Sing Out Loud

THIS is what my boss told me at work the other day!

O_o

As you should know if you read my previous post, i love to sing on top of my lungs when i'm alone, especially if it's in my car. And since i don't have a car anymore, i listen to my old USB key with a pair of gigantic headset at work. It helps me focusing on the stuff i'm doing without being interrupted or distracted by my colleagues.

Obviously, i cant sing on top of my lungs sitting at my desk. I mean how about that as a distraction for the rest of them! I DO sing however, but silently. And even though i articulate every single lyrics i know and like with every song i listen to, i do so without a sound coming out of my mouth.

The other day was no exception except that my boss "caught" me in the action of pretending to be America's next singing sensation and he asked me (hence interrupting me while i was listening to a very cool song by Nicki Minaj - which, by the way, i hate (being interrupted i mean)): are you singing what you're listening to? No dumb ass i'm rehearsing the play i'll be presenting tonight at the Theater (i also used to do that in my car, rehearsing scenarios over and over until i was 100% happy and then repeating it again and again because it made me happy - long story, might write about it! stay tuned!).

To his question, i just said yes i am.

And that's when he said : come on, sing out loud then!

AJA

SURE

ERMMMM

NO

a) he himself would most likely shut me up in a pretty nasty way if i'd ever dare to sing out loud on a regular basis

and b) you really don't want me to sing out loud the songs i'm listening to!!!

At that specific moment, i was listening to Nicki Minaj (as i said) "starships" and it was that moment in the sing when she says: we're higher than a motherfucker", immediately followed (i had the USB on shuffle) by "move bitch, get out the way, get out the way bitch get out the way" by Ludacris (which is the most awesome song to sing in the car when you're overtaking some idiot driving 2 an hour: cuz "if you do the speed limit get the fuck out of my way" ...) Chanson pleine de finesse!!!

And then after that, i had the "here's to us" song by Halestorm which is also very refined in the lyrics: " Here's to us, Here's to love! All the times that we messed up, Here's to you, fill the glass

Cause the last few nights have kicked my ass. If they give you hell, tell em to go fuck themselves ...

So NO, i wont sing out loud, boss! I'll keep it for myself!

I Miss Having A Car

Let's be honest here. It's been 8 months almost since we crashed the car and just about 7 that i bike to work pretty much every day. Don't take me wrong, i love the biking and the exercise i'm doing thanks to it, but i miss the me-time i used to spend in my car. 

It was my car, my space, my bubble and more important:  I COULD SING MY LUNGS OUT when i was in it. And that was pretty much happening every single time. 

I could listen to the same song 10 times in a row without anybody saying anything, i could sing on top of my lungs without worrying about being out of key or galaxies away from the high pitched keys i was listening to and it was a great lung related exercise to keep the asthma away (what? singing doesnt prevent astham attack? whatever! what do you know about asthma anyway?)

I believe i have a pretty good ear when it comes to music and i can sing a lot of songs without being out of key. I just lack the lung power. I'd love to be able to sing a Christina Aguilera song as well as she does but let's be honest, i have more of a P!nk voice! Which is OK when you sing rock'n roll songs but not quite it when you sing slow emocional songs. And even P!ink can go pretty high as well (damn her).

But in the car, without an audience, WHO CARES?

I can still sing while i'm biking but it's not quite the same you know. You get outta breath in a split second and you cant really isolate yourself from the people you're passing by. And even though i dont really care what people think about me, i can't sing along with the radio on. And wearing headphone while biking is kinda suicidal. So not so good.

I still have the USB i used to listen to in the car. I have it plugged on my laptop at work. Reminds me of the good old times in the matymobil.

There'll be a new one some time in my future. 

And there'll be some more singing. 

Oh YEAH!

Now sing along the only song i was singing in my head all along the writing of this post (paying tribute to P!nk :-)

"So raise your glass if you are wrong, in all the right ways, all my underdogs, we will never be, never be, anything be lound, and nitty gritty, dirty little freaks, wont you come on and come on, raise your glass ... "

Inspiration Come To MEEEEE

I said it before and i will repeat it again and again: happiness kills inspiration. I have tons of pending posts to write, just can't find the will to do it ...

Be patient.

"Tout vient à point à qui sait attendre" 

We Went To A Charreada!

"We" as in my dad and i. It was totally unexpected, i didnt even know my dad would be remotedly interested in such a thing but we did go to a charreada. 

A Charreada is a competive event similiar to a rodeo which consists of 9 events for men and 1 for women,  all of which involve horses, cattle or both. And it's also the official national sport of Mexico. I know, who would have thought that i'd go there ever. I'm not found of horses and i'm not comfortable at all with cows.  

As i said, it was unexpected. Dear beloved was late to leave for work, had to take a cab, hence passed in front of the Lienzo Charro where he saw the big poster for the national Charro final. He called us right away and as soon as i asked my dad, he said, yes, let's do this today. The things you get to do when you dont have a plan!!

If we dont like it or get borred, it's 10 minutes away by bus from my house, we could always go back. Except that we didnt!

It all began at noon. The #4, 5 and 6 teams competing to see who would win the "other" final. And it was honestly a lot fun. See, you dont see a hundred riders doing the same trick over and over again. You see these 3 teams competing over a serie of 9 tasks.

So we got to see the horse galloping full speed and having to stop over a limited amount of lemght, the rider catching a calf with a lasso, then catching a foal, a rider riding a wild horse, than riding a wild bull, the rider catching the calf from his horse, then on the ground, the rider changing horse while already riding one, etc etc.

The entire ordeal took 4 hours. We were most likely the only white people there but did we enjoy it. My dad is awesome when it comes to being in places like that. He drank beers like everybody else, ate tacos al pastor and birria, like everybody else, we even rent a cushion to seat comfortably and took many pictures that i yet have to download on my computer.

We saw people wistling, applauding, sending their hats and boots in the arena, children dressed like mini Charros and mini Escaramuzas (lady riders) and we had a total blast.

We didnt stay for the big finale. We already had 4 hours of it, we were both sunburnt and even though we did had a great time, we were just tired of the noise and the dust. But we did celebrate in style: my dad bought himself a pair of boots! Leather boots with leather sole, 100% mexican made. How much i'd pay to see him showing off his boots back in France!

PS: check the link of the Charreada if you're not familiar with it to see what tasks are all about!

Biking Es La Onda

Scuse my spanglish!

I could have said biking is the shit but it doesnt sound quite as right as in spanish. After quite some time without biking (again) because it was too cold to do so (i know, i know, 15° is not "too cold" for some, but it is for us leaving here in southern Mexico), i'm enjoying one more time, the pleasure of biking.

My legs are killing me, my ass is killing me, every time i get to my office's building and i have to pick up my bike and climb up two floors to get to my desk, i want to cry but the feeling of self satisfaction and the good it does to my body is worth all the pain in the world. 

I sweat my ass off every single morning anf every single afternoon and it feels so good.

And let's be honest, with such a static job as mine is currently, i NEED the exercise. So my 9 hours sitting in front of a computer geso by a lot smoother. And faster. And easier. 

It's also good to see my fellow sport-people waving at me as i bike by. Even the people of the bike shop wave every morning :)

The funny thing is that every time i get to the office, there's always someone in the office saying something about the bike and/or the biking. One of my colleague is even regularly wondering how the hell can i find the will to hop on my back every morning.

Biking is cool.

Biking is great.

And that's the perfect excuse to eat cookies at work ... i'll burn the calories on the way home! (or so i like to believe!)

And having my dad biking back home with me was as precious as when Dear Beloved did it some time back!

BARF

BARF means Bones And Raw Food. It's the new diet my pets are on. All 5 of them.

We heard about BARF diet some time ago, investigated through and thought: why not?

BARF diet is about feeding your cats and dogs only raw food, including bones. It means feeding them raw chicken, raw beef, raw hearts and gizzards, raw fruits and vegs, raw eggs, raw fish and pretty much any raw meat you can come across. 

I know it might sound gross to some people but i mean, thing about it for a minute. Your dog, before being a pet, before being a name, even before being a dog, is an ANIMAL. And a carnivorous one. What is natural for him/her to eat? Do you think if your dog was in the wild he'd eat cooked processed grinded canned food? Hell no he wouldnt. He would hunt some prey and eat it down the to the last bite.

Just like Lola did when one of the neighbor's chicken flew in my garden. Just like she did with a gigantic iguana, a crow and a rat. Just like my cats did with baby chickens, mice and even a pigeon. It's not gross, it's nature at work. 

Cats and dogs are MADE to eat smaller animals. They're predators. Their jaws can crush bones. Their body can process and digest them to. They're DESIGNED for it.

We've investigated quite a fair bit about it. When i ended up finding out what kibbles are made of, my stomach lurched. Sorry for the light hearted but if you have a pet, you might want to read the following. Factories that make pet food such as kibble, gather all the meat they can from anywhere they can. Which means it's the meat that is not suitable for men consumption, meat that has gone to waste, euthanized animals, sick animals and god only knows what else. In other words, your dog or cat eats dead or sick animals leftovers, along with all the lethal products that were used to kill them, along with the plastic bags they're dumped out with, the foam tray they come into and the collars or tags they wore when alive still. Then all that garbage is grinded, cooked to the point where the few nutrients left are gone and processed to become the dry disgusting food you feed your pet.

Would YOU eat this?

Damn right you wouldnt.

Then why would you make your pet eat that?

I now go to the butcher and to the fish merchant once a week. The food i'm feeding my pets costs me 3 times less than processed pet food. None of my 5 pets have had health issue over the transition to raw food. Even my cats are eating bones without any problem.

I'm not here to preach or try to convince you to change your ways. I'm just here to mention how much sense it makes to feed your beloved pets raw food if you think about it for 2 minutes. I'm also here to ask you one simple question:

What do you feed your pets with?

163 Litres

163 litres is the AVERAGE amount of Coke that an average Mexican drinks during a year. Which is, when you make the maths, about half a litre a day.

And i think that's scary.

It's scary in the sense that it's not only the Coke that's damaging of your health but everything you actually ingest with it: crisps, cookies, freid stuff, greasy stuff and a lot of wakala stuff.

But i'm not here to talk about this. Mexican people are generally fat and about (if they havent already) to surpass the American people for the sad record of obese people within the population. I've been living here 10 years and i'm not fat. Why? Because i exercise and dont drink soda over meals. There is no big secret. I also dont like greasy fried food (which helps too!!)

What i wanted to say, is that even though i havent been biking during 4 weeks, the second i started again, i bumped into the same people doing exercise in the morning (i bike through a pedestrian avenue where people go to run, bike, walk their dogs or just hang out). 

There is this young mother pushing her baby cart energically with weights on her ankle, this old lady walking super slowly but with that intense pain in her facial expression, this young dude who runs with a coat on and sweats like a pig, the housewives in their zumba classes, the girl with the pug wearing a cruz azul sweater (cruz azul that's a mexican soccer team), an old lady walking two gigantic dogs she can barely control, a show off dude doing push ups right in the middle of the path and a whole bunch of other people exercising that i see every single morning.

It just feels good to be back :)

It's Been A Month

During pretty much the entire month of December, i've been sick. My usual bronchitis/pneumonia/asthma crap that i tend to get every year around Christmas. But when you cough so hard and so much that you dont sleep anymore, you obviously dont let your better half sleep either, your entire body is like a gigantic pain and you have to get up at night to throw your gutts up, you know something is not right and that you need to get to the doc asap. 

And that's what i did. 

So i got my share of drugs, felt better after a week, worse 2 days after i stopped taking the drugs, went back to the doc, got another round of drugs to take, felt better again and then worse again. I was constantly feeling like i was drowning, i was out of breath, couldnt get up a 20 steps stairs without coughing my lungs out. I truly felt like a terminaly ill lung cancer patient.

So i decided it was high time to check it out with someone who's specialty is the lungs and i went to see my hot lung doctor. 

And he listened to what i told him and he told me one simple sentence: it's asthma. And i was like shit, then why the hell is my inhalor doesnt do its miraculous thing? 

I'll spare you the medical details but bottom line is, being an asthmatic, when i get a lung infection such as a cough, it triggers my asthma in a more or less intense way and that mini asthma attack can last up to 8 weeks. And no medicine but the asthma kind can so me any good. 

So here i am on steroids again and finally getting back on my bike to go to work. I had spent an entire 4 weeks going to work by bus cuz i couldnt even walk to the bus stop without coughing my lungs out, so there would have been no way i'd have make it to my office with a 25 minutes bike ride.

It felt so good breathing again normally that i actually RUN up the stairs with my bike on my shoulder. How bad ass is that??

 

Happy New 2012

January 29th, Happy New Year to you all. I'm a month late but there is not way the first post i'd write this year would be anything else but a happy new year one. So there, you have it.

And now, let's move on.

What Was I Thinking??

Grocery shopping? On December 23rd? At Walmart? At 8:00pm??


What in the world was i THINKING??

Crossing the parking lot should have been a pretty clear sign that the entire ordeal was going to be painful. 

I had to wait to get a kart (never happened to me before), i didnt find half of what i came for in the first place, i had to pull all my strength to keep my kart from kocking someone down, i had to wait an insane amount of time at the cash register to pay for my stuff and was 4th in line for a cab to take me home.

I will never EVER go to Walmart during Christmas time.

EVER.

Lesson learnt.

Is It What It Feels Like?

To die i mean ... I've been pretty sick since Friday but yesterday went to a whole new level so i went to see my doc. He said it was just a flu virus and that i should be fine by taking that Xango juice every hour (it's Charlie Sheen's tiger blood, i mean i can i not feel better with it??)

So i did what a good patient does and took my shot of juice every hour on the hour. 

I was still coughing my lungs out and even though i was using my inhalor every now and then to ease the breathing, i was still struggling for air.

But when the coughing got so bad that i actually puked on my way to the burger place round the corner, i knew i had a long night ahead of me. And how right was i!

I went to bed early, didnt even hear Dear Beloved coming to bed. But i had cough attacks pretty much every hour so i was keeping him awake. So not only was i barely able to breathe (and consequentely barely able to sleep) i was also mortified to keep him awake as well.

At around 3 in the morning i woke up soaked in sweat, changed my shirt and try to sleep again only to wake up again at 4 with the worse cough attack i've had so far. My entire body was hurting (like i'd been run over by a truck and damn driver had come back t finish the job), i was so exhausted i could barely cough, yet i was struggling for air and feeling like puking everytime i was coughing. Soaked in sweat again, i dragged myself to the bathroom and started coughing and coughing like a terminally ill lung cancer patient.

I was terrified i was going to die. And jeez what a terrible way to go i thought. I managed to call Dear Beloved to the rescue and even though he couldnt really do much, just having him here holding my hand and rubbing my back made a hell of difference. And i thought, if i die now, at least, i wont be alone. 

You know how sometimes men can tremendously lack tact? Well, I was so glad he didnt laughed or rolled his eyes when i told him i was scared i was gonna die there in my bathroom. He just said soothing words, told me that everything was gonna be ok and held my hand until i stood up again.

It's now 12:30pm, i'm having breakfast. I just got up. Dear Beloved is still sleeping but i mean he got up at 7am to take care of the dogs and i'm so grateful he was there so i could pass out a little longer. I dont feel great but i hope it'll get better soon. I dont want to spend another night like this.

Stating The Obvious

It is amazing how you get use to have someone around in your every day life. 

Tonight, Dear-Beloved has gone out to a party. I could have gone as well since i know the birthday boy but i work tomorrow and i thought i'd get some me-time instead. Well it's 10:30pm, i'm lying in bed already with an empty stomach. Why? Cuz time flies 10 times faster when you do everything you normally do between the 2 of us just yourself alone. 

I went to walk the dog, came back 45 minutes later to feed them (and since Bullet is being a clown at lunch time, i have to attach them in 2 separate locations so they dont see eachother while they eat, then make sure they actually eat (especially Bullet who's been diagnosed with severe anemia last week), then pick up their plate, feed the cats, take a shower, put a raidolito on, move the fan back to the bedroom and bam its 10:30pm without me noticing.

And the bed seems soooo big right now!!! My mom always told me that you sleep better alone ... Well i'm gonna have to disagree on that one! I 

Why Oh Why

This is going to be a very similar post to one i wrote some time back called "always when alone". And obviously, it happened again. And once again, being alone at home.

Lola barks. Not a lot compared to other dogs but i now recognize her barkings and pretty much know what's going on: if it's a bark for attention, a playful bark, a "i'm in pain" bark or a "i'm gonna kill you" kinda bark. That last one is generally towards my cats or towards some other animal she cant reach or kill.

I was at home checking stuff on the computer when Lola started one her i'm gonna kill you kinda bark. And damn was she loud. So since it was coming from the entrance patio, i peeked through the curtain and i almost had a heart attack on the spot.

There was this GIGANTIC iguana stuck between the fence and the slidding door.

It would have been a cat i would have opened the door and let him in. But an iguana? Sorry buddy i'm thinking you're gonna die pretty soon. And it's not gonna be pleasant.

And so the battle began. It lasted 1 minute TOP. There was some scratching against the glass door, some banging against the grid, some growling and it was done. 

Scariest noises ever.

And now she's eating her meter long iguana in the garden. It's her afternoon snack.

What? Taking it away from her? I am scared of iguanas and i have necrophobia remember? So hell no, i'm not getting close to that thing let alone touching it.

It's extra proteine for her :)

But damn, why wasnt dear-beloved home?

Should Have Taken the Loma

A few days ago, Dear Beloved found out that another bus was passing just a few blocks away from out house. It's the Loma Bonita route. Loma Bonita means Beautiful Hill. So yeah, i live close to, not Beverly Hills but Beautiful Hill. LOL.

I've been sick for the past few days so i take the bus to go to work instead of sweating like a pig on my bike and running the risk to get sicker. Since Jova passed, temperature has significantly dropped and it's actually cool in the morning.

So last night, when i got out of work, i was waiting at the bus stop hoping to get in a Loma one. Bingo, it came before my usual Magisterio one. And Dear Beloved was right, that bus route doesnt fill up, there is always room to sit and since it goes through places i normally dont go through, i could even enjoy the ride. 

I actually had to focus a lot more than i normally do on the other line cuz i had to make sure i didnt miss my stop!

Tonight after work, i was again waiting for the bus. Magisterio came first. And how i wished i had waited for a Loma one instead.

To start with, i was standing from the very begining of my ride. It's not uncommon but it's normally just a couple of people standing. Not 12 like there was then. 

However, what i truly think was the worse EVER was that this homeless man got on the bus and he was siting on one of the first seats.

OH MY GOD, the guy was stinking so bad nobody was sitting behind him and the entire bus was covering its face. It's that kinda of smell that is so strong that it gives you an asthma attack on the spot. It was one of the worse smell ever. 

I understand the man doesnt shower everyday but jeez, how can he even stand himself without passing out? There was this guy sitting 2 seats behind him i really thought he was going to faint.

When he finally got off (half way through my half hour ride back home), the driver seemed to think that he could now stuff the bus like you would with a christmas turkey. 

Squeeze in at the back please!

Are you out of your fucking mind? There is not a single square inch left in that bus, we're all standing on top of each others feet or hanging out the door, we're all getting soaked by other people's 7pm sweat and you want us to squeeze in more than we already are?

Seriously.

I am never taking the Magisterio bus again. 

EVER.

PS: This is NOT a picture of Loma Bonita from Puerto Vallarta. This one is called Silbury Hill and it's located in England. All the pictures i found online about a supposed Beautiful Hill neighborhood are NOTHING beautiful. And trust me, you dont want to see any of the ones i've seen :s

Hurricane? What Hurricane?

It's been going on since Saturday ... We're supposed to have a hurricane coming our way. It's called Jova. Irwin is right behind. It's kind of a big deal on the West Coast of Mexico since we generally dont get any hurricane this side of the country. Or when we do, they're more tropical storms and coming from the South.

Jova is coming from the West. Which if it stays a category 4 type of hurricane, will swoosh inside the bay and erase it from the map. Cuz let's be honest, a hurricane getting inside a pretty narrow bay surrounded by mountains, will get stuck in there and wont go away until the job is done.

A few hours ago, Jova got back down to a type 2 hurricane. And this is the sunset we got tonight:
  

And right before we all got out of work this afternoon, our boss told us to set up an "out of the office" note saying something like "sorry folks, hurricane Jova is on its way to sweep us all off our feet and we might not be coming to the office tomorrow Wednesday nor Thursday and well, we'll be back eventually, probably on Friday, if the office is still there!"

Even though i'd love NOT to work for the next two days, i can't start to imagine how much work i'd drown into if i have to stay home for 2 days ...

It's 10pm. Jova is supposed to get to us around 1am.

There is not the slightest wind. It's not even raining ...

Hurricane? What hurricane? You only said it to get us excited and nothing. I want my money back.

Seeing Is Believing

We, human beings, have this curse under which we have to see things to actually believe them. And you can say whatever you want, we all are this way. 

We have a new dog. A male bullterrier, same age as Lola that we bad-assly named Bullet. 

Bullet is big.

And strong.

And rough.

And brusk.

And he scares me a little.

I mean i've always had strong breed of dogs, and i've never really been scared of dogs. I just drew a line when dear-beloved said he wanted a Rodweiller. I'm not afraid of them, i just dont feel comfortable with the idea of having a dog who's gonna weight more than i do. So we got a bullterrier instead. 

I could write a month worth of posts about the very special personality bullterriers have but if you do want to know more about that particular breed, there are tons of very reliable books about them. And yes it's true, they loooove eating exotic fruits, mangos and bananas in particular. I've seen (in total disbelief) Lola eating mangos throughout the mango season, i've seen her devoring a pineapple slice, gulping down a melon popsicle and begging for another banana. And since i dont have any picture of it to prove it, well, you'll have to trust me on that one (even though i know you wont).

Well when the now ex owner of Bullet (he has a Pedigree so his real name is something super fancy that i believe is a terrible name for a dog but anyway) told us a little more about the dog, he said that not to leave the plate of food sitting there, especially if it's metallic otherwise, he wouldnt let us rest one second.

And i was like, aja, sure.

When we came back home yesterday, i had left the 2 aluminium plates when i left since they werent finish eating. 

We found one half way through the garden.

We still havent found the second one!!

And we both scouted the garden twice.

And this morning, both Lola and Bullet were so peacefully sleeping in the morning sun that even when i called them to feed them, i got no answer.

Until about an hour later when the druming started. 

Oh

Em

Gee

Bullet has a serious issue with a metallic plate. He was pushing it around in the patio (cement floor), and throwing it in the air, and barking at it and pushing it some more.

The amount of noise was quite astonishing.

I refuse to let a dog rule my days and/or my life. And even though i did wait for dear-beloved yesterday to get out of the house (Bullet jumped on me the first night and i have a bruise the size of my palm) i didnt want my sunday to mean i'm gonna be locked inside.

So i bravely got out to put a wash on, TOOK HIS PLATE AWAY from him, scouted the land again to find the other one (unsucessfully) and went back in.

All quietly, without Bullet bullying me.

I feel so proud.

Bullet, Dear-Beloved & Lola

What's Worse?

I already say that i dont take the bus as often as i use to now that i have this awesome bike to get home and to work but on Saturdays, during the high season (which considered the work load i've had to endure over the past few weeks, i'm surprise it wasnt declared "high season" earlier), i work half day and yes, i'm offering myself the luxury of taking the bus to work. 

I finish at 2pm and there is no way i'll bike at that time, with blazing sun and all. Just not happening.

Even though i dont take the bus as often as i said earlier, i still have tons of stories about the bus rides i've done in the past and most likely more stories to come as i keep on taking the bus from time to time.

So now, back to my title, and back to that pretty intense question:

WHAT IS WORSE?

What is worse when you're on a public bus?

A guy's crotch rubbing on your shoulder while you're sitting? A fat ass woman's huge belly? A fat ass? Someone's bag on your face? People squooshing themselves against you to make their way to the exit door? A borracho drunk breath at 8 in the morning? A punk listening to his music on his cel phone without a headset? A soaking wet kid coming back from the beach sitting next to you? A pregnant woman with 3 kids, all under the age of 5, with about 20 plastic bags of groceries dropping one of the bags on your foot? A construction worker's armpits at 6pm, obviously out of a sleeveless shirt? Or a complete stranger drip-sweating above you?

All of the above? (especially when you know it's 34°C outside!!)

All that familiarity in such a small environment is somewhat awkward and unpleasant ...

Drenched

I know it was meant to happen, it hadnt happened yet but did last night on my way back home. One of these days you're looking at the window at work and dont even see the building across the street. What i was seeing though was my bike on the balcony looking at me like it knows what's gonna happen next.

Every time i feel lazy or completely unwilling to bike back home,  i focus on the following morning at 8am, picturing 4 buses passing in front of me without stopping cuz they're jammed packed. And i think, let's bike then, i'll be arriving home and i'll take a shower and put on some dry clothes.

Yesterday, at 6pm, i raced into my biking clothes, grabbed my bike as fast as i could, rushed downstairs with bike on my shoulder and made it to the front door of my office's building right on time for the begining of the downpour.

Half a block down the street and i was soaked to the bone. The main difference is that it's still 30°C outside so risks of getting a pneumonia are actually pretty remote :)

What was worrying me a bit was that Exiquio Corona Avenue, which is the very last portion of my way back home. It's always the worse part when it rains cuz the draining system is inexistant and the streets get completely flooded.

Well that time was no exception. Except that something quite new happened to me. Every time my foot was at the lowest point of the pedal, my entire foot and shoe was UNDERWATER. I mean seriously 100% underwater. And obviously, it's not that nice clean pool water we're talking about. It's that nasty, stinky, oily street dirty brown water... GROSS.

I made it home after killing my crotch not seeing this big hole in the road around the corner from my house, thanked god i'm not a man, and made it home literally swimming in my shoes. 

Plotch plotch plotch.

Dear beloved was home, handled me a dry towel to make my way to the bathroom and emptied my bag to dry everything (especially my phone which was already taking a foot-bath).

The rain stopped about an hour after i made it home. I believe this was the last rain of the rainy season. 

It got me good.

I Scare People

Quite a while back, an ex-colleague of mine told me i always scared her. I thought it was hilarious. But then another friend of mine told me that i was intimidating. And i started to think about it and i honestly dont see what's intimidating about me. But anyways,

I currently live in a very, very mexican area of Puerto Vallarta. What i mean by that is that i'm most likely the only white person living in that part of town. And even though my neighbors and people in the block know me now, at first, they stared at me from head to toes. And they do a second scan as soon as i start to speak spanish to them. Cuz i dont have much of an accent.

When we crashed the car, i used to take the bus to go to work. Thus i also used to take the bus to come back home too. Now i bike but i have so many bus stories i should really start to write more often!

I've just realized recently, that when i'm in "my" bus, people stare at me, which i dont really care about, and people are scared of me. Or intimidated. Or whatever you want to call it. 

Bottom line is: i scare people off. I mean tonight for example, i had to wait quite a while to get my bus back. So obviously when it finally comes, a lot of people get on. I get the first stares when i get on a bus that doesnt go anywhere close to a tourist place. The only "tourist" stop it makes is wal-mart. But generally, tourists just dont take that bus. So most of the locals stare.

One day, i was sitting at the back of the bus and this old woman was standing in the alley (i didnt leave her my seat cuz there were tons of free seats) and she looked me up and down in disdain or in disbelief or in wonder or maybe all of the above for about 25 minutes (pretty much the entire length of my trip back home). I mean i dont get uncomfortable easily but after a while, i really wanted to stand up and ask her what her damn problem was. But it was late, i was tired and i didnt want to make a fuss. After all, it's a free country and i paid my trip and i was going home, just like everybody else in that bus. But still.

That day, the seat next to me was empty. And stayed that way the entire journey. Same tonight. I mean the bus is jammed packed, there is a free seat next to me and nobody dares to seat there. 

Why?

Because i'm white.

I think.

I dont mind really. You guys keep on stucking each other against each other and i'll keep comfy on my 2 seats :)

I Have a Purple dog

Like a friend of mine would say, Oh, Em, Gee, i have a purple dog!

Following up on my dog's health status...

So yesterday, she had her shot. But the vet was pretty specific and told me that every day, i have to clean her wound with hydrogen peroxide (?? is that the name really in english?, it's "eau oxygénée" in french and "agua oxygenada" in spanish but anyway). So i had to clean her wound everyday and then put an antiseptic on it morning and afternoon for the wound to heal.

In France, we'd use mercurochrome, a cranberry-red antiseptic that stains your skin for weeks. Well here in Mexico, it's called violeta and as the name so very well says, it's purple. A deep shade of purple.

And i have a white dog.

At least, i used to.

This morning, Lola didnt think any good of the violeta session and things got a bit out of hand. Ok things got totally out of control. 

As i was getting ready to pour some violeta on her wound, she flipped her head to check something so much more interesting than me trying to cure her and knocked the bottle of violeta off my hand, splashing generously my hands, my legs, the floor and obviously, her face in the process.

A colleague of mine says awwww, she looks like she's wearing a lucha libre's mask. Buu, she's gonna be the laughing stock of the entire neighborhood! She's gonna get bullied. She's gonna get traumatized for life and will never want to get out of the house ever again. 

Or is it only me?