doga!

this morning, after my mexican ladies dance class, 6 decided to join me on the living room floor for a little "doga." that would be a contraction of dog and yoga as per the new york times a few months ago. erin took time out of her skype-fight with hewlett-packard to photograph the occasion. cute overload, no?

anyway, erin is now temporarily computerless as hp totally won that fight.

in new news our first visitor, chaune, is coming soon! she'll be here next thursday evening until sunday afternoon. we're trying to map out exactly what we're gonna do when she's here, but that will be an opportunity to shift into full-throttle fun. we're planning for that to be the weekend that we take the tequila express train that everyone speaks so highly of around here. apparently there are meals provided, tours of the tequila factories and unlimited tequila as well as mariachi everywhere! and i DO love a mariachi band (as expressed at my 2007 birthday party.) hopefully we'll be able to wake from that to get chaune to her plane in time the next day.

we also made a very cool new friend today named tom who is from california. he's a couple of semesters into erin's program and really nice. he gave us a ride home from fedex (where we deposited erin's computer), stopped to look at the new dog erin wants (it's so NOT gonna happen) and may also be a lead on my spanish tutor situation.

all in all i am healthy and feel wealthy today. shout out to spye design and thier dailycandy.com soap knuckles shoutout today. if you've got a dad you should cop one!!!

hee hee,
m.

beverage collection

it's monday and this is the week that we start with our spanish tutoring lessons, hooray! my italian sometimes helps me with translating, or getting the gist of a conversation or statement, but i really need more vocabulary if i'm going to tackle this language. also need some help with my prounciation since i keep saying spanish words with an italian accent, like i'm argentinian or something. i say "mon-teh-VED-dee-oh" rather that"mon-te-ved-EH-o" when talking about our nearest busy street, montevideo. let's not even get started with the "r" rolling words. geez.

i also have my dance class with mexican women of a certain social/leisure class on tuesdays and thursdays. the bag collection at that class is insane; there are very large gucci, ysl and dior bags reproducing! i almost feel kind of lame with my gifted spye design tote bag and the collection of cheap mexican bags that i've aquired here (and love.) i do get to style and profile in class with my very cool KOR ONE water hydration vessel http://www.korwater.com/ that no one's seen here (some people call it a water bottle) and i fit in with my nike workout gears, but clearly this is schmancy me-time set to to J-Lo, Britney and Katy Perry. it's kind of funny to imagine, but it's the closest thing i have to structure right now, and it's cute watching rich mexican women get theit hip-hop on in a class billed as jazz dance. AND i'm learning to follow instructions in spanish.

here is a visual collection of some of the drinks erin and i have had at meals over the last 3 days. you aren't ready for the mall belly dancers yet (yes, you read that correctly) but i might post that video later.

kisses!
m.

lazy weekend

this has been a pretty good, albeit very lazy weekend. i spent yesterday morning relishing in finally having internet, and the rest of the day trying not to have a heat coma. for some reason the sun had decided to ramp up a bit from the general guadalajara calm to something insanely hot and beaming. we couldn't even make our general 15 minute walk to calle providencia to try the eggs or waffles (waff-lez) at the illy cafe that had been on my mind since last weekend's brunch debacle. 3 blocks in we stopped at the closest fancy-pants joint. i have now dubbed it my shrine (or orange st 67) in providencia.

the place is about 3 blocks from our house and lovely. we walked in and were urged to have the mango and rasberry martini's which were just the refreshment i needed. seriously. followed by some garlic camembert cheese toast with rasberry jam that was amazing. amazing!

seeing as it's just 3 blocks away, i imagine that if all else fails i'll be right back there.

until!
m.

puppy on play

yesterday we took 6 to erin's school soccer yard to get it all out and she discovered sprinklers after we played frisbee.

wow. after an initial hesitation i don't think i've ever seen her that happy and it was awfully adorable to watch.

you can also see my shadow in the first picture!

kisses,
m.

it's a whole new world

here i am in lovely guadalajara and i feel like things are coming together. got my puppy on stun, got my internet working and i got my good times rolling.

i can't believe it's 1pm and all we've done is get the internet started. that's still a pretty big deal considering i've been rolling with partial to zero internet my whole trip here and as of 12pm today i am fully connected and able to take advantage of my macbook that i've lugged down here.

starting to have some minor stress about what i'm gonna do with my life now. i have a whole year ahead of me where i can accomplish anything, or at least get the ball rolling on anything and am unsure where to even start. thursday i woke up ready to write a book, but don't even know what i would start with. i love, love, love fiction but dont have a book idea. i could write my story, but to write about myself overmuch is rather lame. it takes a special kind of arrogance to write a living memoir, and while i've read a few that i liked i would hate to name-check the people i love. seriously. lame.

moreover, is there is real money or honor in book publishing? i wouldn't know.

anyway, i suppose i have to plan our july vacation (from my vacation) now that i can do research. we're going to argentina, or driving the dogde through central america, avoiding the darién gap. decisions, decisions, and they have to be made in 2 weeks!

kisses!
m.