Dreams

I had a really awful one last night - or should I say this morning.  It was just bizarre and involved me agreeing to be adopted by this couple in juvenile court.  I won't go on and on because only my fellow child welfare workers and attorneys would get all the nuances, but it was a horrible dream and I woke up and it took Mike awhile to calm me down.  Sometimes if I wake up abruptly in the middle of a bad dream I have a hard time getting back to normal.  Sort of like little kids with night terrors.  It's like I am sort of half in the dream and half in real life, even though by that point I am wide awake, well aware that I am awake, and well aware that it was "only a dream."  I kept losing my shoes in the dream, and that is a recurring theme for me in dreams.  (These were nice shoes, too!)

All the stuff for the frig (my sister told me it is supposed to be "fridge" instead of "frig" and she is right but I am not going to change it) is here and Mike spent yesterday taking stuff apart and is very optimistic that (A) he can get the new unit in and (B) that it will be a great new frig, better than the last one in many ways.  The freezer unit is bigger, that means we can keep some ice trays as well as frozen meat.  I am looking forward to that!

I am also looking forward to moving on.  I am sad in a lot of ways about leaving Mexico, but it is time to start something new.  Mexico has always been a comfortable place for me,ever since I started going to Ensenada when I was 16 years old.  I like it here, I feel like I belong here, and the culture is easy for me to fall into.  People seem to like me a lot, not just going after my gringo money, either.  It will be different in Central America, even though they speak Spanish everywhere except Belize, and they speak English there.  But the culture will be different, the food will be different, and so will the people.  I am excited about it.  And a bit nervous too.  I have no idea if they like Americans down there - I am told that Americans are popular in El Salvador, although they must therefore be a very forgiving populace because we supported a bad dictatorship that plunged the country into an almost 20 year civil war, from which they are just now emerging.  So I don't think I would like us under those circumstances, but again, we are also welcome in Vietnam, so what do I know?  Maybe someday Afghanistan will be a vacation hot spot.  I don't think that is very likely.

I won't talk politics here anymore, I will save it for Facebook.  I am really a coward and afraid of pissing people off.  Small wonder I have never and never will run for office.  Besides the hoardes of skeletons just waiting to come out of my closet, my feelings get hurt easily, I am very volatile, and I hate to have people mad at me.  So that pretty much keeps me out of the heart of things.  I do, however, stand by everything I have said so far, and will always stand up for women and women's issues.

Other than fussing over the new frig we are not up to a whole lot.  Our friends on Sundancer headed out and we already miss them, but will reunite in El Salvador soon.  I have been getting excited about cooking again, and last night I made enchiladas with sauce that I made from scratch.  I had planned to use canned sauce, but discovered I didn't have any.  So I dug out a bag of dried peppers I had been storing for I don't know how long - maybe as much as a year - and along with spices, whipped up a batch.  It was wonderful if I do say so myself.  I was very proud, because oftimes Mike ends up hating my experimental food and he really liked this.  I hope I can remember all I did - just boiled up the peppers until they were glop, strained the pepper pulp out, added salt, cumin, a little sugar and a little coriander, and then chopped and rechopped and chopped and rechopped (we have no blender but I am getting one today) some of the pulp to thicken it up.  As I said, the results were fantastic and I was really proud of myself.  I was worried that I had lost the ability to cook, other than a few things like spaghetti, chili, and chicken caccitore, but apparently not, and now I am inspired to keep going.  We are trying to eat less meat and eat healthier, so this will be a good challenge.  I was a vegan for almost two years, and I made a lot of really good meatless things back then, so I should be able to come up with some new and exciting things for us to eat.

I also found a recipe for hibiscus flower jam, which I discovered when we stayed at a B&B in Oaxaca.  The place was called "El Diablo y La Sandia", which literally means "The Devil and The Watermelon."  The proprietoress, Maria, made this jam herself and I went crazy for it.  I bought a jar and it is going fast, because I use it on my pancakes instead of syrup.  So I looked for a recipe, found one, and I think I will make it more like syrup because I use it that way.  They use hibiscus flowers a lot down here - also called "flor de jamaica" - for a lot of different things, including drinks.  It was easy to get a big bag of dried ones from one of the little fruiterias.  I have discovered that the little fruit and vegetable places have a better selection of produce than the supermarket here in town.  Plus they are more fun to shop at.  You buy veggies from the produce stand, meat at the meat stand, and tortillas from the makers (wrapped in paper and still hot), all at a big central market.  The meat stand is a bit daunting, because you have to choose your cut from a big hunk of meat just hanging there.  A lot of gringos won't buy meat that way because they are worried about germs and stuff - food storage at those places is VERY different than what you will find at a supermarket in the US - but so far I have not been sick, so I guess it is okay so far.  In fact, I have eaten street vendors ever since I have been down here and have not been sick once.  Mike has, but not me.  However, the doctor told me I have to take my anti-worm pills (for lack of a better term) if Mike is sick, because we live together.  I did not ask questions, and if he has to take a pill, I will do so as well.  But I have had no symptoms ever.  Our nephew got sick almost right away the first time he was here, and Mike has been sick twice. And both those times did not involve any meat from those markets, because we were eating out a lot then.  But not me, and I am proud of that.  I take my triumphs where I can find them.

So again, probably not the most exciting blog post I have ever written.  I was going to go into detail about my bad dream, but decided not to drag everyone through that.  Besides, I want to forget about it.  Just don't ever agree to an adult adoption.

"The passage itself should be one of the pleasures of the cruise."  Bill Crealock (sailboat designer)