Except for the gender thing, and hopefully us not getting into a car accident, this is totally what it's like being around Kevin and me. Frighteningly.

Don't Cry for Me, I'm Already Dead

You know what I'm looking forward to?

The Day of the Dead.

Not the movie. The holiday. I've read stuff about it but now I will (hopefully, God willing) actually be in Mexico to see it. We have Halloween, but Dia de los Muertos - THAT's a celebration. No dressing up like cartoon characters and trick or treating at the mall for this one.

I totally want me some sugars skulls and catrinas (special Day of the Dead dolls). Dig it:




Or this picture from the Mexpop blog. "Pan de Muerto" = Bread of the Dead


I SO love Mexico. My kinda country.

I finally managed to get some pictures uploaded by giving up on Flickr and going with Shutterfly. Shutterfly also lets you create an independent web site for your pics, so I did.




Hola Mexico

We are officially taking Spanish lessons, and thus far (a whole 3 lessons into it), they're going well. Our teacher is a cool woman with a local Spanish-language school and she does quite a good job of explaining without ever using English. It also helps me to see how she does this so I can use some of the same techniques with my beginners' classes. This is also known as stealing.

It didn't occur to me for quite some time to wonder why, in Mexico, there is a Spanish school. I could see if this was Mexico City or Cancun, some place with muy touristos. But Chihuahua, nice as it is and no matter how much I like it (a lot), is not a tourist destination, thank God. Indeed, the only other foreigners I've seen here since we got here all work at our school, a whopping six other people. I like this just fine, but who, then, are the other students? The school's director said something about them working with people who come to Chi-town and do homestays, but still I wonder.

Not that I miss being around other foreigners, being the misanthropic, unpatriotic race-traitor I am. An interesting thing about living in Mexico is that we don't stick out as foreigners nearly as much as we did in Asia. Not all people in Mexico are one size, one hair, one eye. Mexicans come in all shapes & sizes & hair & eye colors, many of them a great deal paler in the general color scheme than I. Our school abounds with students who have light hair (blond, red, brown) and green eyes; our American-ness is not broadcast to all and sundry until we open our mouths. Mix Kevin and I in with a group of native Mexicans and the only way to really tell us apart is from the look of amazement and unfamiliarity still stamped across our faces.

The black cat who lives in the neighborhood has turned out to be male, so Pepper has an enemy for the first real time in his life. The Black Cat, who I think of as either El Gato Malo or Blackenstein, has made a habit of coming over and sitting in front of our window until Pepper appears. Then they taunt each other and El Gato Malo sprays all over whatever he's close to in defiance. Pepper has taken to begging to go out in front of the apartment sometimes, and if I have time to hang out and watch him, I let him. He rolls around in the dirt and smells everything, then sets about replacing the Scent of Blackenstein with his own. This amuses me to end, and in a strange way, I'm glad Pepper has something to do. It can only help keep him young and healthy to have something to occupy himself. Everyone needs an enemy. Lord knows I have plenty.

I know what you're thinking: BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CAT? TELL ME HOW THE CAT IS DOING!

Alright.

Pepper is a smart boy and learned to travel long ago. I did feel bad that he was pretty much just getting used to the dog situation at Kevin's p's house when we yanked him out for another trip, but I knew he would like it better here. We dutifully got him YET ANOTHER health certificate (the kindly vet praised his health and prettiness and asked if we had considered letting him stud. Heh, that's my boy) and packed him up in his carrier for the trip to El Paso.

This trip was different in that it was not by plane. Pepper didn't have to be around a bunch of strangers or assaulted by aircraft noise, so after a while, he wanted out. I described this is a previous post, but it was funny that when I let him out into the car, he just wanted to hang out. He didn't freak and start running around the car after I started it, either. In fact, he went calmly back into his carrier until we got the hotel.

We got picked up by the directors of our new school and we all crossed the border via auto. Border patrol cared not in the least about pets, although the army guys at a checkpoint later on wondered about the big container of cat litter.

We got to our new apartment at about 11 at night, and Pepper raced for under the bed. This is his usual MO, nothing to worry about. But our new place is (gasp!) on the ground floor and has big windows in the living room as well as a screen door, and apparently this was too much sensory overload for The Boy, because it took him about a week to get used to the idea that HE COULD SEE RIGHT OUTSIDE - TO THE GROUND. And among the exciting outdoor sights and smells are two dogs (one a sweet little puppy) and a black cat that looks fairly diabolical and might become the anti-Pepper. That or the mother of his children, I dunno. He spent almost all night for the first three or four nights staring incredulously out the window and then sleeping exhausted under the bed all day, so he's just recently started on his normal schedule of Doing Whatever Mama is Doing and then napping under a blanket the rest of the time.

But he has plans, oh yes.

You take things for granted when you have them all the time. Duh, I know but I had great Internet access in Korea and the US and was getting to where I barely used it. Then we moved to Mexico, and since September 12, we had none. Well, we weren't totally cut off; we could go to our school and use the wireless there for free, something which we appreciated (especially Kevin, who has his own schoolwork to do online) but which seriously curtailed our activities. It's not a long walk or a difficult one, but when you can't use the Internet until you pack up your laptop and take a walk, it gets old really fast.

So I didn't send anyone emails and barely looked at the Internets for the past almost-two-weeks, and boy howdy, did I love when we finally got our own here at the apartment yesterday. Email! You Tube! iTunes! ESL lesson plans!

I need the Internet. For my professional development, yeah, and not just to watch clips of 'Dancing With the Stars'. Really.

Ola!

In the great land of the United States of Mexico once again.

It's much better this time, so far.

The gringo director of our new school is, despite self-proclaimed Republicanism, a very cool guy. He likes the Beatles. The school and most of the teachers' apartment are contained in a huge old house, but since we're two and married and there's no more room in the house, he hooked us up with a sweet little apartment down the road, a fifteen-minute walk. It's three different colors on the inside. and another on the outside. I love that.

There's no AC, but since they know how to maximize the coolness factor in Mexico and since the temperature has been in the fabulous 70s or 60s F for the past few days, we have been cool as little raw cucumbers. Peppers been going mad from having so many new things to smell and the happiness of tile floors. He loves those; must be a China thing from his kittenhood. I got him a bowl filled with pure bottled water so that he wouldn't suffer any more distress than he had to, so of course, he's been hopping onto the counter and drinking from the faucet every chance he gets.

I felt tired out yesterday from all the traveling and packing and unpacking and having to be a nice person around people who don't know me, so Kevin went out exploring more than I did. He's already found us a supermarket and some little food shops, most notably a tortas (sandwich) shop within walking distance. We went vegetarian in America, but this has been temporarily halted while we try out real Mexican food, and I have to admit that the tortas he came back with were super-tasty, with avacado, tomatoes, lettuce, and a very spicy red sauce.

Our nice new directors also got us some quesadillas on the way down, with a sauce made of whey and jalapenos that unglogged even my sinuses (I've had a sinus infection ever since I got back to America. Coincidence? I think not.), and last night we were taken out on a little sightseeing tour of Chihuahua in celebration of Mexican Independence Day (tomorrow) that included a stop at Master Dog, a local hot dog place. No, they don't use real dog. That would be the last two places I lived. Master Dogs came with refried beans, tomato, lettuce, onions, condiments of your choice, cheese, and even mushrooms if you choose. So I get everything and Kevin get his plain, with cheese. Hem. This is a man who does not need to visit Chicago.

One thing we have not yet had is tacos, but I'm sure that is imminent.

We are now in El Paso.

I've never been to El Paso before. It's surprisingly nice, or what I've seen of it, anyway. You walk about twenty feet and you're in New Mexico, another fifty and you're in Regular Mexico. Not being ensconced in Texas is always a good thing.

We rented a car (a very nice Saturn that has now spoiled me with it's smoothness and non-junkiness) and drove, or to put it in another, more accurate way, I drove, all the way from Fort Worth to here. Kevin did volunteer to drive several times, but I'm a bit of a drive hog. You see, I LIKE driving. I just don't like traffic, and there was almost no traffic all the way here. Through Kermit and Tye and Odessa and Midland, where we got lost because the GPS we rented with the car suddenly started giving us strange directions we didn't trust. Through mountains and flat lands and places where they filmed 'No Country for Old Men'. Didn't get abducted by aliens in Marfa but did eat lunch buffet at a Flying J truck stop where all the books were Christian and the loudspeaker announced every few minutes, "Shower number 5XX is available."

We listened to Beatles and Hide and Maximum the Hormone and Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars. An hour outside El Paso, Pepper decided he'd had enough and began howling in his carrier. This was so odd that we figured he REALLY REALLY REALLY had to go to the bathroom and I stopped off on an exit road and asked Kevin to get Pepper's litter box and spare litter out of the trunk. I put it on the floor of the passenger side and let Pepper out of his box, only to have him be so enchanted by the car that he totally forgot about going to the bathroom, if that was indeed the problem in the first place. I get the feeling he figured out he wasn't in a plane filled with strangers and if that was the case, dammit, he wanted out. This brief soiree on the side of the road resulted in the car being filled with mosquitos, which buzzed around us until their horrible, bloody deaths the rest of the way to the hotel.

So now we're at the Microtel Inn at the airport, the car returned. Oh Saturn, we hardly knew ye. The Microtel had free wireless so we can still amuse ourselves. That's good, because I don't know how fast we'll get it hooked up at the next destination. On to Chihuahua, a city we have decided is run by those little dogs. At least I hope so.

Been spending the past month since I got back from Merida looking for jobs that don't totally suck, eating food I couldn't get in Korea, watching way too much TV (but they have 'The Sopranos' on A&E!), and reading.

I do love the libraries here. I can say that. But the job seeking is sucking big-time. Both of us have been to interviews almost every day and haven't gotten a damn thing. Well, i did get hired at a pre-school, but it only took 3 days of that to make me run screaming from the building.

I even saw THE PERFECT job for me, teaching ESL at a college. I had the training, the degree, the experience, and even someone in the ESL department pulling for me. Nothing. They didn't even bother answering my email.

I grow very weary of this place. Needless to say, I've also started applying to overseas ESL jobs again. Let's blow this fascist popsicle stand. Again.

Nope, Mexico didn't work out.

Mexico itself was quite nice. But things didn't work out at the school, which, after me being there a week, decided to throw a total shitfit about my having (wait for it) tattoos. The contract letter they sent me did say 'No visible tattoos' and I, in my silly literal way, put too much emphasis on "visible". No problem, thinks I, I can cover them up. I have two on my legs and wear long dresses all week, until last Friday, when someone get s glimpse of them while I'm going up the stairs. Oh no no no no, they scream. I cover them up, I say. I WEAR CLOTHES. But no, someone might see them and their parents might freak and bah blah blah, so in the end I say, I'm outta here and go back to lovely and charming Texas, which is now, suddenly and shockingly, my home.

Luckily and due to the grace of God, I have a place to stay and a vehicle to use, so I've already lined up a job. And in the future, I think...Alaska. I've been wanting to move there a long time.

And in the meantime, I got four volumes of Azumanga Daioh from the library, which has a whole lot of wonderful manga/comics/graphic novels. Viva!

We're back.

ALL of us, although it was a close call with Pepper.

I didn't sleep at all Saturday night, and that is no exaggeration. I laid there and laid there, and every single horrible thing that could go wrong went through my head. The transportation we arranged could come late, or not at all. The luggage could break. It would be raining heavily. And the biggest one - I wouldn't be able to get the cat out of Korea and/or into America.

Our ride, a very nice Catholic man who goes to our church in Korea, arrived right on time, but my fear of Pepper being denied entry to the plane almost came true. I prayed the Divine Mercy chaplet for an hour on the trip to Incheon Airport, and good thing - ony a miracle from God could have gotten Pepper on the plane.

See, despite us having called the Incheon quarantine office four times to ask if a vaccination book from the vet would be OK (and the answer being yes every time), once we actually got there, it wasn't. Only an official rabies vaccination form would do, which I didn't have and had no chance in hell of getting at 7 am on a Sunday morning. The quarantine vet huffed and looked at his watch and kept saying that's what he needed and he wouldn't take my book, while I prayed, "Please, please, my little boy, my baby..." Suddenly, he said OK. He'd give me the papers to get on the plane IF I promised him I'd call the vet and ask him to fax over the rabies certificate. I promised, I promised. After an eternity, wherein I worried he'd change his mind, he gave me the certificates the airline wanted and we were on our way.

Kevin did indeed call the vet, but the office wasn't open before it was time to get on the plane. I'm not forgetting my promise, either. I emailed some people from our church and asked if they'd follow up on it. I hope they help. That guy did me a massive favor, and I don't want him to think I lied to him or said, screw you, I got mine. I hope.

Anyway, we all got on the plane, where we spent the next 13 hours. This is A LOT shorter than previous trips, because this was direct to DFW. It was expensive but oh so worth it. Korea Air has screens built into the backs of all the seats, and passengers can entertain themselves all the way to their destinations. There were 20 or so movies to choose, and not all of them sucked. I watched 'La Vie En Rose' - twice! There was music and TV shows. You could even play simple video games, like Tetris or golf.

Luckily, Texas customs gave us no trouble at all about The Boy (they did, for some reason, forbid us from taking his cat food into the country, but this was a small quibble indeed), and we were repatriated and let loose back into the land of the free. I have since been amazed at non-stop commercials for 'natural male enhancement' (where are the before and after pictures?) and the sheer size of this country o'mine. IT'S SO BIG.

I cannot praise Pepper enough. Pepper was SO GOOD. He had to be dragged around for almost 20 hours, in strange cars, weird offices, airports, and on a plane. He was not sick. He did not destroy his soft carried. He did not claw and scream. He was quiet. He was scared, but he rested as best he could in his carrier and under a blanket I knit him. When I had to take him out and walk him through security in front of a bunch of strangers, he let me hold him with no struggle. When kids peeked into his carrier, he just looked back. And this poor kitty had to go 20 hours with no bathroom break, no food, no water. He barely meowed, he didn't make a mess in his carrier, and a few minutes after he was let out, he was snacking and exploring. My special little guy. He's lived in three countries now and travelled all over the world.

And the first thing I ate once we got here? I have to admit it - a double meat from Whataburger. And it was good.

Fewer than three days to go until The Flight.

Looks like the All-Asia Adventure is over. For now.

I sure did love China.

Korea - meh.

New continents to conquer...

Can't write anything. I don't want to keep complaining about school (which STILL ISN'T OVER) and I don't want to talk about what we're trying to do next because it will jinx it.

I can say that my supreme good taste has finally rubbed off on Kevin enough so that he's listened to almost nothing but the Beatles for a week. I rule!

Things came to a point here where I had officially Had It.

So, we're outta here.

God willing, in a couple of weeks we will be sweating and dragging luggage across the land of the free.

And, God willing, after that, on to the next country.

Oh, do not ask "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit.

Heh heh heh.

I don’t do this often because I figure there’s enough negativity in the world, especially from nitwit “teachers” who go to foreign countries, get jobs they are in no way qualified or trained for, make way more money and get treated better than they would at home, and then spend all their spare time posting bitchy nonsense about how everything about their job/school/city/students/co-teachers sucks. BUT sometimes I gotta vent, too, and the husband can’t absorb it all without suffering radiation poisoning, so here goes.

( Read on, if you dare )

The fifth wedding anniversary is the wood anniversary. You'd think they would have come up with something better, but that's tradition. Anyway, to celebrate, The Husband & I took off to a very nice resort, which was coincidentally a short, pleasant bus ride from our house, where we proceeded to spend a whole lot of money and sleep in a junior suite easily twice the size of our apartment.

No, I'm not exaggerating.

Steak dinners every night were part of the package, and we spent the rest of the time amusing ourselves with TV (we have not had braodcast TV of any kind for 2 years, and even before that, we never watched it), eating expensive meals (a room service snack of french fries and two cokes cost as much as a full dinner for two at Outback Steakhouse), sleeping, sitting in the garden, and swimming in the pool. There was not one but two channels devoted to watching people play video game tournaments, mostly Kart Rider and Starcraft. There was a Catholic channel and a Protestant channel. There was a channel that we called the Boring Weather Guy channel, because every time we flipped past, there was a man who looked like the most boring person in the world droning about what seemed to be the weather while wearing a bow tie, and an all-Doreamon channel, where Doreamon had the weirdest voice I have ever heard in a cartoon. We also saw 'Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone' in Korean, which means I have now seem the HP movies in three different countries, in three different languages.

To be honest, we stayed in nicer hotels for cheaper in China, but a good time was had by all, especially when we finally hit the bar Saturday night and drank White Russians while listening to the Eagles do their greatest hits live-on-DVD. It was so fun doing this with Kevin that it almost made me forget how much I've hated the Eagles since my aunt burned me out on the 'Hotel California' album by putting it on an infinite loop on the eight tracker player in her van as we travelled from Michigan to Texas when I was a kid.

At least it wasn't Steve Miller's 'Fly Like An Eagle'.

In other news, school marches on, and the kids are driving me crazy. It's very weird getting used to this March-January school year, and dear god I can't wait for the summer break.

I decided to make a film of who I lovingly call my damn weiner kids, beginning with the top minions in Satan's army, the sixth graders. They're doing occupations in a unit called "My Father Is a Pilot", so I brought my bitchin' laptop to school and got as many of them as I could to come back to the office and say, "My mother is...my father is..." on camera.

It took me all day to get the audio to sync up right, and there are about 30 seconds at the end with music I can't edit out going over a blank screen, but I'm not messing with it anymore. Behold the glory that is my students:

(By the way, 'jubu' means housewife.)

OK.

I haven't written in awhile because first, Kevin went back to America for two weeks and I pretty much lost the will to do anything but eat & watch 'Mystery Science Theater' until he came back. I am not exaggerating - I could write on and on about how I felt like my heart was torn out and and life had no meaning, but suffice to say I felt pretty crummy until he made it back.

In China (and America), getting back & forth to the airport was a production. We had to arrange rides, get taxis, rent buses, all sorts of stuff. But to get to and from Incheon Airport, all Kevin had to do was take the subway. Man, I love public transportation.

He also had a short layover at Narita Airport in Japan, which means now Kevin has gone to Japan and I haven't. Urgh.

I haven't been to the land of my birth in three (I think) years now. The only things about it I miss are proper-sized clothes & English bookstores, and even those yearnings has been considerably decreased by being able to visit bookstores here or order books online through a Korean bookstore in Seoul. Through our frequent communiques, I got the updates that 1) Texas still sucks as hard as ever; 2) TV has actually gotten worse. That's about it. Goodnight, farewell, so long.

In the meantime, I had to decide whether or not to stay with my school another year or go out looking for greener pastures. I sent off my resume to a few colleges, but heard nothing. That was pretty much it except for a school down south that sounded interesting, a high school prep school in the most literal sense, for Korean kids who want to go to college in the US. They didn't want an ESL teacher so much as someone to teach regular ol' English-literature-language arts using a regular ol' US high school curriculum. In other words, exactly the thing I trained for and got my teacher's cert in . So I sent them my resume, even though I'd told the elementary school I was pretty sure I'd stay another year. What the hell.

I didn't hear anything for about six weeks & had forgotten about the whole thing when I got an email saying they were interested. Very interested. So now we have an interesting wrinkle in time.

I had to get drug & HIV tested as part of the new visa process, so my CT took me to a hospital in Suwon a couple of weeks ago. I was less than thrilled, but it was hardly unexpected or unusual - health checks are part of teaching in China also, and even in the US drug screens are common for pretty much any job, thank you Nancy Reagan, you bleeding bitch. I was a little surprised that the health check package in Korea included blood pressure, chest x-rays, eye exam, hearing exam, and a visit to the dentist (?), but was mostly just amused, even though I was dying to get home to Kevin. I passed everything with flying colors (damn straight), except one. it was nothing that would deny me my visa, but it did send the doctors and nurses into a tizzy and had them demanding I return for a new round of tests a week later.

Blood pressure. Dun dun DUN.

This was not a bolt out of the blue, either. My father has high blood pressure, and at various medical screens over the past five years, people have said it was on the high side, although not high enough to recommend medication.

Well, it is now. Personally, I blame the children.

Good news - the meds for it were inexpensive and quite effective. I can tell I feel better - less tired, less hot, sleep better - and that makes me happy & relieved. As far as heath problems go, it could have been a whole lot worse.

Lastly, Kevin turned me on to a great game called Depths of Peril and IT'S EATING MY BRAIN. I am now compelled to play it for hours & hours an hours. I can't believe I'm not playing it right now. Gotta go...

I have long wondered about what I call Pepper’s “water thing”, i.e., unlike any cat I have ever known, heard about, or seen, he loves it. As to drinking it, he’s like that little girl in Signs who always has to have fresh water; he will drink what’s available, but he likes fresh best. He always comes into the bathroom with me, for companionship but also because he knows I’ll give him a drink from the sink. He jumps on the counter while I’m doing dishes for a refresher. He’ll lick the condensation that forms on windows. And – wait for it – he will drink out of bottles. Yes, if I hold a bottle of water sideways so he can get to it, he will drink from it. When he sees me drink from one, he jumps in my lap and demands some, too. Which I give him, because I love my kitty.

Not only does he have a drinking jones, he doesn’t especially mind getting wet. When I had a bathtub in China, he would sit on my knees while I took a bath. He’s gotten into the shower with me many times, while the water was running. I’ve never seen him go swimming (then again, he’s never really had the opportunity), and he doesn’t like being splashed, but he’s incredibly mellow and unafraid of water in all liquid forms.

I chalked this up to three things: 1) that he probably didn’t have a good supply of fresh water in the time before I got him, when he was a little kitty; 2) his thick fur makes him not feel as wet as other cats, and 3) he’s generally unafraid of most things, which is good but leads to some frightening situations.

These may well be the reasons, but while perusing an article about weird cat behaviors, I read something today which made me wonder if there’s another thing: breed. There are indeed some breeds of cat which are water-embracing, notably the Turkish Van. And when I looked up Turkish Van, what did I see? A whole gallery of cats which look just like Pepper, and with a description to match.

Who does this sound like? From Wikipedia: “The coat is the most fascinating trait on this cat. The climate change in Turkey throughout the year seems to have designed the cat's coat over time…The semi–long haired, water-resistant single coat, is thick in winter but very soft, like rabbit fur or cashmere.”

This describes Pepper’s coat perfectly, which is baby-fine and incredibly soft. I’ve said it’s a good thing people don’t harvest cats for their fur (yet), because he would have been a goner long ago.

But wait, it gets better: “Turkish Vans are very intelligent, and will easily take over their home and owners. Vans are people cats that want to be with people wherever they go. They like to play and jump and explore anything in their reach, which is quite large. They are energetic; they play hard and sleep hard. Many Vans are dedicated to fetching their particular object of interest, and many owners describe them as ‘dogs in a cat suit’ because of their unusual personalities.”

Sweet merciful crap. This is an exact description of Pepper. He follows me everywhere, he never wants to be away from me (although I am quite the lovable pet owner), and he has so many dog-like traits I’ve called him a dog in a cat’s body ever since I got him. He will actually fetch things, and he likes to carry things that interest him in his mouth, like his foil balls or 5000 won bills.

Furthermore, “The coloring of the Turkish Van should be limited to the head and tail with random body spots acceptable but all color should not exceed more than 20% of the entire cat...The rest of the cat is chalk white. Color can extend up the rump from the tail of the cat and patterned cats often have a random spots of color on the shoulder or body. This is acceptable as the native people see this as the ‘Mark of Allah’ left when Allah touched the cat to give it his blessing.”

(I especially like that last part. Interestingly, I’ve also read Mohammed (pbuh) was known for being fond of cats as well. I have a long-running joke that Pepper is Muslim. Now I know why.)

Other things Pepper does/has/exhibits which Turkish Vans are notorious for:

- not especially liking being picked up but loving sitting on or next to loved ones;
- riding on people's shoulders;
- figuring things out, such as how to open the screen windows, open doors, knock things off tables, and open drawers;
- loyalty;
- social, i.e., gets along with other cats (P-chan has gotten along amzingly well with other cats when he has the occasion to meet one)

So let’s contrast. Turkish Van:



The Boy:



Turkish Van:



The Boy:



Eerie, no? I think the mystery is solved. There’s no way to verify it and it would be almost impossible for him to be purebred, but it sure does look like I got me a Turkush Van. It does make me wonder how in the world a Turkish Van got into middle China to parent my baby, but stranger things have certainly happened. Wikipedia does say it is a naturally-occurring breed, so they could have just sprung up there. It sure would explain a lot.