody could pull at a popularity contest voting booth. As you came into the Chico y Chica UNPA finale dance venue, you had to put your ticket into one of these receptacles to vote for your favorite. One of the contestants, Isis, had a crony holding this sign: After you vote for Isis, Ariadna will give you a ticket for the whiskey raffle!
Of course you must know how I voted...

Pool with some professors

Ahhhh, the joys of Mexican University life! Here, it is completely normal to have a popularity/talent contest to elect a Boy and Girl UNPA every year. The last round of the competition is a dance routine competition where the contestants rope their most graceful friends into doing a disco-dance spectacle. I knew I couldn't miss this.
But before we went, we met up with some of the other professors and went to the Trova bar to get a buzz. I was really looking forward to it because they have shisha there and I was about drooling over the thought of tobacco. So we got there and OF COURSE they had no charcoal so we couldn't smoke shisha. Tuxtepec giveth and Tuxtepec taketh away.

Iguana

We got to work yesterday to find this giant iguana dying on the steps of the Centro de Idiotas. We all had to poke at it and take pictures, but then some Mexican professors who knew NOT what they were doing came out and decided they needed to pour peroxide on it's ass because it looked wounded. Something was protruding, anyway, like hemmorhoids or something. We thought it was awful that they kept fucking with the poor thing. And it did die eventually that day. Who knows? But at least I got some good pictures of the local fauna :)
But now I come to the moral dilemma part. Well, not really moral dilemma so much as a complaint about myself. After I looked at these pictures I started to feel like one of those assholes at Abu Ghraib that took pictures of themselves posing with the humiliated prisoners. Should I feel that way? I don't know. But I kinda do. I need a drink. :)

Morning Sun

I took this out the window of the Tux Van on the way to school one day last week. The sun was looking really good, but I never was able to get a clear shot at it. The driver was driving like a maniac as usual. But I figure I'd post this picture because I see this landscape every day here and I'd like to remember it. It makes me realize I'm in a strange and foreign place.

Dancers

Little Dancers.
In the main plaza in Tuxtepec there is a stage. And a bandstand. But the stage is where they mount public productions on the weekends. They have a lot of events: music, fashion shows, speeches, and traditional dance. I was coming home one day and passed this group of kids. They were a little shakey in their performance. Like kids do, they stood around some and stared at each other when they got lost. But they were all right. I figure they'll improve and end up being quite good at it.