labor pains

i've been with a friend who is in labor all day and it really is a beautiful thing to watch. i'm not really close to her, but i grew up with her husband and, if needed, we'd tell people we're related. hell, that's what we've told the hospital staff today so we could be in the room. his mother called from las vegas to asked lemuria to just be with them and i tagged along, thinking it would be a quick drop in and drop out and then we'd catch some brunch. it's been 5 hours and i don't plan to leave until the baby gets here.

anyway, it really is amazing looking at her being with the labor, the way she was before and after the epidural and just looking and her being present. we were rubbing her back and her shins as she breathed through the contractions and there was a moment for me. it's inspiring. i'm kind of envious. giving birth just seems like such powerful experience, and while imani did strongly caution me against it, i think it's something that i need to do. funny how this summer/fall has become baby season for me.

i guess that's what 33 makes you into.

hee hee.
m.

so this was my thursday

the battle of the museums was pure freshness. i was accidentally repping for queens, but i am a straight uptown/museo del barrio girl. i totally lifted this from someone's twitter post, but i think it captures duke riley's genius rather efficiently!

good times in new york.
damn it, i need to find my camera.

kisses,
m.

ny magazine review link attached. they are so much more eloquent than i...
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/08/saltz_duke_rileys_insane_trium.html

i guess i'm speaking in poems these days

this haiku came to me today, i'd like to share.

smiles and insults are
like an old happy couple.
they like to stay close.

i'm doing a concierge thing this week. it's great because it involves all the troubleshooting i love as well as shopping with other people's money. and i'm staying busy, which is nice.

until!
m.

bikram is my homeboy

i feel so lazy about my blog. it's partially that i am in ny, but it's also that i need a digital camera, i cannot seem to find mine, and there is no shame in having two. i mean, i could be narrating my new york life. i could talk about the amazing erykah badu concert last night, or the great time i had in newburg with my friends who are having a lovely life there. i could talk about my daily bikram practice which is making me feel stronger, and could hint around my current life challenges. i could talk about how i feel really good about my reiki practice this minute, and let my friends know that i'm trying to strengthen that practice and am open to trades. hint.

but that could be exhausting. so i just feel like submitting a simple bikram poem that danced around my head as i walk from class this afternoon. i was going to name it bikram is my lover, but i like homeboy better.


bikram is my homeboy

i'm not generally a woman about ice water
or sweating in the heat,
but in my practice everyday those feelings must be beat

my tummy feels much fitter
not that it was bad,
but in balancing stick pose these days it's looking rather rad

give me a water bottle
nay give me two,
anything that'll allow me to live through this will do

my practice is my joy
it helps my equanimity,
when feeling overwhelmed for me it is a perfect remedy.


it still feels unfinished, but it's late. maybe i'll edit in the sunlight.

kisses amores!
m.

driving like a mexican... in ny

driving like a mexican in nyc doesn't actually work. i know new yorkers are supposed to be crazy drivers, but they have nothing on your average mexican driver just heading to the superama.

anyway, been here for 5 days and almost feel like i never left. seriously, this is exactly what april was like, bikram in the morning, random errands, lunch with friends and the occasional movie mixed with random to-dos in the evening. and drinking. seriously, i'd forgotten how much drinking we do in this city, and how easy it is to hemorrhage money. the money part is also serious. i walk out the door and that's like a$60 surcharge. i'm not even sure what my money has gone to, but it's definitely loving that spot a lot more than it likes my bank account. that said i have purchased some LOVELY turquoise jeans. clearly i'm taking my blue phase seriously.

still acclimating to being able to understand everyone. it's so... different. i keep wanting to move into aggressive hand gesturing and loud talking (like that really helps) but catch myself and sure enough, everyone i hang with in nyc totally speaks english. let's see if brazil stumps me as much, as i'm not even a little prepared for brazilian portuguese.

talk soon!
m.

dallas! really?

trapped in dallas for the evening. i say my plane push away but i wasn't on it and american airlines put me up in a hotel. dallas? really? there are maybe 50 other cites that i would be excited to be stuck in. dallas wasn't one of them.

that said, i had a pretty ok time here. there was the taste of dallas happening and i had some life changing crawfish and blackened shrip situation on the street. i also got to catch up on nyc life with my sis while enjoying a beer at the west end pub. i think my waiter was micro-flirting with me. whatever, in the end he gave me happy hour prices at midnight, so yay! anyway, home tomorrow. apparently lemuria is picking me up at the airport and we are running to bk to see maiysha. from the plane. so i suppose i will be smelly at my summer 09 nyc/bk debut.

anyway, had a great final july day in gdl. i braved the public bus system on my own and went to tlaquepaque. on my own. on the public bus. with no real direction. have i mentioned i was alone? i spent more time trying to figure out where to get on the bus than i actually spent on the bus. and then there was the staring, hoboy, there was staring. in taxi's i dont really have to appreciate how much i'm stared at in gdl. but there's nothing like being on public transportation alone to put that all in perspective. i bought beautiful things at tlaqupaque, including a shirt that i only purchased because i didn't understand it.

hell, a girl has to have reasons, even if they don't make sense.

then, after my bus adventure, i went to a resturant named 'la dolce vita' in centro magno for dinner with a glitterly assortment of mexicans. i think any place named 'la dolce vita' brings out the glittery set, internationally (imani, you may recall the 'dolce vita' in firenze). there i finally had a pizza in mexico with mozerella rather than queso gouda. yay! also had a yummy grappa. when i get back i'm taking erin!

excited about ny. excited about not being in dallas.
first class better be awesome tomorrow!

until!
m.

hummingbirds

a few weeks ago when erin and i were cleansing we happened upon a semi-hidden restaurant that we hoped would carry miso, which was our daily treat during those 5 days of liquid nourishment. they did not carry miso, but they had a lovely garden with hummingbird feeders that were very popular with the local hummingbird population. we drank tea and watched them come back and forth and i struggled with photographing until i realized i could just film for a few seconds.

little known fact: whenever erin sees a hummingbird she yelps HUMMINGBIRD! in her unexpectedly high pitched hummingbird voice and points at it. she uses the same high piched voice on unsuspecting mexican gentlemen of a certain age, especially when we get water delivered. HOLA SEÑOR!

home to ny soon, i suppose the tone of this blog might change then for a spell until i'm back to gdl. what wonders await?

besos,
m.

traditional mexican moji

here's a tape of me twirling, and erin looking past my madness while trying to watch greys anatomy.

this is the traditional mexican outfit that i purchased a few weeks ago. still trying to figure out where i'll wear it and in the interim i wear it around the house.

yup, that's my crazy you smell.

m-wah,
m.

happy independence day!!

this is the first year in forever that i missed sara and dan's annual cookout. darn it!

anyway, no one in gdl is paying attention to this darn american holiday, including us. we did laundry.

oh, as of today my mom is following me on twitter, that's kinda funny!

kisses and lonches!
m.

blackout pt. 2

yesterday was my second blackout in guadalajara. the first happened in may and seemed a little scary, but this one was smooth like butter. we were driving to a meeting and all of a sudden a huge tropical rainstorm hit and lasted for the 30 minutes. just so you know, that storm didn't stop anyone from driving like a mexican, i'm talking left turns from the right lane, passing without signaling and all. no one cared that the rain affected visibility, clearly being able to see while driving is something that stops babies and suckers, but not mexican drivers.

anyway, since we were on our way to an appointment we kinda kept on going with our life.

4 hours later when we drove home as we passed the local blockbuster we noticed a commotion. the whole street was blocked off, and it's a major street. here are pics of the tree that crashed into the truck, as well as the main power lines to our block and rerouted traffic. meanwhile the blackout and all barely put a dent in anyone's life. our local restaurants just pulled out the candles and it was business as usual, with a few extra people on the streets, chilling.

erin, 6 and i were fine. after the last blackout erin had purchased an emergency lamp that is quite illuminating. we turned it on, set up my laptop to play party tunes for the pup and then went to a rather romantic candlelit fondue dinner. i tried to play footsie with erin under the table but she was having none of it.

afterwards we ran into some sort of critical mass-type bike parade, but couldn't be critical mass because clearly the cops weren't opposed to the event. bikers who had stopped biking were being cheerfully carted with their bikes by municipal pickup trucks. when i ran out of the car to take pics of it all the bikers waved and cheered at me. mucho awesome.

unfortunately motion night pics aren't the best. sorry i didn't use the video feature.

anyway, until!

besos,
m.

disco road kill in zara home

we bought gold flatware for the home (finally flatware!!!)
and that's me sitting on a silver bean bag.
disco. road. kill.

kisses,
m.

street fruit, random horses

walked out of my apt in the rain yesterday, got in the car (our friend nereo is letting us borrow his while he's on vacation), made a left turn and bam! 2 horses tied to the trees next door. it's so urban/suburban here i forget that this kinda stuff just happens. i took photos and then we went to the supermarket to get more apple juice for our cleanse. by the time we got back they we gone, without a trace. so random. there was like 20 minutes total between seeing them and them disappearing. no saddles, not transport vehicles, no nothing. they were just there and then they were not.

in other news, i bought a traditional mexican pueblo outfit on thursday when we went to the central market with nereo. i'll post a picture later on me in it, but it's A LOT of fabric and rather colorful (although naturally i purchased the black one). if we'd made it to pueblo i'd promised i would wear it everyday, but we're not so i'm gonna find some way to incorporate it into my ny wardrobe eventually. you haven't seen moji in a floor length skirt in years!!

1995, we're coming!!

love love,
m.

mj died today

michael jackson died today and i cannot believe it. personally i'm still reeling from luther's death a few years ago, i'm not really ready to process this too. i'd really thought i'd get to see michael grow old while i did.

and i totally didn't know about it until like 2 hours ago. i mean i'm in guadalajara, minding my business and we did a lot today. it's not like i can overhear people talking about it in spanish, nor is anyone calling me long distance to share that news. so i'm just offline and out of the loop. fred broke the news to me via skype, and i think we were 10 minutes into the conversation before i understood what he was talking about. actually i just caught some clip online while talking to fred, then started putting the pieces together and had to double back to him like oh, THAT'S why ya'll are having a mj marathon in buenos aires. crazy, crazy crazy.

anyway, mj is clearly loved by all my facebook and twitter peeps. once i knew what to look for there was a wealth of love and tributes on people's walls and status. i didn't even feel the need to add to the fray, there is a lot of stuff out there. but here my own:

MJ I WILL MISS YOU.
thriller is the most perfect album ever.

'chest pop/chest pop/chestpopchestpopchestpop'

love,
m.

chaune stylee

The day chaune arrived i was totally that sickly. i could not swallow and was subsisting on ice and liquid yogurt drinks for nourishment. chaune swooped in in her sleeping skirt (basically our flat sheet) and nursed me back to health with her elixir. i think it was made of tequila, honey and hot water.

friends are awesome.

anyway, where are some straggler flicks of chaune's trip. she stole my favorite harem pants on her last day, fortuately i had my harem pant jumpsuit left! you read that correctly.

moji al mexico is wearing bright colors, harem pants and am compulsively into native beadwork. clearly it's a different life.

love love,
m.

mexican muzak

you'd think mexican muzak would be gypsy kings-type mellow hits or contemporary spanish interpretive acoustic stylings or perhaps just local folk-type music.

you would be wrong.

well that may apply to what people play in their homes or cars, but when it comes to restaurant or cafe music it seems that folksy acoustic remakes of 90's pop hits rule. last week i heard a cd of an american artist crooning soundgarden's 'black hole sun' whittled down to a natasha beckensale-type ditty at an otherwise edgy little cafe. the same artist also covered oasis' 'wonderwall' and tons of other 90's pop/rock songs that i can't even remember now. and at a trendy sushi spot for dinner tonight i heard a smoothed out version of 'in the air tonight.' how do you smooth down a pretty mellow song to begin with? not still sure how, but everyday i'm confronted with a new and slightly more hilarious examples. if i only had an audio blog you could truly experience it for yourself.

in other news, i'm totally getting into the mexican overuse of cream cheese. i dunno if i'll be able to enjoy my future maki rolls without a little jalepeño and philidelphia rolled in them.

i know i've missed a lot of the LGBT pride activities in the US this month, but from centro guadalajara here are flicks of tacos gay's. rainbow flags representing!!!

kisses,
m.

more aggressive topiary

it's been a whirlwind few days with our inaugural visitor, but i'm about to get back on my blog-grind this week. meanwhile, i've come a across a few more examples of aggressive topiary that i wanted to share, in case my other examples were not appropriately convincing.

chaune in gdl was awesome. i posted a lot of pics on facebook of our lunch in chapala an our day at tequila, but i think i reserve the visual highlights of her goodbye yesterday for my blog. there are harem pants involved.

besos,
m

chaune is here!!!

chaune is here and it's been a bit if madness. fun madness indeed though!

i'm running off to eat, but wanted to post the video of her dancing in traffic in the rain. seriously she just jumped out of the car and got it in. after this particular moment we accumulated 2 whole cars of mexican men following us. fans of chaune's, it seems...

anyway, enjoy!
m.

spanish guitar

all is well here. as usual the weather is beautiful and today we met with erin's soon-to-be
spanish guitar teacher. he is so very nice and the lessons will be in his outdoor living room/covered roof which is rather well appointed. here are pics of him, of erin, of the beautiful living room/roof and a pic of my impromptu free flaminco guitar lesson i squeezed out while they were talking pesos and making dates.

after that he played the girl from ipanema for us the guitar (because bossanova is his specialty) while we danced around the living room.

unfortunately for you it was just the 3 of us there and we were all occupied, so no one could operate the camera.

next time, i promise.

more kisses!
m.

aggressive topiary

the mexicans of providencia really get down with their aggressive topiary. seriously. every tree you see has been pruned to within an inch of it's life. manicured square trees abound. it's like a dumbed-down edward scissorhands outtake without the animal shapes. there is one square tree that i've been meaning to photograph cause it's funny, someone carved a smiley face into it. smiley face.

anyway, here are a few very mild examples i have shot. notice the spiral design that that one tree has been forced into, and the amazingly round trees that circle the mansion. the mansion is as big as a city block and those round trees are on every side! crazy. then there are the trees in front of the school that have been forced to make a string of arches. someone's getting paid below US minimum wage to maintain that. wow.

besos,
m.

just appropriate

i saw this and it's so my blog. perhaps i should have more traffic pics!

http://twitpic.com/6pf86

off to get it in sans erin!

m.

street fruit, meditation

so i've been thinking a lot in the last 24 hours or so about what street fruit is. i mean, literally, in moerines (that's a contraction or moji+erin+ese) it refers to the chopped mexican street fruit bathed in lime and chili that i blogged about a few days ago. but really it seems to be more that that. here are picture of trees bearing fruit that falls on the sidewalk as we're minding out businees. we've seen all kinds street fruit trees with mangos, avocados, pomegranites and all types of citrus (i'm not even sure what those huge green things are, i'd think grapefruit, but i'm pretty sure they are not.)

but there are all other kinds of street fruit too. i'll post later about the photo shoot that was literally happening during red lights cause that is a kind of street fruit. or the 8 peseo tamales by the supermarket that are a delicious street fruit (try the verdura, it's amazing.)

for me street fruit seems to be something, anything unexpectedly delicious that you find on the street. i'll be looking for more and more ways to illustrate my concept, let's see if it makes sense.

i guess by that definition I am street fruit too! yum!

besos!
m.

poor roses

here's a photo of sad flowers from some boys (one for each of us) that we had to put in the water bottle that came free with a bottle of tequila. unfortunately we have no vases in this house. apparently we're living a certain kind of life, and that life doesn't anticipate flowers from boys. le sigh.

btw, 'guapa' means cute girl.
me likey!

smile,
m.

teatro delgado cafe

just a few photos of us blending in at the cafe next to the teatro delgado.

yes that is a feathered situation in my hair!

besos!
m.

cuban dancing, a funny mistake and more!!!

yesterday was great. seriously a total GDL moment. last friday we had purchased tickets to see the 'ballet de cámara de jalisco' perform 'alicia el el pais de las maravillas' at the teatro delgado which we thought was a jaliscan ballet company doing an alice in wonderland ballet. we put on our pretty frocks and i put on heels, and took a cab to centro in anticipation. it turns out we had bought tickets to a ballet school recital. seriously. they had the very little girls in costume as mushrooms and clams being herded by older dancers! it was totally unexpected and adorable and kinda funny that we'd been mislead, but we totally sat down and took pictures like we actually knew any of kids there. i try to get into the spirit of things.

we had arrived at the theater before they'd opened the doors so, we'd stopped at the cafe next door to have a refresco and tapas. our waiter was a loverly mexican gentleman named omar who offered to communicate with us in english, french or spanish. naturally we choose english. while we were leaving the theater omar was standing by the door and he invited us to join him and his co-workers at a local cuban bar where a cuban band was performing in an hour. naturally we accepted.

OMG, the bar was amazing. i don't remember the street name, but the building number was 99 and 1/2, kind of cool for a building number. it was large and packed wall to wall with people, and once the band got started the people were seriously dancing. i'm not talking the 2-step NY-type too-cool-for-school dancing, i'm talking salsa throwdown! everyone was good, but some people we amazing, twirling their partners across the room and back adding dips and fancy footwork. we were seated with a party of about 8 (mixed men and women) and i would dance with anyone who grabbed my hand, including one man (and his partner) who were not with our party but clearly a part of the serious dancers in attendence. i'd never seen a salsa trio, but last night i danced one with them! the beers were cheap and everyone was so cool. we were dancing on top of each other and it was just smiles around. not bad for a thursday night.

at one point i was seriously dancing with an afro-cuban man (who started yelling "chango" and doing bembe dances but that's another story) and erin says the group at the table next to us was totally checking me out, possibly disapprovingly. apparently there was pointing. it could have been the purple plastic shoes, or my dress that kind of twirled up when i spun, or the fact that erin and i were the only black girls there. or the feathered situation on my head. but hey, who doesn't appreciate a bit of foreign hateration!

these pics are of us in taxi heading the theater, the kids recital, waiting for omar in centro and an action shot at the cuban bar. i'm the dancing pink blur!

kisses!
m.

mall belly dancers

this little doozie was taken on sunday at the super-fancy mall (called "el-pa-la-see-oh-de-yierro") which translates to 'iron palace.' we were on our way to the nike store to check out a jacket we'd seen in the window and minding our own business when this unexpected vision jumped at us.




is there anything else i should say?

i love love love that there is an osh kosh sign over them. and you'll notice that the dancer in black is getting it IN while everyone else sort of dials in their moves. clearly she's the only one in that group who has actually taken belly dancing lessons, the others are getting over with youth and good looks.

it's just started to rain really hard, but all smiles here!

m-wah,
m.

mexican street fruit, illustrated

this what we live for in mexico. you can make your own combinations but we consistently order pepino (cucumber), jicama, mango, papaya and tuna (which is prickly pear, a cactus fruit) because altogether it's a great balance of sweet and cooling. your selections are then freshly chopped, covered in a chili sauce and finished with fresh lime juice and, if you're into that sort of thing, they add this agressive rock salt. we try to steer clear of the extra salt as the chili sauce is salty enough as is and you could chip a tooth on those salt rocks.

i know it sounds crazy, but mexican street fruit is pure bliss to eat. between 11am and 3pm you can usually find the street fruit vendors pushing their carts or posted at thier standard spots around our neighborhood. it costs around 20 pesos ($1.47 as of today!) for a large container and trust me, that's money well spent. trying getting that much tasty fruit at whole foods for under $1.50!

here are photos of a local vendor doing his thing. this guy likes to to start an order by letting you sample how delicious the mango is that day. the mango was pretty yummy today, but not as yummy as 2 weeks ago when we ran into him!

notice the piles of mangos next to the vendor and the green bucket of his own chili mixture. once you get to the end of your serving there is this spicy lime juice sludge that the pepino and jicima taste lovely in, although it can be a jarring contrast with the sweeter fruits. 6 likes to lick the lime/chili off the fruit we give her before she eats it, cause she's mexican like that!

salivate and enjoy!
m.