It's Thursday. This would be a dear diary post cause not much is going on. Every day this week has been incredibly windy, and the direction of the wind blows dirt into the house thru the windows and the doors. Sucks for selling stuff on the beach to tourists, since they don't spend too much time outside when it's soooo windy. I studied alot with my Spanish, and had some fun with my English students; they're getting pretty good with the song. They are pretty funny.

My students have a good time trying to learn English. They really want to learn words; they ask way more for words than for sentences...so I ask them for sentences to go with the words....Today they wanted parts of the body. I usually start the class with one or two things-maybe one from the previous class and something related to it, then something new always comes up. I swear I enjoy it more than they do. But Tuesday I felt great cause one woman said she needs my class cause she needs to learn English for her job. They all really want to learn and so sometimes we work on something painfully as they struggle to get the pronuciation down. But we all laugh alot, too. And they all help me with my Spanish- so I think that bonds us even more, cause I'm learning as well. They laughed today when I said they all speak so fast, even my Spanish teacher...that sometimes I just look at her in amazement cause I have NO idea what she just said ha ha.

I am very excited about my trip next week. I leave a week from today. I can hardly wait to see my daughters! And I am also dying to drive up to Armstrong Woods, which is a redwood reserve, a state park I think- but a beautiful redwood grove- the way it smells, the way the air is, quiet, traquill; I like to rub my hands on the bark of one of the trees and just breathe it in. I love the redwoods so much. I have a picnic/potluck one day with my "dog park friends". The group I always saw when I took Sam to the dog park, and their dogs are all about the same age as Sam. I was sad to hear that none of them take their dogs to that park anymore, that they all go different places and barely stay in touch with each other, but one woman, Holly called them all and everyone wants to come for a picnic. It's only about 6 or 8 of us, but we used to stand around in the grass at that park and just chat (ok bullshit) about whatever was going on in our lives at the time. We could complain or praise our spouses or other family members, bitch about our bosses and our crappy or wonderful jobs, comment about our town's politics, or just life in general. When I was working I'd just see them on weekends, and sometimes in the evenings after work. I was lucky- the park was right across the street from my house.
I hope to have lunch with a couple of engineers I worked with at one company and we used to travel together to Thailand all the time. They are both still there and the business has moved from Thailand to China. I did get to go to China once; right after that trip I resigned; I wanted to stop traveling, and I was able to get my dog Sam. I moved to a different company with no travel...ha ha got boring but like I said, I got Sam. When my daughter is not working I hope to hang around with her, and my younger daughter as well- but she's got school and work.

 My older daughter and I are trying to figure out a tattoo we could both get- or something related to each other's. I am going to add a little color to a heart with birds and a peace sign; it's basically purple and the blue of the ink, and I was thinking maybe a little hint of yellow and red behind it as if there was a sunset. And also, I have a vine with tiny leaves that goes up my arm, and the secret is that it actually spells my husband's name, but no one can see it unless I was to tell them about it. But on the back of my shoulder I have a heart with my daughter's names, and I was thinking about extending the vine over there and have it say Elly, my mom. She died on Sept 10, 2011, but I still miss her so much. I read on facebook today a post by my daughter, and she had been chatting with an old woman in the dentist office and the woman reminded her somehow of he Grandma, and she said later she cried cause she misses her grandma. I commented, "me too baby". So anyway, we'll see. This daughter has some tattoos, and her fiance has alot, on his arms and chest. Both my daughters and me have a tiny pink breast cancer ribbon tattoo, the tattoo artist did all three for free, it was after I was finished with treatment. My younger daughter doesn't have any other tattoos, which is probly good since she's only 19. Kinda funny, I just reread this to try and spell check since spell check for some reason is not working in any of my programs (yeah that's another errand when I'm in Calif- to take my laptop to my computer guy and have him give it a once over...change my office programs back to English, maybe reinstall my spell checker)- anyway I noticed it sounds like my tattoos are hearts and vines. Yes 2 hearts, but mostly I have peace signs and dragonflies on my forearms. One one arm is peace; I have it written in Arabic, Thai, English and Spanish...wanting Japonese ad Chinese, and a couple of peace signs; one with an earth, one more 60's like ha ha. The other arm is for the dragonflies- which I love. I have this thing that tells about them; that they have been on this earth for 30 million years, showing us strength and endurance.... beauty, strength...I like that. The dragonfly has 2 different names in Mexican Spanish: Chambuleke, and Libelula. Again....viva!

So this morning I was in a meeting and said I was grateful for the lessons put in front of me since moving to Mexico. Maybe the biggest is patience. You have to accept it or go crazy. Anyway after the meeting I went to the bank to deposit some American dollars so I could withdraw pesos. The stores here give a much lower exchange rate than the bank, so we always deposit dollars. This was never an issue before Everardo started selling things to the tourists on the beach ha ha. We only deal in pesos. But now we have dollars. Anyway- I learned a new lesson. NEVER go to the bank on Monday morning! I lasted 20 minutes in line, patiently waiting, watching a little kid playing off on the side, watching more people come into the bank behind me....and then I looked at my watch. Arrgghh It was 40 minutes before my turn. Patience gone! Anger present and accounted for!

Mexico is a cash business. Monday morning means all the businesses that thrived over the weekend, I am assuming resturants and little shops by the beaches...they all bring the wads of cash they made over the weekend, to the bank first thing Monday morning. I fumed because they do not have a special line or 2 lines for merchant deposits; at least half the people-at least half had bulging bags, you know, the leather zippered bags for money, and so as each went to the window, they were there up to 10 minutes! Did I say aarrrgghhh!!!

And my day gets better...we went to the airport shuttle place to see what time I need to catch it next week for my trip to Calif, and of course it was closed. Everardo called the cell number on the door and the guy will be in tomorrow so we'll go back. But we decided to take a drive up to Sonoyta, the town where the border is and talk to the shuttle office there. It's about an hour north of here; a pretty drive if you like the desert, and I do. We get there and in that office they are very obviously doing some other, on the side business, and not to interested in our questions. Yeah they leave "around" 8 or 8:30...yeah it's "about" 2.5 or maybe 3 hours up to Phoenix....oh and we don't go to the airport, but you can take a taxi from out location- it's close. And believe me, those responses were not in a row, informative, anything more than over the shoulder can't you see I'm busy answers. They are basically the only game in town, so we're stuck unless we want to spend entirely too much money. Did I say aarrgghh?

Ok so that was 2 out of 3...Now tonite we're planning to go to the movies. This will be the third nite in a row we tried to go to this movie. To be fair the first nite we didn't know what was playing or any of the times, we just went down there. The movie we wanted to see didn't start for an hour and a half so we decided to come back the next nite (last nite). We asked the guy if it was playing at the same time and he checked then said yes. So last nite we went down there, at the last minute cause they don't let you go sit in the theater and wait. -I like to get a hot dog, popcorn, and...ice cream (bon bons) and eat while we wait and watch people coming in. Not here. You have to wait until about 5 minutes before the movie is going to start, then they let you walk down the hallway to the screening rooms. So we got there and the guy (the same guy) says, oh that movie started an hour ago, at 7:30pm- you should look up the times on the internet. A little while ago I did just that, and it shows playing at 8:25 every day. Crap I hope it didn't start 15 min ago!
So tonite, we will try it again. This will be number 3 in two ways. Trying to see the movie for the third time, and third thing today with a potential to not turn out so hot- ha ha

I just notcied the tv; the movie Maid in Manhatten is on...I think that's the name- with Jennifer Lopez? Ha ha the title showing on the channel, and in the online tv guide menu, is Sueno de Armor- Dream of Love. This is what always happens. The movie 100 First Dates is called something like New Love, the Tom Hanks movie when he's stranded on the island (ha ha I forget the title) is called something like bad vacation. All last week they showed ads for the movie Gone Baby Gone, the Clint Eastwood movie with Hilary Swank where she's a boxer. I never saw it so was looking forward to it Friday nite at 8pm. Ha ha laughs on me! The commercials were the right movie, but when it started, it was a movie about a baby that was kidnapped.

Gotta love Mexico right? So you never know what's on tv. The regular programs are correctly listed, but the movies, only sometimes. We only get a few channels in English and most are movie channels. Well there is a channel that plays only The Bachelor espisodes (why?) and 3 news station; CNN Int'l, BBC, Bloomberg Money...and oh yeah Fox News. Sometimes I turn on Fox News just to see what the stories are, then I turn to one of the other stories or look online to get the real story. We could pay more and get more staions in English, but so far so good- we're ok, we watch tv mostly in the evenings, and that's usually over our laptops or when Everardo is making jewelry and I am reading or studying for Spanish class...
I'll watch tv in Spanish for short spurts, I keep looking for a novela to watch but none hold my interest so far, but new ones start all the time, not like in the US. Also as my Spanish improves I find I all of a sudden say HEY I understood that!

So I'm making a list of what I want from the US- it's not too long. Long sleeved tshrts for Poppi, extra wide egg noodles, and some little jars of pesto sauce. It's funny what you can't find here....oh and I'm gonna eat sushi! Chinese food (yes they have Chinese food here but none we've liked too much)....hmmm can't think of anything else....