Monday, October 31, 2005

Posting when life seems unpostable

Well, there have been some developments here and there. I can't say life is entirely un-postable, but it is getting hard for me to come up with new material. Lately, I've been thinking of actually, "producing" something like a post that was actually planned and then posted to, but in some way that's a bit un-bloglike or something. I dunno- I do know that there are a few out there who do check in semi-regularly so I will attempt to cram something in this post that you can while away the next few minutes looking at even though my upstairs neighbor is blasting techno- and I'm not talking Glastonbury the-latest and greatest techno but an endless mix of "I'm too sexy for my shirt.." fare, but maybe that's better...



Uh, a couple of weeks ago Ale and I volunteered for the annual food drive for the Mexico Cities food bank, known as "Alimento Para Todos". We were volunteers along with thousands of others nationally who participated in the day long drive.



I didn't know this before but conscription is mandatory in Mexico and all eligible, young males must do a year long military service where you receive the mandatory amount of getting yelled at, push - ups, and target practice in order to become a real man. Fortunately for the Food Bank these guys are also available to do some useful community service in the form of door knocking and collecting non-perishables from the locals cupboards for the food bank.



It was a pretty amazing haul. The food bank was completely full of sacks of rice, beans, tinned food, and other stuff. I believe it was a pretty successful campaign.



In other news I got lost driving in the city the other night. It was a bit stressful. I was supposed to be miles away picking up Ale at her mother's place but i took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up going in circles in one of DF's less desirable "hoods". There was crazy Saturday night traffic all over the place and all these street markets folding up for the night with garbage and people spilling out all over onto the confusing streets. Soon friends knew that I was lost and were calling me in the car and telling me to do this or do that which made it more crazy. Luckily, I managed to find a street I recognized and got back to my part of town, but I was really lost for a little while there. It's not always easy to know what part of the city you're in unless you can drive somewhere where you can get a view of things, like up on a freeway ramp or something.



Because much of the city is flat and the buildings tend to be similar heights and designs it can easily be confusing for a spaced out guy like me. I should try to get out more and navigate the city on my own though. I realized that while I've been to many places in DF, I don't really know the city well enough to just venture out unless I have a clear idea where I'm headed and how to get there. DF is not like North American cities that generally have "turnaround" routes. If you drive in the wrong street you could easily be piped miles out of your way before a route to get back to where you left off becomes available and the whole time the traffic rivers will be moving just a little faster than is comfortable and people will be weaving and honking and cops will be blearing out of their loudspeakers to "move on" etc...

Monday, October 03, 2005

Here we go again...



The familiar sight of poor people wading though water. As many know from the news Mexico and Central America have been badly hit by tropical storms and hurricanes. Chiapas and Oaxaca have some bad flooding too. Hundreds of thousands have been effected, roads are blocked, and I think some people have died.



In lieu of the above paragraph, the weather has been cold and stormy in DF with a lot of rain rain rain. Here is a dramatic photo out the living room window of some storm clouds rolling in.
Well as you can see I'm back in the thick of things here in DF. The Distrito seems to be much the same since I left. The next important holiday is El Dia de los Muertos or "Day of the Dead" and some stores seem to already gearing up in anticipation. There is no thanksgiving in Mexico I'm told nor is there any Halloween so i won't bother anticipating the Turkey and scary pumpkin stuff although pumpkin is popular here along with zucchini and squash so I'll be getting my fair share of my deadly nightshades or whatever people are saying about those gourd vegetables now. Wasn't eggplant supposed to kill you or something? oohhh scary vegetables!



This blurry photo was taken out the window of one of our friends who just moved in down the street. Sometimes Napoles has a nice quiet neighborly feel for being right in the thick of things.

Ale had a birthday on the 28th and she and a friend who share close birthdays arranged to have a joint party at a local bar. It was a great night of dancing, singing and general party stuff. She even hired a couple of "band in a box" style performers who put on a pretty good set of Mexican classics to salsa the night away to.





A good time was had by all- and I'm glad to be back.