Mexico City, 2009, 7

Mon., Nov. 2, 2009 at 12:44 p.m.

I am still down with the Revenge.  I´m feeling stronger but I still try not to stray too far from the bathroom.  I am beginning to suspect that the food at El Pendulo may be the culprit.  I felt pretty bad last night after eating there so I´m going to try something different for the next couple of days. I walked Paseo de la Reforma again today.  There has been this huge distant dome that I can see from la Reforma as I am getting downtown that I have been curious about.  Today I checked it out.  It is called El Monumento de la Revolucion.  Like everything else in this city it is massive. It is a fat tower, constructed of brownstone, approximately the height of a twenty storey building, an art deco monstrosity that would have done Stalin or Hitler proud. It is currently under renovation  so there is no public access. On la Reforma I was accosted by three different children in halloween costume with little buckets for coins.  The first actually was not in costume at all and seemed very malnourished and hungry.  Today is All Souls´ Day, the Day of the Dead and this is a public holiday in Mexico.  It´s nice seeing this city slow down a  bit.  I wandered through the Centro Historico and stopped briefly inside the Cathedral during mass.  I didn´t stay but heard the priest warn everyone that because of h1n1 flu that instead of shaking each other´s hands while exchanging the peace that they should simply nod to each other.  I went as far as the Zocalo, where, crowd-fatigued, I went straight to the metro.  There were two blind men walking by with canes, one leading the other, and I thought what a fitting metaphor for my method of travelling.  After I got off at my station, on the way back to RTH I  saw some garbagemen by their parked truck playing soccer with an ugly damaged round lamp shade.  A young couple passed by and the man also gave the lampshade a kick, then the woman picked it up and tossed it back to the garbagemen. The sea of humanity in this city is so immense Nov. 2, 2009 The party´s over and I´m on my way to bed.  It´s still early, just past ten.  It´s kind of strange here because you just don´t have the kinds of professional boundaries here that we are used to in Canada.  In a way it´s a breath of fresh air but it also makes me want to tread a little bit carefully.  I´m at the bed and breakfast right now and almost everyone is a bit drunk, celebrating the Day of the Dead in front of the lavish altar they made in the foyer.  I´ve only had water so far because, well, I just don´t do alcohol these days, especially when travelling.  But it´s fun hanging out.  Two women staying here from Seattle who are musicians are doing a gig for us (they´re great by the way) and we´re all joining in.  The Day of the Dead is not at all solemn, but a time for partying, singing, dancing and drinking.  There are garlands of paper doll skeletons decorating the place.  But Grandpa is tired and wants to go to bed soon.  But it´s great hanging out with people here.  I have never seen a bed and breakfast like this before.  Even the staff are drinking beer and wine and whatever, but these people seem to particularly love what they do.

Tue., Nov. 3, 2009 at 1:16 p.m.

Breakfast is an interesting time here at the Red Tree House.  You never know who or what you´re going to get, nor where the conversations are going to go.  This morning we are all British, Americans, with me as the lone Canadian.  We got talking about food, which seems to be a safe enough topic around the breakfast table, then I mentioned the subject of deep-fried Mars bars and what a gross concept this is.  The British contingent seemed equally divided as to whether they found deep-fried Mars bars delectable or disgusting.  Then someone mentioned deep-fried Haggis......are you all back from the bathroom now?  That´s right, deep-fried Haggis.  That just about finished me. I walked over to Chapultepec Park again and ended up back at the animal prison, this time to look carefully at  certain birds that I like to paint.  One of my favourites is the Impeyan pheasant, which I have painted before (I  will try to download here both an image of the actual bird and an image of a recent painting of mine of one Here is one of my paintings of the same bird I was pestered by three teenage  boys wearing school uniforms.  They were probably skipping classes.  One  of them said good morning to me in English and I replied --Algunos  de nosotros hablan español- or some of us speak Spanish.  A bit later, while I was seated on a bench for a quick rest one of them approached me, likely on a dare from his buddies, and  asked me to hand over my wallet.  I replied in purest español, --Me parece que tienen bastante dinero y no tienen que pedir el dinero de un extranjero pobre-- or you appear to have plenty of money and you don´t need to ask for  money from a poor foreigner.  He went away but it was a bit unsettling.  Observing Mexicans out in public is quite intersting.  I actually find them  rather annoying at times as a collective, though one on one they are usually nice and pleasant.  Kind of opposite to Canadians this way, I suppose.  I exited the park along Paseo de la Reforma and sat for a while on a bench constructed of two sculpted open hands on top of two large bare feet, all painted in gold.  The bench is quite high and I had to dangle my feet as though I were a child.  From there I looked out onto the Angel de Independencia, and I have downloaded an image here to give you a sense of the size of this monument.  There are no safe pedestrian crossings for anyone who wants to risk the traffic to run over and climb up the steps but it is well worth the risk.   I ran across the street, risking the traffic so that I could climb the steps of the monument and have a closer  look.  It was worth the effort, it is very ornate with sculpted lions and various human  figures.  On the four corners are inscribed the words guerra (war), paz (peace), ley (law) and justicia (justice).  Besides the gross-out conversation about deep-fried haggis during breakfast the young British anthropologist and I talked a bit about her work in Honduras with coffee farmers.  She entertains hopes that eventually they will  get their act together and form a fair trade collective, once they decide it  is worth their while to work together.  Bye for now. Tue., Nov. 3, 2009 at 7:07 p.m. I have mentioned already that we have quite a huge range of guests here from  all  over the world, some  very interesting, most very pleasant, a few quite insufferable.  This is for me a marvelous opportunity for developing and honing my social skills.  I have already mentioned that  my skills, experience and training in mental health work have been  invaluable in providing  me with the ability to handle these people.  I think I already mentioned that I treat them like clients, not clinically, but respectfully and with care.  Occasionally, I do have to use a little assertiveness, especially with this insufferably uppity British gay couple.  Actually one of them I think is okay, but his partner is quite a snotty little twit.  Things almost  came to a head this evening while we were sipping wine (in my case ice water) in the living room.  A nice American couple were present, and fortunately we already have a rapport so this helped diffuse the passive-aggression I was getting from the other couple, or at least from the twit.  This feels in a way a bit like a victory for me, because in previous situations I have allowed people like that to cow and upset me.  However, as Eleanor Roosevelt famously said ¨No one can make you feel inferior without your own consent.¨ So, I paid them back in the same coin.  When, after getting the silent treatment the wife of the American couple asked me how my day went, as I was describing it Mr. and Mr. Twit began chatting quite loudly between themselves in classic British upper class passive-aggression.  Then at one point one of them asked the  Americans how long they were staying.  Then I looked directly at Mr. and Mr. Twit and said with a cruel little smile  on my face ¨And when are YOU leaving?¨  Thank God they´re out of here tomorrow.  I also put the nicer partner to work looking some  things up on the Internet for us since we were talking about birds and wanted to see some of them.  The fact of the matter is I really hate doing this kind of battle with people, it´s exhausting, I would rather be nice and get along with everyone but sometimes you have to fight back.  In this case for me leaving the room was not an option because it  would have been accepting defeat, and I have as much a  right to be here as Twit and partner (and vice-versa).  At one point during the conversation, once I had fully elbowed my way in, we were talking about parrots and what high maintenance they can be as pets.  The nicer partner mentioned, I think not too kindly, that his partner is already pretty high-maintenance already.  I replied, ¨I´m not going to touch that one with a barge-pole.¨  Of  course they pretended they didn´t hear me.