Swing low, sweet chariot; or, uh, Mexico City.

6 AM: Huajuapan de Leon: The Next Morning

We were startled into the gray pre-dawn by what I presumed, in my freshly-woken unreason, to be small carbombs that were being detonated across town. In actuality, it is fairly safe to presume that they were instead a "delightful" series of launched, M80-style fireworks. After all, it was festival time! Wake the feck up so that you can swill more Corona, por favor!

The high stench of the brimstone from the night before had sunken deeply into my hair and clothing, reminding me that I should - if at all possible - set out to find out where the Flying Jesus on Fire had returned to the fetters of the earth.

I rolled over and groaned like a Clydesdale getting a slick-glove-up-the-crack prostate once-over. Being woken by explosions and mariachis at godless hours was beginning to dull my rollicking "sense of adventure" into something more resembling "borderline hostility". As someone who functions only minimally if I can't have at least six hours of sleep, I prayed that this home was equipped with a coffeemaker so fervently that the room was, momentarily, filled with the smell of fresh-cut flowers, and made my way to the bathroom. I'd forgotten that my own unspeakable filth-water was still rankly holding court in a two-inch deep morass in the middle of the bathroom floor and, sloshing into it in the semidarkness barefoot, I spoke in tongues previously unknown to me. Well, if by "spoke" I mean "hissed unfettered obscentities that would have caused a nun's skin to slough off", then yeah.

It was to be the day of Abuelita's birthday party and I, presuming that it would be held at the home, was to become aware that a massive party-hall about a half-mile from the home was where the enchantment was to become ensconsed. This is because easily ONE HUNDRED FIFTY PEOPLE were coming and the courtyard, while quaintly coral-pink, was simply not large enough.

As I elbowed a child in the face at the party's potluck-style buffet table so that I could potentially eat something that hadn't processed urea, licked a particular animal's unmentionables or was mentioned in the Bible as a plague of Egypt, I took a gander at the amassed crowd. At that particular moment their main concern was to ensure that they'd be able to nourish themselves with room-temperature, unidentifiable-to-honkeys regional Mexican cuisine. One hundred fifty people. That's more people than I know, let alone who would come to a birthday party for me. And you'd better believe that Abuelita was keeping a lid on how many presents she'd gotten - my guess is in the low sixties. Her children - all (seven?) of them - apparently arranged this party AND the mariachis every year. Oh, and did I mention that, at about ten that morning, that a small dancing parade had appeared a the door of Abuelita's house, bidden forth by her children? How could I have forgotten?

I initially thought that the child in the tiara on the back of this "float" was a marzipan doll, but when she absently swatted at a pestilential insect that had alighted on her arm I was to learn the stark, if not entirely precious, truth.

More amusing still was the parade of masked dancers, who gyrated and lurched about in the street as though live trout had been released into their undergarments. As a certifiable maskophile, I have to admit that I was nonetheless...concerned?...by the representation of the African gentleman in the background. More pressing, of course, was the presence of the evil clown that had, as clowns are wont to do, made its way startlingly close to my person. Whereupon I, uh, uttered a small shriek that was mercifully drowned out by the din.

Anyway, back to Abuelita's party. Mary and I cut out halfway through so that we'd once again be able to make use of our sense of hearing, which had been ruthlessly assaulted all evening by a "band" playing with the benefit of twelve-foot stadium speakers. We decided that we would repose in the most -restful?- place we could imagine:

A Mexican cemetery.

Part Two: Mexico City: Ohmigod.

Mexico City has a reputation, and it seems to always have had one. When the conquering Spaniards approached Tenochtitlan in 1521, their first thought must have been "Muh-fuh, they built this shet in a feckin' lake?" Over the next hundred years, the Spaniards rapidly built over the completely leveled city of (formerly) more than 250,000 persons, draining Lake Texcoco and founding the seminal core of what was to become Mexico City. In doing so, they doomed Mexico City to an eternity of sinking, to perpetual dustiness and, ironically, omnipresent water shortages. Add to this that Mexico City sits squarely in a bowl-valley surrounded by ACTIVE VOLCANOES and is subject to unusually severe earthquakes and one has the makings of a fresh bit of urban hell. Guidebooks on Mexico City usually gloss over mentions of the smog which, combined with the fact that Mexico City is one of the world's highest large cities, literally takes your breath away, or of widespread urban blight and rising violent crime.

I didn't care. I had to see it for myself. How often is it that one can say that they've gone to the largest city in the Americas - one that rivals Tokyo in size and sheer number of people? Smog schmog; my vestigial tail wagged unduly at the mere mention of going.

Driving into Mexico City at speeds usually reserved for medical personnel vehicles, one can't really get a grasp on just how fantastically enormous it really is. Imagine, if you will, Los Angeles. Los Angeles on post-Soviet horse steroids. Los Angeles on post-Soviet steriods with live burros darting into the road in front of your car. As Mexico City expands to engulf smaller settlements (which have, I have been told, managed to retain a high degree of local color), it has managed to form a strange sort of megalopolis, and I'd be lying if I wasn't completely overwhelmed with just how damn VAST it had become.

As one who follows stories of miraculous apparitions quite, ahem, religiously, I clearly needed to visit the hallowed site of Tepeyac and the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the apparition that converted all of Mexico and Latin America to Catholicism. Finding the face of Jesus in a yam is one thing, but one simply cannot make light of Juan Diego's cloak.

OK: For those of you who did not attend Catholic school (and are, therefore, normal now), the Virgin or Lady of Guadalupe phenomenon was attributed to (Saint) Juan Diego. While roving about a winter-scrub mountainside above what is now Mexico City, he heard a woman's voice call out to him and bid him come closer. At that point, the apparition asked Juan to speak with local clergy to have a shrine erected to commemorate her, as she was the Virgin Mary. Convinced that the local bishop would be, uh, incredulous, she instructed him to go forth and to leave the rest to her. After he'd spoken to the bishop (who, most likely, indicated that he believed that Juan had ingested some hallucinagenic cactus), Juan opened his cloak to reveal the image of the Virgin and dozens of blooming roses. Roses which, considering that it was the 1500s and the dead of winter, were fairly interesting to the bishop. By "interesting" I mean "he probably soiled himself", clearly.

The sky was sodden and threatening when we arrived at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, one of the largest churches on earth. On the nearby Tepeyac hill, we found a small commemoration of Juan Diego's miraculous cloak and the bishop.














And the basilica itself. Well, the original one. No, this picture isn't being taken at a weird angle; the original basilica is sinking into former lakebed. Good time.














Inside the second, modern basilica, was the very cloak itself. In case you are wondering, that's bulletproof glass and, at night, a mechanism moves it behind the reinforced wall for safekeeping. The only way to view it is while you are riding a horizontal "moving sidewalk" placed under the main altar of the Basilica. This is because, uh, there was a bombing that attempted to destroy the cloak, but at the last moment the bomb's blast was directed outward towards the hall itself. The cloak was utterly undamaged but the 600 lb. brass cross that had been on the altar was bent nearly in half.






















The view from Tepeyac onto Mexico City.














Our recently deceased Pope. This statue is made of - are you ready?- thousands of donated, unneeded keys. As the Pope is the key to the church, this seemed appropriate. Behind, if you look closely, is parked his former Mexico City Popemobile.






















Old and new basilicas, with rainy Mexico City brooding behind them.














It was only later that day - and, indeed, that night - that I began to feel a little unsettled. "Unsettled" is potentially too soft a descriptor; it felt as though I'd come to harbor a fever-ridden, rabid racoon deep within my inner workings. I knew what it meant and I was, frankly, surprised that it had come as late as it had.

There was nothing left to do but wait. So I waited to die. I waited to live. I waited for an absolution that might have come if, as was suggested, I had consumed seven or so shots of tequila.

By dawn it had become clear to my fever-ridden mind and my accompanying ashen body that I would, indeed, perish.

***

Next time: Can one tour the largest anthropology museum on earth with a parasitic load?

Until then, I remain,

Domonic (whatthehellhadIeaten?) Potorti

Escaping death, Huajuapan-style.

Huajuapan de Leon, 11 PM: Hey - Let's Watch This From Afar, Shall We?

As we entered the darkened plaza in front of Huajuapan's largest, loveliest and arguably most important church, the church of Jesus, Lord of Hearts, I became aware that the much-spoken-of fireworks that were to be set off were, in fact, not the type of fireworks I'd anticipated. You know, I'd thought they'd be the ones where firey things shoot out of a reinforced cardboard tube and explode colorfully far, far over your head, and this notion had been reinforced all day and all night by the "loud bang over your head", Beirut-style fireworks that had been set off incessantly. Instead, they were the "Yes, they are mounted on largish, metal-cum-duct tape structures being held steady on the ground by ropes held by men who, perhaps, have had a Corona or two" variety. The children, the gathered nuns, the 200 feral dogs - nobody seemed to think that this might be a slightly perilous endeavor. Where were the firetrucks? The paramedics? Well, let's just say that I moved as far away as one could be from the Towers of Fire while still being technically in the plaza itself. Before I move on to the show itself, this is the church during daylight hours as seen from the park nearby:














And, in the back, the chapel, with a large heart clearly to be seen on the pinnacle of the arch.





















Around about 11, a quick whiff of something burning alerted us to the soon-to-begin spectacle. My uncle, his friend, Mary and I had no idea what to expect, though I had internally steeled myself for the unimaginable - or, at the very least, the fantastically bizarre.

I was not to be disappointed.

The premise of the fireworks was this: the metal frames provided support for a series of rotating wheels, upon which were pasted hundreds of colored burney-things. As the burney-things became immolated, many of them would begin to propel the wheel so that the colorful object would spin rapidly, much to the delight of the crowd. For example, uh, there were flaming fruit shapes which, once on fire, began to whirl around like a ballerina on meth.

Now:

There were four of these death-structures, and as the fruit, animals, birds and the weird Plains Native American whirled themselves into eventual oblivion, I and Mary began to notice that there was the shape of a cross and/or a Jesus mounted on each of them.

Fire? Crosses? Jesi?

Clearly, a US American has a different idea about what happens, generally, when one sets fire to a cross. I would like to stress, for cultural sensitivity's sake, that the spectacle I am about to describe below was in no way even remotely blasphemous, disrespectful, or charged with the negativity we US Americans associate with burning crosses. It was pious, celebratory and, for many of the gathered, a moving opening to nine days of celebration of their beloved patron.

Just because *I* thought it was muh-fuh bizarre shouldn't count for anything.

Each of the structures burned off the fruit, birds, animals and other images, but they always saved the Jesus for last. When the first of the Jesi went up, I could only stare at it until the last ember glowed out. The hush of the crowd, which for a moment I mistaked for disapproval or horror, was then supplanted with a din of clapping and cheers and whistles.

They loved it. And they wanted more.

The first of the flaming Jesi:













Next, um, flaming crosses. Six of them. Six, dancing, flaming crosses. In a church plaza. Apparently, I was very literally the only one who thought that odd, so I shut up, turned off my sensibilities like a good anthropologist and clapped like a seal when it was all done.














And, the best of the Jesi:















"What makes this one best?", you whine, sipping a Diet Coke in front of your computer in your climate-controlled home.

This Jesus went to heaven.

I was unable to capture the event because I was too stunned that it was happening that I thought it was surely an accident. What happened is this:

1) The Jesus caught fire and began to glow.
2) The gathered crowd clapped and hooted appreciatively.
3) Suddenly, an object above the cross that was shaped like a crown caught fire.
4) The crown began to spin much more rapidly than the other spinney-things.
5) The Jesus BEGAN TO LIFT OFF THE GROUND and, propelled upward by the spinney-things,

disappeared into the cloudy night sky.

This was an eight to ten-foot metal Jesus on a cross that caught fire and, propelled by fireworks, lifted off the Tower of Death and into the sky. Did I mention that it was ON FIRE?

And nobody seemed to be even slightly alarmed by this.

Now, the cross managed to extinguish itself and, as Mary and I listened, we HEARD IT HIT SOMEONE'S ROOF somewhere near downtown. A white-hot, metal Jesus. On the roof. And nobody - did I mention this? - seemed the least bit concerned by this. Was having this structure bash into your roof a sign of good favor? But what if it had been a car that it hit?

Would one's insurance call that an "act of God"?

***

We, all with about a pound of soot in our lungs, went back to Abuelita's house for a night's slumber. It was at this time that it was rumored that, in celebration of Abuelita's birthday, that a

MARIACHI BAND

would be coming to the house to play for her. When would the band be coming?, we asked.


5 AM: You've Got to Be Kidding Me

It was still profoundly dark when I was roused out of a fairly sound sleep by a sound I would have never, in a thousand year's worth of dreaming, have imagined at that hellish hour.

Mariachis. Awake, playing mariachis. At the door. Wanting in. At five AM.

The tradition was to wait until the mariachis had finished three songs before one allowed them into the home. I am sure the neighbors were thrilled out of their flipping GOURDS.

Mary and I rolled over on our beds and faced each other in the dark from across the room. A room whose bathroom I was to completely destroy, but more on that later.

"Let's try to sleep through it", I said.

3 Hours Later

When the mariachis finished - and, might I add, a very small party WITH BEER had been occurring in the courtyard along with their show - I sighed in thanks and napped for an hour before I got up for my shower. As I showered - the shower itself being a bolt sticking out of the wall sending out a weird mist, the drain a grated hole in the floor, no shower curtain, every damn thing in that room soaked - I noticed that the drain wasn't working. Like, at all. All of my soapy eww-water was standing there in the bathroom, ankle-deep. Becoming a health hazard.

Meanwhile, in the new light of a Huajuapan morning, I wonder if someone awoke to find that a ten-foot metal Jesus had impaled their Ford Festiva, cleaving it right down the middle. If so, would bad things that were thought at that moment damn one to perdition itself?

***

When I return, tales of road-trip Numero Uno, north to the Big Enchilada itself - Mexico City.

Until then, I remain,

Domonic (so,whenexactlydidDomshethisbretches?staytuned...) Potorti

Proof.

In the past, I have been...accused?...of fabricating the truth. For those of you who do not believe that I was served and did, verily, consume fried chilipepper insects, I wish you piles so large that sitting provides you the sensation that you are squatting on a large, warm grapefruit.

Cousin Mary's hands, attractively displaying the Tupperware container of edible locusts (chapulines):













And me, taking the "Will the whitey eat bugs?" challenge. For the record, both I AND Mary consumed said treat, though I continued to do so after the initial taste.















Huajuapan, a largish Oaxacan city near the border with the state of Puebla. Not only are bugs on the menu, but they set fire to Jesi there. More on that later.














Abuelita's house. Yes, it really is that color. The courtyard usually is just that, but come celebration time, they break out the tarp and set up tables for merriment. Many of her children and grandchildren can be seen here. She is fourth from the left at the table in the foreground.

Days and nights in Huajuapan.

Tlaxcala, 11 PM: Umm, There's a Situation.

I stared slackjawed at the gathered feast, which had been laid out carefully on lovely "we have guests" china. A feast that had clearly taken half a day to prepare. Oh, and didn't I mention that it was the matriarch and patriarch's anniversary that very eve?

Now:

At that precise, astral moment I realized that I had never once in the course of my short and fairly uneventful life wanted to eat less than I did right then.

Oh, the food looked and smelled just great - fantastic, even - and under any other circumstance I would have hastened to the feedin' trough as quickly as decorum and my jouncing fatrolls allowed, but it was motherhumpin' late, I'd just gotten off an international flight and, if I may be brutally frank, flying gums up the works *gestures* down there. What I really desired more than anything was a fluffy bed and a Sprite Zero, but judging from the hand gestures and general herding motions towards the groaning table, this was, on that mild Tlaxcalan evening, to be unthinkable.

I looked out over the spread. Grilled pork chops. Fresh, home-baked bread. Homemade cream of mushroom soup. Baked ham garnished with pineapple. Beer, wine and soda. And - holding court over on the corner of the table-

*BWAMP*

A gigantic salad. WTF is my problem, right? Well, before I left to go to Mexico, I'd read several websites that recounted the faceless horror confronted by Americans and others who had shat themselves into comas while in or after having visited Mexico. Essentially, they all said the same thing. While these savvy world travelers (who, they assured the reader, simply did NOT wear day-glo fanny-packs) had been careful to avoid items like, oh, big glasses of tap water with hunks of tap-water-ice floating about them, they'd been felled - nay, poleaxed - by such sweet, innocent items as fruit, homemade cheeses and salads. Why? Of course, all of these items were either made with or washed in the very same tap water that one had been so careful to avoid. Duh.

The salad and I exchanged pleasantries from across the table and, while keeping an intensely close watch on it, I set to my grim task while having a delightful conversation with the clearly weary but excited family. I then became aware that the salad had begun speaking to me - softly at first, but with ever-intensifying vigor.

"I have lovely, crunchy parmesan-garlic crrrrroutons, señor! My tomatoes were grown in the lush fecundity of black volcanic soil! What about my moist, green lettuce? Oh sheeet, you're afraid of the water. Umm, the lettuce! It's... leafy! Yes, leafy!"

I continued to savage a pork chop whilst trying to avoid a stop from the now circumabulating salad. With dawning horror, I realized that the Mexican family in attendance were all passing the salad without taking any for themselves. The bowl - itself quivering in delerious excitement - was placed in front of me, nearly 3/4 full, tongs at the ready. Eat, eat, they all urged, their eyes wide with anticipation and helpfulness.

Of course I caved. What the feck was I supposed to do? Tell them that the salad, which clearly had been made specifically for our imperialist First World dietary needs, was going to cause me to contract a parasitic load? That the very sight of it conjured visons of midnight rides, hunched and ashen, on the porcelain bus-seat to Giardiaopolis? I hosed it down with enough Italian salad dressing to float the Islip Barge upon and prayed that the vinegar would destroy anything "living" in it, finished my meal and patted my stomach appreciatively. In the end, I actually did feel better having eaten - and the company was superb - but I could feel every piece of that lettus holding court in my belly, waiting and watching.

As I trundled off to bed at 1:30, I heard it spoken that we would be getting up early the next morning to hasten to Huajuapan (a largish town in the Oaxaca province) for this family's patriarch's mother's birthday hootenanny. By "early" I'd envisioned 8, maybe nine AM, for rising, showering and a swig of coffee.

5 AM

When my uncle knocked on my door at an hour one generally associates with, oh, death, I opened my right eye and realized that I'd been asleep for about nineteen minutes. The room I'd been bunking in had a window that had been opened to allow for a lovely midsummer breeze; without this breeze I began to schvitz uncontrollably, and this clearly wouldn't do.

The problem:

This window opened onto the yard, wherein were penned (and strike me dead with a clawhammer if I am making this up) a turkey and two tiny, mutated goats. When the window was closed, I schvitzed. When the window was open, this was the exhange I was privy to:

Goat One: *bleeeeeeeeeeat*

Turkey: *gobblegobblegobbleGOBBLEDAMNITGOBBLE*

Goat Two: This shit's wack.

This went on, oh, all night long. Later, in the bleary pre-dawn gathering of goods and people for the shove-off to the Oaxaca-lands, I asked if my family or the lovely Mexican family had heard any livestock disturbance(s) in the early AM. They, naturally, denied any knowledge of said event(s). This supposes that either a) I am unnaturally sensitive to the sounds our enslaved animal friends produce or b) I am not, clinically speaking, OK.

Huajuapan: Where One Parties Until They Light the Jesi* on Fire

* plural of Jesus

We arrived in Huajuapan later than anticipated and thus missed some sort of celebratory breakfast for Abuelita , who was to turn 69 the next day. When we finally arrived, dusty and fatigued, from having watched a family soccer game in a verdant field on the outskirts of town, we were informed that we would be just in time for the blessing of the house by a local priest. And, by the way, please come over here to sit down so that we can feed you and feed you and then, when that's done, feed you some more.

Cousin Mary and I sat down in eager anticipation tinged with corporeal dread of what was to come. First appeared a lovely hominy/chicken soup, which I fell upon quite eagerly until my spoon hit something in the bottom of the bowl. As I lifted the mass from below the lovely hominy I beheld

chicken vertebrae

covered in sinew, and in a vague "s" shape. Ah. Chicken neck.

Now, I'm not ordinarily the squeamish type. OK, when a spider falls on me from the ceiling or if a moth wheels in my general direction, I do shriek. But when it comes to food, I'm usually the one who's getting the quahog pâté on a bed of musk-ox jerky. So, when I saw the neck, I shrugged, fished it out of the broth and continued eating.

About ten minutes later, one of the family members brought out a small Tupperware container and began pointing at it as if the secret to turning Pinesol into a sustainable, clean-burning petrol-substitute were inside. When I peered in, I beheld - naturally! - thousands of fried and chilipepper-covered locusts. Very small ones, to be sure - I had to look twice to tell what they were - but there they were.

Bugs. At the dinner table.

I did what most of you would do: I took a massive pinch of bugs and I planted it firmly in my mouth and munched. I thought: how often am I going to be offered food this weird? What, other than the vaguely insistent thought of becoming a host, was keeping me from mawing down on a big plate of bugs?

They taste -if you care - like old lawn clippings. With chilipepper. Fried.

As I snacked on arthropods, a second platter and a container full of hand-patted corn tortillas was placed in our vicinity. I actually had smelled the dish before it came out, but for the life of me I couldn't imagine what it was. As I beheld several foamy-looking blackish squares, my testing spoon raised for the sampling, I hesitated and decided that, just this once, I would ask what it was.

Oh, what's that? They are squares of baked blood? And I am to take a square, mash it onto a tortilla, and feast?

I was too stunned to even ask from which animal's arteries this bounty had sprung, which ordinarily would have been a valid question. As I kept the bugs and the chicken-neck stew at bay, another dish came out. This one had slices of yet another blackish treat, and again, the family fell upon it and began the chore of stuffing tortillas with it.

I didn't even need to prompt: the pregnant woman across from me pointed at two spots on her abdomen, near her back. Ah. Kidneys. Good. Yes, clearly. Mmm hmm.

As she mimed what I should be doing with the blood, the kidneys and the now completely-ignored insects, she unwrapped a foil-encased object which she then planted firmly onto a tortilla and began to unceremoniously savor every bite of what I'd hoped had been a chicken tender.

If by "chicken tender" I meant "goat tongue", then yes.

By the time the tamales came (moist corn paste, beans and shredded chicken wrapped in a corn husk), I was already envisioning the raptures involved in wasting away and perishing in another country.

***

Dusk fell over the mountain-rimmed valled surrounding Huajuapan, and word was that this night - as the first night of a gigantic, nine-day festival honoring the patron of the town, Jesus of Our Hearts - there would be fireworks in the plaza of the town's cathedral. In my rush to become excited about the fireworks display, I barely took notice that the "fireworks" that were to be lit in the plaze we were entering were

mounted on fifty-foot wire towers held on the ground by men holding hemp ropes

Ah.

Clearly.

***

When I return : What, possibly, is sinister about a firey Jesus on a rickety, held-together-with-masking-tape tower of incendiary doom? How did Domonic get awakened the next morning? Also: what DOES a plate of fried, chilipepper-coated bugs do to one's constitution?

Until then, I remain,

Domonic (iftherehadbeenwildhoneycombitwouldhavebeenSOJohntheBaptist) Potorti

*tongue lolling, guts roiling*

As I alluded to in my previous postlet, International Student Orientation Week is upon us. What this means is the following:

1) Many staff members in the office wish fervently for a swift and painless death.

2) Every international with an urgent, nearly irreconcilable problem will present him/herself and demand the presence of one of the advising staff.

3) Feral dogs in the vicinity have begun to form into packs and blood has begun to elp from the walls.

4) I have begun to worship, with ritualized sacrifice, the God of Advil and the Goddess of Aleve.

Two days left.

Keep saying that out loud.

When I return this weekend, Number Two in the "Dom Probably Pooped in His Pants There" Mexico Series will be dispatched.

Until then, I remain,

Domonic (ifby"probably"onemeans"mostlikely",thenyes) Potorti

Interlude: Intense amusement.

From one of my favorite websites, www.toothpastefordinner.com.

More on Mexico this weekend!

Domonic (internationalorientationis,andIhavetobeblunt,fromSatanhimself) Potorti

Mexico; or, Dom gets to finally wear dignity-pants - Part One.

We'll get to that later.

***

Puebla; Or, Uh, Weren't We Going to Go Here?

Put on my open-toed shoes and I/
Boarded the plane/
Touched down in the land of tamale blues/
In the middle of the pouring rain

For the months and weeks leading up to my departure for the Land of the Ancestral Corn I tried to imagine what my first moments in Mexico would be like. This is because, believe it or not, I am a "first impressions" kinda guy. Essentially, my belief system synthesizes superstition with heavy reading from my dread/intuition center with not too small a dash of relentlessly uplifting fatalism. This means that I am often to be found divining signs from seemingly unimportant or patently irrelevant events. For example:

Friend: So, did you see the awesome sunset last night?
Me: No. What color was it?
Friend: Reddish-orange.
Me: We're going to die.

Or

Keith: I had a dream last night.
Me: What was your dream about?
Keith: A bird got into the house.
Me: We are going to die.
Keith: Don't be retarded.
Me: Let me rephrase: We are going to die. By bird.

Needless to say, this makes the "pleasure" of my company less than desirable if you are, oh, having a birthday party.

Anyway, I hurtle through space in a winged metal tube the size of a standard JuJuBee box from Indianapolis (Motto: Flat, But Also Dull) to Houston (Motto: Where Dreams Go to Perish) and, having met up with my Uncle Steve, his friend Tom and my cousin Mary, we board the Puebla-bound tin goose and strap in.

Now: I've been on flights where I'd wished I'd paid attention to the ennui-stricken attendant as s/he demonstrated the safety features of the particular aircraft I'd boarded with the gusto one generally reserves for emptying colostomy bags. I've been on flights where I'd hidden my pretzels or peanuts so that the other survivors wouldn't be able to find them. As the pilot - who had no doubt sucked down a sweet lungful of maryjane the moment we entered Mexican airspace - began to turn the plane in what appeared to be partially aborted barrel-rolls over the glittering expanse of the fifth largest city in Mexico without real signs that he intended to slow us to a landing speed, I comforted myself with the knowledge that I had repatriation insurance and hastily crammed the remaining half of my in-flight snack sandwich (turkey, wilted lettuce and a piquant e.coli sauce) under my armpit for safekeeping. As he threw the plane onto the tarmac at 500 MPH, I waited to feel all three wheels make contact before I began to weep openly in gratitude for my wicked life. We disembarked and I, eager to suck in a first impression, stepped out into the expectant warmth of a midsummer Mexican night to a light drizzle and immediately plunged my right foot into a rank, ankle-deep puddle with only a Teva sandal between my tender flesh and Mexico. Mexico, as I was to discover, always finds a way.

We were rewarded for being imperialist swine by being allowed to clear Mexican customs in less time than it takes to adequately recall that you,and everyone in the Western hemisphere, know all of the lyrics to the Fine Young Cannibal's song "She Drives Me Crazy." As I looked about in wonder, wet from the ankle down on my right foot, I noticed that Pubela International Airport is the size of a Trapper Keeper; after being guided to my "final destination" by a pilot who would have bombed a piss-test, I embraced the fact that I didn't have to gnaw my way through security checkpoint restraints or endure bathroom lines that throw ones kidneys into renal failue.

It was while Uncle Steve was trying to get the rental car situation sorted that a clot of very similar looking people began to cluster about Mary and myself, speaking Spanish and gesturing expansively. "Mary", I whispered, "don't take a baby if they give it to you." As she solemnly nodded, Uncle Steve returned from his foray at the rental counter and began to fawn over the gathered Mexicans, who greeted him with smiles, hugs and the Euro-cheek-kiss.

Ah. The Family.

As I wasn't aware that we'd be greeted at the airport, I'd assumed that the people who were milling around us were part of the larger picture of general airport lunacy; slightly abashed, I greeted them all and told them my name (Earl) as we made our way through more excellent standing water to the rental car. I didn't know what part they were going to play in our lives for the next ten days, but as we tailed the family out of the parking lot and onto the feeder road out of Puebla City, passing towns with names like Xoxotla (ho-HOHT-la) and Huatlamixtlapetlcatlpopotitlanpan (eye-juhst-MAYD-it-UP), I realized three things:

1) This family was going to be the crux of our stay in Mexico.

2) We'd not, as I was under the impression, be spending a whit of time in Puebla; the hours of Puebla research I'd done auto-archived into the part of my consciousness where utterly useless things live.

3) Ricky Martin is Puerto Rican, not Mexican.

At 11, the car veered into the town of Tlaxcala and rested in front of a lovely Mexican home. "We're here", Uncle Steve said. As I struggled to memorize the pronunciation of the (clearly indigenous) town name - tlaks-KAH-la- we were herded, weary, into a beautiful dining room.

A dining room. Set with the finest china.

With a four-course meal.

At 11 PM.

***

Next in the saga: will Dom eat the huge, lavish midnight dinner? Will he rue this decision later? Also, will he stop writing in third person?

Until then, I remain,

Domingo

PS: Click on the map above and it will open to be bigger and more legible. Duh.