Top Ten Reasons I Lurrrrrve my Acupuncturist

• She's cheaper than a massage session.
  
  
• She's a UPenn alum, like me.
  
  
• She's an overachiever. I went to her to help my back and she's determined to also fix my liver, my kidneys, my asthma, and the dark circles under my eyes.
  
  
• Unlike massage, her efforts (e-stim + needles in the back) are having a permanent loosening effect on my trouble spots.

• I'm no longer reaching for the NSAIDs three times a week and can sit at my desk for longer than 10 minutes without pain.

• She has cool Chinese herbs that she likes to foist on me.
  
  
• When she heard we were heading to Mexico, she gave me sample packets of an herb that would cure the Tummy Troubles, should we be so unlucky (we weren't).
  
  
• When 3pm rolls around, I no longer have an irresistible urge to put my head down on my desk and leave it there until the next morning.
  
  
• I'm actually getting a few things done on the weekends beside napping, eating and reading.

and, the Top Reason I Lurve My Acupuncturist:

• I haven't been sick since I started seeing her 6 weeks ago.

Did I Mention

that Quinlan needs braces? Like, yesterday? Not only braces, but first an appliance to widen his upper bite, followed by a trip to the oral surgeon who will cut a flap in the roof his mouth and attach a wire to the lost incisor that is coming in sideways and behind all of the other teeth, which the orthodontist will then spend several months dragging down into place by said wire, like an ornery salmon on a fisherman's line? After which, upper braces will be applied, and then lower braces?

And did I mention that Quin has sensory issues, and this is likely to be torturous, and also take 3 years to complete?

And did I mention that it's going to cost $6,000 uninsured dollars?

...I didn't?

Hold me.

Unnerved

I'm a pretty unflappable person. I have put out small fires without raising my blood pressure, shepherded small children through ER visits and hospital stays with aplomb, and averted a friend's suicide attempt without falling apart. Crisis management should be my middle name -- I keep a pretty cool head and get the job done.

Last night I got flapped.

I'd been in north Philly having dinner with a friend, and started a long highway drive home at about 9pm. Ten minutes after I got on the highway, I became aware of a car hovering in my right-side blind spot, which drives me nuts. I slowed down so he could pass; he stayed level with me. I changed lanes to put a bit of distance between us; he changed lanes also and got right back next to my car. I sped up, he kept pace with unmistakably clear intent.

I changed lanes several times, placing my car in every conceivable type of highway posture, and this car stuck to me like chewing gum.

Now, it wasn't that late, and there were plenty of other vehicles on the road (though it wasn't heavy traffic) -- I didn't feel isolated. But I was seriously unnerved by my inability to shake this clown, while traveling at 75 65 mph to boot. At one point I had glanced over my left shoulder into the other car and it seemed as though the guy in the front passenger seat was holding something up to his window.

I was starting to think about where the police stations are in Philly, whether it would be safer to hop off the highway in an attempt to lose the other car, and the fact that I had left my cell phone on my desk earlier that evening and had no communication at my disposal.

I made one last attempt to lose him by changing lanes, and he immediately sidled back along my right-hand side. By now I was getting pissed, and I turned my head directly to the other car of the first time. As I flipped the driver off while mouthing a very distinct "Fuck you!", I noticed that the driver was holding something up against his window -- it looked like a piece of paper with markings on it, not writing. Almost immediately, he reduced speed and I pulled out ahead, changing lanes and putting a few vehicles between us, but keeping an eye on him in my rear view.

We were approaching a spot where the highway divides, and he pulled over to the left while I stayed to the right. I didn't see him exit, but could no longer find him in my rear view, though I checked all the way home. When I got to my suburban exit, I watched the off ramp behind me for a hundred yards or so, and no cars exited after me. I was rattled, but felt it would be safe to continue on home without first pulling into a well-lighted, heavily-populated area and leaning on my horn until help came.

I am unnerved by the whole thing and the fact that he gave up so quickly when he did -- was it the F.U., or that fact that I had finally looked at him/his piece of paper? -- confuses me. Was he trying to convey a serious message of some kind? (But the paper had no words on it, just some meaningless scribbles and dots.) Was he hoping that I'd be so flustered that I'd pull over, thus making myself vulnerable to carjacking or worse? (Certainly not carjacking; I drive a piece of crap '92 Mazda Protege.) Is he in the grip of a sexual kink that makes it impossible for him to get off until he gets a strange woman to see his magical piece of paper with the secret symbols on it?

What do you think?...

Cultcha

Remember the Margaret Atwood book I bought while I was in Chicago but never got around to reading? (Sure you do.) Well, I brought it with me to Mexico and holy hell, that woman can write. Like most folks, I'd read "The Handmaid's Tale" years ago, and loved it, but never explored further. I think I was intimidated by her prolificness (which isn't a word but totally should be) -- 13 novels, 15 volumes of poetry, plus short fiction, radio scripts, children's books, etc., etc., and so forth! I mean, where do you start?

Start with "The Blind Assassin." Seriously. It's a masterpiece.

******

While aimlessly flipping channels the other night, I lucked onto the end of a Great Performances production of the recent revival of Sondheim's COMPANY. The show itself is not without difficulties, but the music is as vibrant and compelling as ever, and good lord, Raul Esparza as Bobby --! Words cannot do his performance justice. He is commanding, charismatic, and an incredible singer. It takes a lot to knock my cynical socks off, and boy, he did it and then some. Check your local listings and set your TIVO.

Braggin' on My Husband

We interrupt this blog's usual naval-gazing to brag about my husband, who is a finalist in an international songwriting competition (along with his composer, a nice young man from Kazakhstan). You can see the complete list of finalists here; Michael's nom de musique is Z. Mulls. Clicky up at the top of that page to listen to "I'm Not Your Friend", listed in the Rock section. You'll need to register with an email address if you wish to vote (pretty please!), but if you're like me, you've already got a Hotmail or Gmail account set aside for such registrations. Plus, you can vote once per day!

Whether you vote or not (early & often -- once per day!), it's a really good song. Check it out, peeps.

The Good German...

... is not a very good movie, actually. But George Clooney + black and white = RRRWARR.

Please Send Me Back

This is the B&B we stayed at in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. We ate breakfast at the table on the left every morning:



Our room is at the tippy-top of this winding staircase:



This is the view from the B&B's deck chairs, from which we watched the sun set while sipping margaritas:

This is part of the enormous, steep hill we climbed daily to get to and from the B&B. It was worth the climb:



This is Sandrina's, the charming restaurant in Bucerias that we found by accident after searching for two other restaurants on purpose:



These are the pelicans, just hanging out in the fishing village of Punta de Mita:



This is Michael and me on our last day, on our chartered fishing boat in the middle of Banderas Bay:



I have never before in my life looked this serene.

Thoughts on Leaving El Paso

• It is very hard to get a vegeterian meal in El Paso.
• It is equally difficult to get a meal without cheese.
• Four days of eating cheese ties my intestines into double-sailor-hitch knots.
• If you wear your perkiest bra, the car rental agent at the airport will give you a free upgrade from Intermediate Size Car to Small SUV.
• A Small SUV is hard to drive when you're used to driving nothing bigger than a Mazda Protege.
• The gas pumps are swanky in El Paso -- in between ads to visit the attached mini-mart, they play rock and roll, which is a fun distraction while filling the tank.
• In a strip-mall smack-down between El Paso and southern New Jersey, El Paso wins. By a lot.
• For all of the shopping centers and strip malls clogging the landscape, you will only spy one grocery store. For the whole city.
• Getting into Mexico from El Paso is easy.
• Getting into El Paso from Mexico is harder and takes more time.
• When you're at the airport waiting on line to check in for your return flight, there is a better-than-even chance that a swarm of camouflage-wearing soldiers from Fort Bliss will arrive with lots of duffle bags.
• Lots of soldiers from Fort Bliss in a confined area creates a palpable cloud of testosterone that hovers near the ceiling without dispersing.
• If you like muscular men in uniform (and who doesn't), lots of soldiers from Fort Bliss in a confined area just might give you the vapors.
• No matter how hard you work while you are in El Paso, your payroll company will manage to raise your blood pressure to a zillion kagillion before you leave for Puerto Vallarta.

The World Is Flat

Well, at least southwest Texas is flat. Flying into El Paso from Dallas is exactly like the movie Babel where the Mexican nanny gets kicked out of her crazy nephew's car at the border with her two little anglo charges and she stumbles around in complete, utter isolation for endless hours, trying to find civilization. You look out the airplane window and there is nothing but flat desert dotted with green scrub as far as the eye can see. It looks like a foreign country. It looks like a wasteland.

(A digression: Is it just me, or is that movie seriously annoying? I mean, it was well made and well acted and all {and it's always fun watching Brad Pitt being intense and a little scruffed up}, but good lord above. All the poor people had tragic endings and all the rich people were on the road to better lives when the movie ended, which, huh? Sure, Cate Blanchett nearly died, but they finally got her to a hospital and not only was her life saved, her marriage (to Brad freakin' Pitt!) was saved as well. And I totally expected the rich Japanese girl to do a naked swan dive off the penthouse balcony, but after spending the whole movie trying to destroy herself with drugs, booze, and inappropriate sexual behavior with darkly intense men, she ends up having a healing emotional catharsis in the loving embrace of her father. In contrast, the illegal Mexican nanny gets ripped from the only life she's known for the past kagillion years, including the kids she's been raising single-handedly, and the impoverished Afghani peasant boys end up dead and/or in jail. Annoying.)

So here I am in El Paso and my body clock is all confused by the 2-hour time difference, which I know is ridiculous even as I type it. Seriously, it's only two hours, but I wasn't able to sleep beyond 5am local time (and believe me when I tell you, I am perfectly capable of sleeping past 7am at home). My colleague and I touched down yesterday in the middle of a ferocious wind storm that kicked sand into our lipgloss and hair every time we stepped outside. We're told that means it's going to rain, which is the one weather contingency I didn't pack for.

El Paso is a border town and they look at the world a little... differently, here. The local newspaper's website has 5 subcategories under the "news" tab: Nation/World, Politics, Video, Photo Galleries, and Public Corruption. Hey, at least they're reporting it.......

I'm here for work through Friday morning, then fly back to Dallas where Michael and I will link up on a flight to Puerto Vallarta. My goals for the week are simple: get enough sleep that I can enjoy P.V. without falling into an exhaustion coma, and lose the 10 pounds I haven't lost since the holidays. I should be able to accomplish at least one of those goals, don't you think?

Update: Actually, there are mountains here. We just couldn't see them the first day due to all the sand in the air from the wind storm. The sky was brown, people. I'm told that the mountains I can see from my hotel window are the end of the Rocky Mountain range, and that across the border, the Sierra Madre range starts. El Paso was so named as it marks the passage between the two mountain ranges.