Happy Fourth!

And happy special day to a special someone.

-wifey

Ya, ya, I suck...

So, well, the posting hasn't been as frequent as I had either hoped nor promised. But, well, the connection here isn't super speedy and it gets a little tiresome to wait and wait and wait for pictures to load. But, I have been taking tons of photos (way too many, I have no idea how I'll ever reduce them) and so you'll get a stack of updates once I'm settled back in the Middle. It's either that or hoe PEter's garden. In the summer. In the Middle. Trust me, I'll find lots of posts to write!

But, the limited posting is going to get even less as Mom arrives on Saturday and we head off for our adventures together. And then Peter arrives the Friday after... so you can see that I'll be so busy showing my family around this beautiful country I probably won't make it into many internet cafes. Ah well, you'll survive I'm sure. For all those counting the days, I'm here for only 18 more days and then back to the sweaty, sticky Middle.

Peas, Beans, Peppers, and Squash Unite to Save My Summer

I have to say, when I first started the gigantic garden project with people from work, I thought there was no way we were getting anything from it. It would be a nice way to spend some time outdoors, but we were starting everything from seed, most of which we planted in the days just before the summer solstice. I was not optimistic.

My lack of optimism was also partially based on this:That is what is left of the garden plot that Kimberly and I started before she left for Mexico. If you remember, it was under some water as part of the Great Iowa Floods of 2008. It looks even more depressing in real life. Obviously, people in other parts of the State have had it much worse than we have, but it's still sad.

I did go down there and deconstruct the fence and posts, which have been moved to the new plot - the lack of fence actually makes it less depressing, as the fence ended up being in pretty rough shape.
But I should have held out hope, because this was still in the plot:

That right there is a pepper. Still growing. After it has been submerged under 8 feet of water for at least a week. And on top of that, we have a patch of chives growing as well (at some point I want to go down to the plot and remove them from the ground and grow them in containers, but I'm going to let them rest for a little while - they've had a stressful summer). (Also, notice the dry, cracking soil, and remember, this was submerged under 8 feet of water, and has been inundated with rain for weeks - yet, it's already dry enough to crack. That's some hearty Midwest soil)

So anyways, back to my new, giant garden plot. Things are happening. And fast. As I said, we planted just before the summer solstice, which was less than 2 weeks ago. Within a few days, we had sprouts: mostly radishes and lettuce, but that was fine. But now, we have these things:

That's four rows of peas and beans, with their accompanying homemade climbing lattices. Can't see them that well, well check these out:

Those are purple peas - their stems are actually purple, which probably won't last, but is ridiculously cool. (I should have mentioned this earlier, but I didn't think of it: Almost all of the seeds in this garden (but not the starts) are from this place in Decorah, Iowa called Seed Savers - they are a seed-swapping and preservation collaborative, working to save and pass on heirloom seeds. They're pretty awesome. The Retro Librarian knew about them and bought a bunch of stuff. Anyways, if you're looking for cool heirloom tomatoes in the future, keep them in mind)

Those are beans of some variety, also with climbing lattice.


Those are bush beans. Kimberly asked for lots of beans for pickling purposes; I provided.

Lastly, there are these:
Those are Provence Squash. We have over 50 mounds designated solely for various squash, including watermelon, eggplant, cucumber, winter squash, zucchini, and 100-lb pumpkins. And all of them are now sticking out of the ground, with many of them having started with their secondary growth leaves (which you can see on some of the leaves above).

So in all, the garden is working out well. It's still ridiculously huge, and needs to be weeded on a daily basis (which is terrible, terrible work), but all of us are now optimistic that we might actually get some produce to eat from all the work we've put into this thing.

You know you're old when...

the students hear things you can't. Let me explain. We had our last class yesterday and students were finishing up their presentations. J and I were leading a discussion about what they had learned from the assignment when a bunch of the students started cringing and holding their ears. I looked around puzzled and they started laughing. J asked, 'what's that sound?' and they laughed even more. I asked, 'what sound?' and they kept laughing while holding their ears.

Well, it turns out that I'm old. You see, people created this high pitched sound to deter loitering by teenagers outside of stores. Those pesky (but smart!) teenagers turned it into a ringtone. The catch is that adults can't hear this high pitched but kids can. So the kids are now using it to get calls during class. Smart! Well, it turns out that I am officially over the hill since I didn't have a clue what was going on. Eventually, as we're laughing and the students are joking about how old I must be, the student turned the sound down (lowered the tone) and eventually I was able to hear it.

The npr article will let you listen to the tone (assuming you can!).

Another day, another verb tense

Well, so the truth is, I haven't taken a Spanish class in 11 years, actually, since the last time I was in Mexico. This means that although I can get around well enough, I haven't the foggiest idea about any of the various tenses. If only I could only live in the present! As I'm in Intermediate 2, we've been spending a lot of time 'reviewing' various tenses* and learning new ones. In fact, since I've been here (3.5 weeks of classes) we have covered: presente, imperfecto, preterito, subjuntivo, pasado perfecto, futuro perfecto, futuro simple, imperativo, pluscuamperfecto, progresivo, y la voz pasiva. Today we added two new ones, condicional and imperfecto de subjuntivo. This adds up to a grand total of 13. Phew. I can't actually control all these tenses (control here meaning that I can use them on my own without prompting) but I can correctly use most of them on tests. It blows my mind that some of the students in my class are getting 60s on their tests... they took spanish just a month ago! How can they do so poorly? (and obviously the answer is that they are out until 3 am most nights while I'm an old lady and asleep by 11 but still...). Study abroad is wasted on the young.


*Note to grammar teachers: I'm not going to distinguish between tense and aspect here... but I do remember that's there's a difference!

What goes up, must come down

This weekend, we joined the college kids for a quick tour of Mexico City (aka DF) and surrounding areas. It was a whirlwind trip, not enough time to really do any of it jusitce, but that's just fine, because... Mom and Peter arrive shortly and we'll have a few days together to explore at a more reasonable pace. Plus, thanks to Oscar, our most fantastic guide, I now can explain a bunch of the things we'll see! Woo hoo!

So, what did we see in this quick tour, well, we started by leaving very early in the morning... mostly we slept on the way down...We first stopped at the Pyramids of Teotihuacan. These gigantic ruins are from 200bc to 600 ad or so and the largest, Pyramid of the Sun, is the second largest in the Americas. This was a highly advanced civilization with a system to bring in fresh water and remove sewage from the city. They installed drains throughout the area (something the Europeans didn't figure out for a long time!). These ruins have mostly been reconstructed (the stones are original but had been covered over the years with dirt, trees, etc. There are still large numbers of undiscovered temples... they expect that every hill in this area is actually a temple.

After hiking up and down the pyramids, we headed into DF itself. We went right downtown to the zocalo (this word means pedastal and the story goes that one of the rulers (current era) was planning on installing some large statue, but he was deposed and all he had finished was te pedastal. Over time, people began to call the plaza 'zocalo' and now you can find zocalos all over mexico, they're always the main plaza). Anyway, we were dropped off in the most enormous plaza and walked over to Palacio National. No pictures for you as we rushed though it (and without flash, they never turn out) although go to this link to see someone else's great photo. However, the murals by Diego Rivera are amazing and recount the history of Mexico.

We also went into the cathedral, a fantastic example of the mix of indigenias and catholic faiths (plus crazy recoccoo art). Then we headed to Templo Mayor. This Aztec ruin was discovered in 1978, right below the streets in DF. They were doing electrical work, and someone hit a rock that turned out to be pre-hispanic. The ended up tearing down some buildings to uncover the ruins (although there is clearly much more as the Spanish built right on top of the Aztec city, however, these are also beautiful historical buildings, and as Oscar put it, 'we're a mix of the two cultures and we need to find a way to preserve both'). The Templo Mayor is celebrating its 30 aniversary (hmmm... just like someone else I know!) and there are great new signs and other information.

We then popped in to the Palacio de Bellas Artes home of more beautiful murals, but weren't allowed to go upstairs as we were running out of time. Peter and Mom will have to tolerate my oohing and ahhing in a few weeks. This beautiful palace is art neuvo on the outside and art deco on the inside and weighs so much that the entire building is sinking. This is a huge problem in DF. The city is built on infill (it was originally a lake) and as the residents continue to use a lot of water, the water table is sinking and the buildings are too. Interestingly, the ruins are rising, so the Aztecs are reclaiming the city!

Finally, after all of this, we arrived at the hotel. A fancy 5 star hotel in fact. It was so great that we didn't really want to leave.


After a bite to eat, we ended up having a little slumber party in our room (a six pack of beer and chips and a movie... yes, I know we were in Mexico City, but it was so great to relax on these comfy beds...)

On Sunday, we went to Xochimilco and took a leisurely boat ride down the floating gardens.

We listened to mariachis

and marimba bands and watched the world go by.

Then we headed to Chapultepec Park and the Museo Nacionale de Antropologia. Here we were very lucky. Our guide, Oscar used to work here and knew the musuem inside and out. We toured several of the civilizations displayed in the museum (there were many more than just the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayas that we learned about in Social Studies in 7th grade!).

More pictures to come on Flickr... but the computer connection today is particularly bad. Hopefully I'll get them up tomorrow.

C is for Fruit

This one is for Kimberly, who probably can't watch this because of slow internet connections. This may be the first interview that Stephen Colbert has lost on his show.



My favorite is that their car runs on alternative energy: Imagination!

Home again

A lengthy Mexico City post coming soon, but I'm tired and it'll have to wait to tomorrow to be posted. The trip was good but rapid, the students behaved well, and gosh there are a lot of stairs (Mom, Peter, start walking the stairs, you're going to need it!).

Just finished reading Harry Potter and the Philsophers Stone in Spanish. Will probably go buy the second one today. I'm learning all sorts of useful vocab like spell, witch, whimper, and ghost.

More tomorrow...

Bottling Liquor is Easy

A few months back, I wrote about making some limoncello varieties. They were done a little while ago, but I just recently bottled and labeled some of it to give as a wedding present (although Kimberly and I drank plenty of it before she left - it's really nice with some ice and tonic water for a refreshing summer spritzer). The Blood Orange flavor is really quite good.

Anyways, here's a finished bottle of the standard flavor limoncello (sorry the picture quality is terrible):

My, That's a Large Garden

Pretty much every day last week, I was out in my new garden plot, trying to get things in the ground before the summer solstice hit to try to give them a chance to actually sprout and produce some interesting goods. The garden plot is approximately 65' x 65' (4,225 s.f.), which is like 10 times larger than our old garden, that was under 8 feet of water.

Here's a picture of the full garden:
In the front are small mounds, planted with squashes, pumpkins, zucchini, cucumber, water melons, and other vine-type plants.

Beyond that is 2 rows of tomatoes, peas, and beans. Then a row of herbs, then root type veggies, like carrots and radishes. Here are the root veggies, under string rows:

As you can see, we haven't gotten a fence up yet, as we're not sure exactly how to fence such a large space without creating a huge eye sore in one of the higher-end neighborhoods in town. We need to figure it out this week, since we know for sure that there is a family of rabbits that live near-by and that there are definitely deer in the area.

We planted a majority of the new garden as seeds, which is why in the above pictures it looks like a giant dirt patch. But we do have some starts, including all the tomatoes, as well as some peppers, eggplants, and giant pumpkins. Also, we already have radishes poking up out of the ground, which is very exciting. As we were planting things last week, we were getting dispirited since it was so late in the season; but the radishes have given us hope that all this insane amount of work and money spent will at least yield us some small amount of produce.

Since we're right outside our work, we get a fair amount of razzing from our co-workers. But we also have gotten a fair amount of adoration, and have had several people come out during work to either help, inquire about what we're doing, or to bring us snacks, like iced tea and ice cream. We've also had several people from the neighborhood stop by to see what we're up to; apparently a lot of people who use the neighboring gym watch us as they run on their treadmills and are curious as to what we're up to. One guy even told us what a novel idea it was to start a garden. All I could thing was ' We're in Iowa, what else would we do with a big piece of vacant land?'
_____________________________________________________________

On another note outside our front door, I planted a bunch of sunflowers, which have taken quite nicely. Here they are, including one that fell over, but has made a comeback and is growing strong again.


I'm thinking these guys will be 10 feet tall by the time all is said and done, with some giant sunflower heads.

Quitting Time

I gave 3 weeks notice at work today. Despite the fact that I don't really like my job because of the constant physical and mental stress it puts me under, I was a little sad. The people I work with are pretty cool. And occassionally, I have a good time at work, even when I'm really busy and want to stab people with knives (can you believe that someone once ordered a peanut butter & jelly sandwich to-go from my restaurant. A PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH!!!!! I refused to make it, I was so upset, both that I had to make it and that someone would actually order a PB&J to go).

Anyways, in 3 weeks I'll be heading south of the border to meet up with Kimberly in Mexico for 10 days, then I start school in mid-August. We've been in Iowa for almost a year. Time really flies here in the middle.

Food

For updates on food... check out What we're eating
Off to Mexico City (DF) this weekend and should return with great photos of some of my favorite places!

Easier said than done

So many adventures, so little time to write. Today you get to join me on a grand shopping adventure. Mexico is an interesting blend of Old World (each shop selling one thing and one thing only) and the Us (WalMart, Costco etc).

Join me as I search for contact solution....

Trip 1 (giant mega grocery store a la Fred Meyer): I wander around the Farmacia section and finally discover the eye care. Hooray! My excitement is short lived as I discover that they don't sell me brand (I wasn't really expecting them too) AND they don't sell saline.

Trip 2 (downtown to the land of tiny shops): I stop in the first farmacia I pass. I tell the young woman that I'm looking for liquid for my contacts. Hmm, does 'solucion' mean contact solution in español? We negotiate a bit and then she points me to the selection. Same as at Megastore. Oh well. I move on.

Trip2b: Optical store. This seems promising! They sell glasses and give eye exams, they definitely must have what I'm looking for. Same conversation ensures (but I learn how to say 'multipurpose'!). I enquire about 'salina' for my eyes. The young woman gives me an odd look. No, she says, we just have this. Ok, I reply, do you know where I can find 'salina'? She directs me to the next farmacia down the street.

Trip2c: Farmacia. We start over with the conversation. The young woman directs me to the display of eye care. Hmm, again, not my brand and no saline. I ask her, do you have 'salina'? Strange look on her face. You know, I plunge ahead, water and salt? Like tears? Why do you want that she asks? Well, I say, it put it in my eyes sometimes. You don't want this multipurpose stuff? she wonders. Well, I use a different brand and I don't think I want to mix them. Hmmm... this conversation is getting strange. She consults with an older woman and then goes to the back. She returns with a clear bottle of liquid. This is salina she states. I look at her funny. Hmm I say. She explains that the salina is used to give IVs. Oh, I exclaim, that's not quite what I want! I begin to wonder if I have a vocab problem. I explain that in the US, the companies that make the multipurpose liquid also sell salina in the same boxes just for the eyes. They look at me like this is the weirdest thing they have ever heard. The older woman says that this bottle is just water and salt, so I should be able to use it, if I want to experiment. I laugh and say that I'm not quite ready to experiment on my eyes.

Trip 2d: Another optical store. I've resigned myself to not finding anything, but now I'm just curious. People here don't use saline? But it's so cheap! And this is a fairly dusty place, you'd think that people othe than me would want to wash their eyes from time to time. So, another optical store it is. I've gotten comfortable with my topic, so I know that I can express myself. I confidently walk in and explain what I'm looking for. The young woman explains that no, they don't have my brand or the elusive saline. But, she confidently explains that I should have no problem switching to a new brand, just maybe a little irritation at first (!). I sigh a little, express my thanks, and head off to my second mission (where the hell is the post office and how can 5 people not know?)

Trip 3 will probably be to WalMart (sigh). I've never been inside one, but I should probably check. Just because no one else has encountered the mysterious saline, does not mean that it doesn't exist.

Patience is indeed a virture.

It's raining everywhere!

So, I've been following Peter's stories of the flooding in Iowa. In fact, the floods in Cedar Rapids have made CNN en español here, which is interesting and a little strange. But, I 'm not missing all that much, because it is rainy season here too. This part of Mexico really has two seasons (like Portland really). Wet and dry. But, unlike Portland, wet = summer and dry = winter. So, we are just beginning wet season. The monsoon like rains come in the afternoon or evening usually, and they downpour and then stop very dramatically. We're in a valley, so you can watch the storms come in from the north and make their way down the valley, with full thunder and lightning shows. It's dramatic and exciting.

The other weekend, in Guanajuato, we endured epic rain (all day long). Since Guanajuato is hilly unlike Queretaro, the water rolls downhill.

It looks like this.

Instead of streets, we had rivers. And we waded through them to get from place to place.

Here's poor J trying to make her way across the street

We got through just fine, of course, but they told us that during the real rains, people can't leave their houses due to the water levels. Flooding everywhere it seems.

¡Soap Opera Stars!

Sometimes you just happen to be in the right place at the right time. Mostly, for me, the opposite of this is true. But very occasionally, I happen upon some pretty cool things.

While in Guanajuato, we happened upon a large group of people, hanging out outside the basilica Saturday night. This is a fairly unusual thing to do. Certainly, people go to chuch at night. So that wasn't weird. But these crowds were outside the church, lolling on the steps. And there were the Federales, the National police (kinda like the national guard I guess). They were hanging out too, watching the people. And there were the guys with the little doodads in their ears wearing suits... they kinda looked like Secret Service guys. Hmm, we starting thinking. Something is going on here! So we waited to see what would happen. Cuz, really, clearly something was up.

And we waited and waited and passed the time telling stories of ... well... nevermind. Lets just say we waited.

And THEN! Some people began leaving the church! By this point we had deduced that there might be a wedding (the sounds of mass giving us this idea). And the fact that there were news reporters with video cameras and microphones around led credence to this theory. So, we wondered what famous person was getting married. Clearly, someone important and interesting (and, yes, this is the long version of the story, I want you to appreciate the suspense we were under). So, FINALLY, people were leaving. And this quite attractive guy walked out (alone) and the girls started screaming 'Geraldo' really loud in that Elvis or The Beattles sort of way (and no, not that Geraldo). He posed and smiled for the cameras (everyone's cell phones were snapping photos) so we took pictures too, of course. He pushed his way through the crowd, walking right by us and touching us!! Woo hoo (granted, we had no idea who Geraldo was). A girl ran past us and grabbed him and kissed him. Clearly, he was the heartbreaker of middle Mexico.

We watched the rest of the wedding leave, the bride and groom posed for pics but weren't as popular as Geraldo. And then we wandered off to find beer and dinner (beer as the reward for finding our way home as described in this post). Later, I recounted the story (en español) to my friend from Paraguay. She didn't know who he was, but when I showed her this picture

She exclaimed 'Oh, he's from the telenovela!' So, it turns out that Geraldo is a famous soap star. Isn't that exciting?

Guanajuato- city or stairmaster?

J and I went to Guanajuato last weekend for a little excursion. We had a great time that involved many, many stairs. So many winding paths leading to stairs.

We went to the Museo de Momias (pictures in a separate post in case you're uncomfortable with mummies). It was surprisingly tasteful and was interesting to learn about how the soil and weather combination in Guanajuato leads to the creation of mummies (some were only 20 years old). We also saw the birthblace of Diego Riveria, a muralist and painter who I adore. NExt weekend we head to D.F. (Mexico City) and I'm really looking forward to seeing his grand murals in Palacio de Belles Artes. I'm planning on taking Mom and Peter there as well, that's how much I love these murals. Anyhoo, we toured his house and saw some of his earlier works (he had an impressionist phase inspired by Picasso) as well as some of the sketches for other works.

We treked and treked through the city....


And walked and walked and walked...

And then, we got lost. You see, Guanajuato is small. A Tiny City, really. 70,000 people, but lots of those live out in the suburbs. So getting lost? Really, that takes some special talent. Luckily, both J and I have this specical gift. So we saw on our completely ineffective map (published by the tourist bureau) that Calle Alameda went rightish and upish and then connected to this other street we wanted. So, we went rightish and upish. And kept going rightish and upish. And Kept going. And Kept going. Calle Alameda didn't have any cross streets. None. We'd round a corner, thinking, oh here it is, only to find that is was just a corner. We ended up walking a least an hour, through a tunnel,


which had its own stalagtites

and a parking lot before we found our way. In fact, we basically ended up walking in a gigantic loop. We ended up back where we started. See, that takes talent.


And this is the view from my bedroom window at Casa de Pita.


Even better, these are the views of the INSIDE of our room!

The door to our bath

J headed to the shower

Our pretty sink and mirror

J and our bunkbeds

I tell you, it sure was cute!!

The Rebirth of Garden

First, a quick note to all of those who have contacted me over the last couple days: we are not being flooded in my area of Iowa. Besides the garden plot that is down in the flood plain, and some other areas of the city which are built in the flood plains, the town is relatively dry. It certainly isn't anything like Cedar Rapids, Saylorville, Des Moines, or Iowa City, all of which are, respectively, being evacuated, having their reservoir overflow, having a levee break, or being flooded and the art museum being in danger of floating away. So we're pretty lucky here. Unfortunately, most of the eastern part of the State has been fairly well damaged. One guy I work with was supposed to move to Iowa City in August, but he thinks the restaurant he was going to might shut down. And another guy I work with has his parent's basement flood, thereby losing lots of his old stuff, including lots of old books.

Thanks for contacting me to check in.

Now back to the real news: I have a new garden plot. Hooray!

I think I mentioned in my last gardening update that a co-worker had secured the plot next to our restaurant. Well, we got a long enough break in the weather that we were able to till it. Four of us went out yesterday and dug up a 60 x 60 plot. It's freaking huge.

Tomorrow, me and one other guy are gonna go out and erect a fence, hopefully scavenging as much stuff as possible from our old plot.

Here's a few pictures from the planning session we had earlier tonight to figure some stuff out:

The main players are the two guys looking at the camera: the Retro Librarian and 'The Guy who looks like he's from Iowa'. The others are either significant others or co-workers who were just there to mock us. We'll see who's laughing come harvest season. Hopefully.

Our seeds and some light reading. Retro Librarian went a little overboard with the seed buying.

Iowa Guy being sad after being told that he can't smoke around the tomatoes because of Tobacco Mosaic virus. I have no idea if this can really happen, but he was sad.

While we were outside, we saw all these little baby rabbits running around. Then eventually, we saw their momma, and then we saw this:

Those are little baby bunnies feeding from their mom's teet.

Updates to follow.

I'll never be a photographer....

Just for fun, here is a series of photos I took, attempting to get you all a great shot of Bos, our house dog.

Nope, he looked away. How about attempt 2?

Not even close, although you can see how flexible he is. Attempt 3?

No, not even with J's help. One more attempt?

Well, you can kinda see his goofy face, but this picture doesn't even do justice to the very strange face of Bos. I think my photography career is over. Luckily, I like writing.

Stories from the house

I promised earlier some stories told by Alfredo and Cristiana. They are great storytellers and also have tremendous patience with my varying spanish ability. My favorite recent story tells about the orgins of their house.

Cristiana's father was just married to her mother and they were living in a tiny house on the edge of town. While he was sleeping one night, he was awoken by a ghostly woman. This woman told him about some money that was buried beneath the orange tree. She wanted him to dig up the money (that had been buried when there was a war against the Christians) and release her soul. He did this and found a huge stash of money. He used the money to buy their big house near the centro and raised 11 children there. Alfredo and Cristiana later bought the house from him.

Cristiana spent a lot of time making sure I understood how these ghosts are not frightening, because they have no strength of will over a person. They can only hurt you if you give them the power to hurt you. However, she said that they are stuck here until someone can help them finish whatever they were doing before they died. It was a facsinating conversation, not particularly sentimental or emontional but rather matter of fact. She was just describing reality, not something mysterious, or something to really exert much energy on.

Other stories don't translate as well, but I've been learning lots of great words and jokes... in particular, two handy words. A fresa (strawberry) is a person who's kinda stuckup. A mango is a person who is so sexy that you drool.

fun fun!

Crickets...

No, not because I haven't been posting..

In my tacos. Yep, we had cricket tacos. No pics (cuz we were trying to be cool!!). But they were salty and crunchy. Not bad, but a little too salty for my tastes. And small enough so that the legs didn't get stuck in my teeth. Man I hate it when that happens.