Tequila!

In my seemingly never-ending lineup of things I have to do, my community medicine rotation starts this weekend. I elected to do it in Tequila, about 1.5 hours away, at a Red Cross because that’s where you get action. I was tired of going places here in town seeing runny noses, Pap smears, and hypertension management 90% of the time. That was OK 1st year. Now that I’m a 2nd year student, I need to translate the voluminous basic science knowledge I’ve amassed in the last 15 months (…pause for laughter…) and leverage that to treat an incoming stab wound with a pneumothorax or a compound fracture from a work accident, or…

OK, obviously I’m being silly and melodramatic. But I do want to get the hell out of Dodge to see more stuff. In a big city like Guadalajara, people can go to any number of “real” care facilities and not have to go to a Red Cross or the like. That’s the advantage (from a learning POV) of going to an underserved small town. I might even do some ambulance time with the Cruz Verde (Mexican volunteer/charity group like Red Cross) one of these upcoming weekends if I get bored.

So it goes w/o saying that since I’ll be in rural Mexico, I won’t be online. Given where I’m going, I may not be in any condition to post anything even if I had a connection, if you get my drift. Until early next week! In the meantime, enjoy the following:

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This driving thing gets old really fast

I’m finally back!! Actually, I came in last Thursday in the wee hours, but the fact that it took from last Monday to Wednesday night/Thursday morning to get here should tell you the hell we’ve gone through. Traveling with a newborn is hard–very hard–even for short trips across town, much less internationally. Traveling in a caravan makes things difficult many times over. Dealing with 100 degree heat and having to transfer a crying baby in exactly 10 seconds before she gets overheated is that special kiss of awful, just like salt on a wound.

Caravaning with a vehicle which breaks down in Mexico…..well, let’s just say thank God for pharmaceuticals.

Long story short, the car we had intended to cross broke down about 40 minutes into Mexico. Thankfully, it was an easy drive back and whatever is wrong with it did allow for short spurts of functionality, allowing us to turn a 30 minute return trip to the bridge into much more than that. We really had no choice but to then drive further back to my parents’ house, an hour away, to park the fully loaded truck into the garage for safe keeping and a renewed attempt the next day (Claudia’s dad lives 5 minutes from our crossing, but there is no garage).

Starting over again, far too late (the days of my cracking the whip and getting us to leave at 6AM, fully packed with coffee and breakfast (did I mention I am a morning person, especially on trips?) ) are obviously over. Like way over. Sometime that afternoon, we picked up my sister-in-law, who graciously allowed us to swap w/her car for these few months until we drive back so she can get the other one fixed. The crossing was uneventful, except that it took over an hour to get my vehicle permit because, well, this little bridge doesn’t really see FM3 visas, no they shore don’t. “Well golly gee willickers (or the equivalent in Spanish) what have we here?” was what I had to deal with. If it was legal for me to pay $20-something to get a temporary tourist visa, I’d have gladly done it just to make things go faster, but alas, they are actually computerized and they’d know I already had a (much more elevated) visa.

So…the rest of the trip was spent stopping for potty breaks, baby diaper change breaks, our dog’s nature calls (usually coincident with ours since we were stopping enough), getting turned around in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon (one of these days I’m finally going to get a map of that infernal city to figure out how to get on the periférico [outer loop] when coming from my father-in-law’s to bypass the middle of the city)–the list goes on and on.

We unloaded, Claudia and I started bickering about something or other (2.5 days of road trip between two vehicles and a crying baby kinda does a little something to the nerves), continued unloading, and crashed, or at least as much as we could until 3 hours later, baby awoke demanding more food. Apparently gone are the days where I can drive like a bat out of hell, consuming all sorts of [legal] stimulants, driving to exhaustion, and sleeping as long as I want because “Damnit, I deserve it for getting us here in record time!” Yeah. This little one is cramping my style, I’ll say that right away.

But I wouldn’t change anything. I love my Niblet.

We’re here, safe and sound, mostly unpacked/organized and school has begun anew. A new semester with scarier classes (I did mention I have this complex with neuro?) and more work, for sure. This time, I promised myself I wouldn’t allow myself to fall too behind– schedule/time-wise or grade-wise–even with baby. This means Mentat-like concentration and work ethic. Right. We’ll see.

Believe it or not, I am glad to be back. As long as my family is here and this is where I continue going to school, this is our home for now and any trip away is just that–a visit with a return ticket.

P.S. I’m going to be posting a few more posts here shortly, mostly queued up from the trip and the last few days, but I’m not going to change the post dates/times because there’s no point.

Retorno

This morning we are driving back to Mexico with our new (old) car driven by my sister-in-law, a trooper who wasn’t daunted by the drive (and staying for a mini-vacation). This is my/our first caravan into Mexico. I hate caravans. The drive is stressful and long enough by yourself much less worrying/coordinating about/with someone else. These last 4-5 days have totally and completely beat me up in every way.  It’s nothing bad, but I’m tired of seemingly simple–even mundane–things like moving completely kicking my ass.  I am so ready to get back and [re]start my life again with a new semester in one week.

I’ll be offline for a few more days still, but I have lots to share afterwards once I FINALLY get quiet time (and back in my house, I hope I can at least get some) to write and reflect.

Off to Texas

See you on the flip side. Things were too quiet anyway. It’s like the whole world was (is) on vacation–no comments, hardly any traffic…a good time as any to just go home and be with family for a bit.

Positive, Happy, Baby Shopping

I promised my next post would be positive, and I aim to please. I am back in Texas, having flown from GDL on Sunday. I hadn’t posted yet because when I came in, 1) I was way low on sleep, 2) the trip from across the border was horrendous–a used car that we were thinking of buying died oh, I don’t know, like 15 times in 102 degree weather (no A/C when it was running to keep it from dying), and 3) BABY SHOPPING! Oh my gosh, there is this like, whole underground subculture of baby accessories that no one would otherwise know about. Claudia had her baby shower last Friday and we got TONS of stuff for baby; we really are blessed to have family and friends that are so generous, especially w/our starving student status (SSS). Seriously, we really got a major amount of clothes and even some real gear, such as “kangaroo carrier” (mainly for me), bassinets, bathing basins, etc. We definitely wanted to do the shopping ourselves for the carrier/stroller and other “major” purchases, but every bit helps.

As for school, after making a meeting w/the assoc. dean, I finally got them to approve (with much “yes sirs” and “of course, sirs”) today through next Monday, given the C-section situation. The guy that gave me all kinds of resistance last time was very accommodating and “You misunderstood me,” when called into the dean’s office to confirm. Afterwards, I thought about it and realized I’d basically be staying in town just to go to class for one day after the weekend which would be stupid; I do have a few absences to burn, so I changed the flight last minute and left Sunday. Thank God, because it’s been non-stop over here (after I got in some sleep) with car repair, baby shopping, visiting family, etc. but it’s all good.

This is mainly for my peeps in Mexico, but just in case, if any of you are able to fly Interjet, do so. This airline is tops. Claudia flew it when she went back to Texas and said it was great. I have to agree 110%. They are brand new, the seats are roomy (it’s a rare thing when my knees aren’t bumping the seat in front of me and not be right up against the armrests outside of first-class), and LCD panels literally swing down from the ceiling to give you all the safety information, geographic/flight status, etc. I am actually looking forward to flying again. The best part: CHEAP!! I paid less than $160 USD for a round trip ticket from GDL to Monterrey (about 1.5h each way) with just days notice. Incredible.

So here I am, daddy to be, and I just wanted for symbolic purposes to buy the first set of diapers. I don’t know why; it just meant something to me. So while at Target, I went to that aisle and was immediately humbled by the choices for something so simple as buying diapers for the first time. First of all, there are at least 3 major brands, each with their own “system” of sizing. Once you figured that out, then it was how many to get, etc. I just got a large pack for starters. (Pictures of this and other things to come soon)

Right now I have to go downstairs and start putting strollers, carriers, and car seats together, getting them fitted in the car, etc. Busy busy busy. The day of least work will probably actually be the birth day itself, since family will be there to help w/whatever we need and I wouldn’t want to leave Claudia’s side. It’s all kind of a fog still, moving too fast for me to sit and really contemplate impending fatherhood, but the feelings are there. It’s going to be a wild ride the next few days, and I’m both excited and scared. Most of all, however, I’m just glad to finally be here with enough time to actually savor the moments. More soon.

Temporarily Offline

I am awake w/o sleep hours before we’re supposed to drive back with only two days rest until classes resume. Of course, I’m not going to get two days rest, because there is the requisite time to unpack, get resettled, tend to lapsed tasks, and of course, make a decent grocery run since we intentionally left the fridge/freezer bare by using up all perishables. I’m not sleeping not because I’m anxious or whatever (which I usually am, just as a matter of course) but because my GI system is giving me so much cramping, pressure, and bloating. I’ve taken enough simethicone to flatten a keg of cheap beer but it seems to have had minimal effect on me.

Anyway, I hope to be back online Saturday evening. See y’all then.
-e

UPDATE: Sun, 23 Apr:

Ok, back in GDL now as of last night, but man am I tired. I need to sleep more today in prep for classes resuming tomorrow. Until I finish up my post drafts, my advice is this: don’t ever travel across the country (much less in a different country) with a cat. That is all for now.

Inferno

It is so hot here. My skin feels like it’s boiling off. Braising is perhaps a better cooking term, since it’s 80%+ humidity outside, so I get to oven roast in my own juices. It doesn’t help that I’m dealing with a stomach bug right now–how ironic is THAT? I came from Mexico to Texas, remember? So it’s oh-so-pleasant dealing with the infernal temperatures outside. They said we’d get a reprive tomorrow of a few degrees.

And nothing is more small-talk useless than the ubiquitous, “It’s a hot one today, eh?” every place you go. Such depth. I can’t blame them — their brains are scramble-fried about as much as mine. I’ll post more about other stuff that’s happened, but before I do, I had to share at least this.

Here is a little infographic courtesy of the Weather Channel, annotated by yours truly to make the data more clear:

Keep cool!

Travel, exhaustion

We’re about to leave back to the states for 10 days or so. I meant to write sooner, but I had a physio test on Friday, then I was going to take Sat to relax and pack like a sane person, when Friday late night my desktop computer died. I finally narrowed it down to a corrputed main hard disk, but the hassle of dealing with that all day Saturday, if only to get the most basic of files off the system for the trip (something you just kinda take for granted), backup what I could, etc. I’ll just have to deal with it when I get back (I’m writing from my laptop).

I got little sleep the night before the exam, got woken up early by the God-forsaken trash men with their infernal bells (more on that in the near future as I put together an “Annoyances” page), and now I’ve slept zero. Zilch. With a 12-13 hr drive ahead of me, I’m going to be very unpleasant until tomorrow morning. Provided that I stress I am not to be bothered for any reason whatsoever to my parental units, I should be a lot better by Monday morning. It’s between now and then that I worry about.

Until late Monday or Tuesday, depending…

San Miguel Trip, Part 2

(continued from previous post)

We got up in the morning, grumbling there was neither coffee nor breakfast, but I smelled coffee, so I went downstairs. There was some pan dulce (sweet bread) and coffee already brewed, so I took a piece, two cups and cheerfully presented Claudia with coffee and bread, happy to start my day with SOMETHING. As you will read later, this coffee was not for us and I was essentially in blatant violation of B&B rules.

For our first day in San Miguel de Allende (San Miguel or SM for short from now on), I really just wanted to hit all we could: museum, churches, plazas, etc. It was very clear very soon that this town is several things we wouldn’t necessarily have known:

• tiny (not a bad thing)
• mountainous hilly
• impossible to drive anywhere in an extended cab truck due to streets made in the 1700s
• absolutely chock-full of Americans and other foreigners, perhaps even outnumbering the local population
• holiday weekends are taken seriously here in terms of people and activity

We found some decent parking at the top of a large hill and planned to walk downwards, but I met some Americans who spoke of a sceneic overlook further up the hill. 10 minutes and 100 beats/min HR increase later, I found nothing but more stairs and more curves, so I cursed out loud and made my way back (in the photos, you’ll see the stairs). You have to be WAY in shape to do anything long-term in this town. Sure a cab is 20 pesos anywhere you want ($2 bucks–no joke), but everybody walks. There was an 80+-year-old man I passed along the hill (yes, I passed him, thank you very much!) who was using a walking stick and carrying pan dulce back home, but that’s probably a daily thing for him, but I was a few ectopic beats away from a needing a defibrillator, walking at a 45 degree angle up the hill.

Breakfast was at Correos Cafe, across from the Post Office (correo is “mail” in Spanish), and it was far and away some of the best cafe de olla I’ve ever had. Cafe de olla is a Mexican preparation of good, strong coffee, frothed milk, cinnamon, anise and special somethings that make for a morning drink that will cure any mood. The rest of the day was simply spent walking, looking, listening, absorbing–taking the city in, going wherever the mood struck us. I’m a huge planner, but for some reason, I just didn’t plan this trip to the ‘T’ (note our driving experience). As such, I had the slight anxiety not knowing what to do, but also experienced the rare occaision of the freedom to not have pressure to do anthying in particular since I didn’t know what it was I WASN’T going to get to do/see/etc. I have to definitely do this way again. Maybe.

We saw several impromptu parades, a driving ad for a bullfight, went to the museum (which was actually a disappointment, but they don’t charge, so I’m sure it’s limited by that), walked and walked, and hung out at the town square, people watching.

Dinner was spent at a nice restaurant, and in spite of repeated bloody filet mignon when Claudia specifically asked for medium well (when a steak goes back because it’s twiching, moo-ing rare, perhaps returning a plate full of dark red blood less than 5 minutes later indicates you haven’t left the ‘rare’ stage quite yet) we were well taken care of by the manager to interesting conversation and a comped dessert of the best flan I’ve ever had. All in all a good day…

…Which is why the following morning was such a bust. I wake up in the morning at 8:00 and smelling coffee, went downstairs to get some. Buenos dias, I said to the B&B lady. She looks at me, “Yes?” “Um I just want some coffee,” I say eyeing the half-full pot.

“Breakfast is at 9:00,” she snapped. “OK,” I say slowly and deliberately, “I just want coffee.” I’m the one w/o coffee, and she seems to be the one who isn’t getting it.

“Breakfast will be served promptly at 9:00; coffee will be available then.” It took all my self-control not to just say “Whatever,” and walk over to pour myself a cup in defiance. I have never stayed at a m/hotel–and I’ve stayed in some bad ones–that didn’t at least have a coffeemaker in the room or some ready made stuff out in the lobby in a thermos dispenser if nothing else with little 6 oz cups. I’m not complaining about not getting Splenda or half-and-half–we’re talking total deprivation of the most basic element of hospitality. If I wanted rules and attitude, I’d go home and visit family. I’m on vacation here.

Long story short, I got my weak coffee at 9:00 with breakfast. We left shortly thereafter and headed back to Guanajuato (although we took the autopistas back!). I was looking forward to take pictures of the mines, mountains and churches, but traffic was so bad when we got there, it ate up most of our in-city time. We got info to go back, but next time we’re taking the bus: $157 dollars in gas and tolls could have bought us round trip bus tickets for both of us with plenty left over, and had the whole stress of the drive out of our hands.

San Miguel Trip, Part 1

Sorry for being late posting, but as soon as we got back, I had to massively study for a physio exam on cardiac physiology. I hadn’t studied pretty much anything since Thursday night, so I was a bit rusty, but I figured rusty was all it would be. It wasn’t until I was well into studying that I realized, “Hey, I don’t remember seeing that!” and other such confidence uninspiring thoughts. Sooo…..here I am, two days later, trying to catch up with everything, so this will be long, but hopefully worth it. Pull up a beer, a chair or whatever.

Friday: Halo tournament. This was a BLAST! There were I think 12 people and we were split up among 4 XBoxes (and XBox 360s for a couple of lucky classmates) in three different rooms. I learned that my ADD is alive and well, thank you, since It’s damn near impossible to keep track of 6 teammates much less them and the other team in games like Capture the Flag. Slayer, or simply, “Red team kills Blue team and vice versa” is about all I can handle. I play the hell out the single player game, but multi-player is a different animal and I often have not the stamina for watching out for everything all the time.

Saturday: WAY late start to San Miguel de Allende after dropping of Lola at J’s (Thanks again!) and tending to last-minute affairs. Traveling through Leon was mostly autopista (toll roads that are much better, comparable to US highways usually) and uneventful, and we proceeded to Guanajuato. At this point it was dark and we had a decision to make: go the “short” way on the map, through Dolores de Hidalgo but have no autopista (we had wanted it to be light still at this point) or the much longer way, but have bigger, better roads. Being already late, we opted for the former.

Mistake. I don’t know exactly how long it is to Dolores Hidalgo, but it’s about 50km and took us over an hour, since I averaged about 30 mph. The roads were so windy, I don’t think there was more than 10 second stretches that I wasn’t turning the wheel one way or the other. Add to the steep grades and oncoming rigs on a two-lane mountain road with no guardrail, and the flexor compartments of my forearms were getting an extreme isometric workout. (Bonus points for integrating info from last semester…yay me!) We finally made it through, cursing the lack of info the map gave us (the State of Guanajuato has a weird habit of posting signs that say “Welcome to City!” and it’s really another 5-6 miles before you see anything, which made us concerned we missed something) and for taking the wrong way.

When we made it into San Miguel de Allende we hit hoppin’ Saturday night traffic. I phoned my classmate and friend A. whose mom lives there I was in town and she said she’d meet us at a particular church. It took us 10 minutes to go about 8 blocks. We then took a “tortuous” route (I’m on integration fire!) looking for the colonia where the B&B was, then finally just hired a cab for us to follow. (walking distance to the center of town, my ass!) B&B lady was pissed because we arrived late and that screwed up her social plans. Um, sorry, I told you to go out and I’d call your cell…but nooooo..you wanted to do it your way. We then find out that she no longer serves bkfast on Sundays in spite of saying so on the web page. She seemed entirely unconcerned about the fact that half of B&B is BREAKFAST and anybody who knows me knows that there are two things I need in the morning: breakfast and coffee, in that order of importance (not in consumption). We were shown to our room, which was very nice, typical B&B style, except the bed was a thin mattress on a wooden box. Unfortunately, this is not atypical in this country, but after such a hard road trip, I wanted more than essentially a futon to sleep on, but my head hit the pillow and that’s all she wrote.

(continued later)