Abuelitos in Mexico III

But, as they say, the night was darkest just before the dawn. I was perhaps so busy worrying as I drove steely-eyed onward (though trying not to show it, of course) that I failed to notice the rain had begun to diminish. Finally, we could all breath a collective sigh of relief. Now, it was just the time between us and San Miguel, so I suggested we should play 20 Questions. This is a game I love and one in which I engage with a great of focus and seriousness. But, these three were amateurs. At first, my dad didn’t want to play at all. “How can I say yes or no to that question, not possibly being able to know everything about that person?” My mom and Ale played along willingly, but they played along, “Has this person ever been to Iowa?—ha, ha, ha!!" Normally I would have been more annoyed, but I was happy to get us all involved in an activity that was taking our minds off of the road. And, mercifully, within an a couple of hours, we were coming over the ridge and looking down onto the quaintly cobble-stoned streets of San Miguel de Allende. And even more mercifully, we very quickly found a reasonable hotel one block off the main square, at none other than: “Hotel San Miguelito.” I shit you not. Hopefully, this had to be an auspicious sign.

Ale said she was tired and would stay in with the baby. My parents said they thought they would stay in as well. Ale has been to San Miguel on several occasions so she could afford to miss this part of the agenda. Her excuse that she was too tired to come out would stand. (Plus she’s my wife and I always go along with what she says.) But, blisters, soaking wet, long day, old people—none of these excuses were going to fly with me! “I really, really think you should come on out for a little bit, at least. After all...we came all this way.” (As if they needed reminding.) And come out they did. Weren’t these the people that always used to make me do things? I really thought they were going to tell me to buzz off at this point. But, they were real troopers and came out for a stroll on the town and a drink at the very classy Tio Lucas restaurant. As we sat relaxing, listening to jazz, snacking on some delicious appetizers, chatting and sipping our whiskeys, the whole long, scary, crazy drive seemed to melt away into the distant and harmless past. Or did it? It was during our tranquil time at Tio Lucas that my parents decided to share with me that their trip to Mexico had prompted them to rewrite-up their will right before they left, and that I would be the executor of such. Geez, I laughed uncomfortably, what could have made them think their lives would have been at risk by coming to see me in Mexico?

The next day we woke up relatively early and I took my folks on a daylight tour of that most delightful of Mexican cities that is San Miguel de Allende. We had coffee and molletes off the little zocalo before strolling through the town, taking a peek at some cathedrals and parks before strolling through the market and buying some fruit. By mid-day we were back on the road, headed toward Guanajuato by way of Dolores, the town where Mexican Independence was born. Dolores is nothing particularly special, but it was cool to stand in the very spot of the original Grito de Independencia. Plus my folks got to see me bribe a cop in order to secure prime parking on the street. I’m not sure what they thought of that, but they definitely appeared to enjoy the extremely scenic drive over the mountains to Guanajuato, where we got out several times to snap some photos.

Guanajuato: the picturesque European-like city that would surely impress my parents of the wonders of Mexico. This would be a hit for sure. Of course, it can get a little busy and crowded on Saturday. And my parents had experienced a rough couple of days, so, I hoped it wouldn’t be TOO lively there. But, this tour was apparently about suffering, not hope. So, it was only fitting that we should arrive in Guanajuato on the last Saturday of the Cervantino Festival, a month long theatre, art and DRINKING bonanza that every Mexican teen and twenty something pilgrimages at least once in their lifetime. Just looking at the crowd made me ill. This would be the point where my parents said, “enough!” But, it was time for a bit of luck. Making our way through the obscenely crowded streets would have been unbearable—I’m not sure my parents would have survived—except for the saving grace of having the stroller with us. Contrary to intuition, the stroller is not a hindrance in situations like these; it magically serves as a Moses-like staff that parts the Red Sea of even the most crowded and drunken crowds. People see you coming with a baby in a stroller and they make way without any complaint. Using this method, we managed to get through the mob, check out the beautiful town, and find a seat in a nice restaurant in the Jardin Central, where we enjoyed another tasty Mexican meal, including pozole. I bought my mom a snazzy poncho and we even squeezed in some silver shopping before heading back to the Jeep for the final leg of our journey.

A four and a half hour long leg, in the dark, over the mountains to be exact. I too was beginning to feel the wear of such action-packed four days; but the circle needed to be completed. And besides, my friend Micah was having a Halloween party that night! So, I drove like a man possessed for the DF. This time there was no apocalyptic rainstorm—oh no—only some ridiculously blinding fog throughout the windy, mountainous roads. Once again, I drove through it all with unyielding focus, playing it cool without letting on to anyone of my own fear and self-doubt, squinting through the fog and somehow managing to get us all to our destination in one piece.

And even though we arrived home in time for me to technically make it to the party, I decided to stay in and hit the hay. Tomorrow would be the last day of my parents trip, and I wanted to be in shape to enjoy it with them. Sunday ended up being like a day like we would have had at home in NJ. Ale, my mom and I went shopping in the morning which allowed me to take a detour and show her the ASF campus. While we all pitched in a bit on the cooking in the afternoon, my dad and I watched the Eagles beat the shit of the Giants. (Sweet!) “Dada” and “Nana” took the opportunity to goo-goo, gah-gah with their newest grandson on the bed. It was everything I missed about not having them around. It was a relaxing and refreshing day of quiet family time that I hoped would leave them rested, refreshed and ready to catch their plane the next morning after a good night’s sleep.

But, I already told you that this trip was about suffering, not hope. So, I shouldn’t have been surprised one bit when I came out of my room, ready to head to work Monday morning to find out that my mom was having another “spell.” She was lying on the couch, pale and quiet. She then confessed that she normally doesn’t do great getting up in the pre-dawn hours and that she’d felt lightheaded on several mornings in our apartment. It then occured to me that I had not seriously considered the well documented draining effects of the high altitude of Mexico City on my newly-arrived, aging, parents as I drug them all over tarnation. (Did I mention that I am an idiot of sorts?) We had been planning on putting them into a radio cab and sending them on their way, but suddenly that plan was out the window. Ale quickly seized control. She’d go with them to the airport and I’d stay home with Miguel, work be damned. Luckily, when Louanne hit the cool air outside the airport, her system rebooted and she was able to board and fly home without incident.

Of course, I didn’t find this out until much later in the day when I received and email to that effect. In the meantime, I spent the day thinking, "Dude, what is wrong with you? You practically killed your parents with this trip!" And even though I was thinking that mostly tongue-in-cheek (I was pretty sure, despite the frenetic pace, that they had had a quite a good time) I then found myself taking this a step further, allowing the most dreadful scenario to play out in my head. What if this time my mom did not recover from her spell on the plane and make it safely home to NJ? I spent the day pondering what I already know to be true, that these two most special and important people in my life will someday come to the end of their tour here on earth. The hollow and ugly feeling was practically unbearable, and yet I know it is only a smidgen of what the real feeling will surely be when the awful time comes. I love them both so much I can hardly continue typing these words right now. In fact, I couldn’t. I had to stop and cry for a few minutes.

It is quite obvious as I type now, that I spent so much effort trying to show my parents a good time because I love them more than I can possibly describe. And because I was eager to share with them what a good life I have here in Mexico so they can know for certain that I am happy, because I know that’s important to them. I can only hope that they enjoyed their visit to Mexico more than they endured it. I'm fairly certain that is the case. I know I am definitely glad they came. And Mom and Dad--next time you come down--I PROMISE, we’ll take it easy.

Abuelitos in Mexico II

And next? A day off? A break? Oh, I don’t know—how about a thousand mile tour around Mexico in two days? (If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you’ll know that I am an idiot of sorts. But, let me just take the opportunity to say it directly: I am an idiot of sorts.) Yes, you heard me correctly. After a stressful day of travel that had the stewardesses calling “is there a doctor on the plane?!” for my fainting mother, after an arduous city walking tour followed by a day exploring castles, museums and a cathedral, I then took my aging, weary parents and my barely 3 month old son and wife on a two day, thousand mile tour around central Mexico in our Jeep Grand Cherokee. Yup, I did that.

It started with a trip up to the ruins of Teotihuacan, a set of pre-Aztec gargantuan pyramids. Unlike the El Greco exhibit, my father had specifically requested that we visit this most famous ancient site. So, I felt pretty good about this bit. But, this part of the tour did not come without its own glitches. First, I pulled into the first parking lot that I saw upon entering the park, which was near the visitor’s center and some shops, but over a mile from the main temples. So, the visit began with—you guessed it—more walking. Not that it was so bad; it was a beautiful day, not too hot, blue skies with fluffy white clouds playfully rolling by overhead. (Well, that’s how it all appeared when we started our journey into the park.) We finally arrived at the Temple of the Sun, which my dad and I climbed without too much difficulty. (Funny how being excited about a project will make you forget about your blister problem.) I could tell my parents were impressed and enjoying themselves. We took a break for Ale to feed Miguel and then headed over to the little shops to purchase some mementos. My mom even bought herself a pair of sandals she was very pleased with. It was all going so well. And then, suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, dark ominous clouds swallowed up the sky. And just like that, some mile or so from our car, the deluge began.

Getting rained on can be a drag no matter what. And getting rained on with your parents whom you are showing around is really not great. But, throw into the mix that you’ve also got a baby in a stroller in tow and then things get really crappy. Because of that, we had to take the long way around on the gravel path instead of a quicker more direct route that required us traversing several sets of steep steps. By the time we got back to the Jeep we were thoroughly and utterly soaked. (The one umbrella we thankfully had with us was used to protect the baby.) We ended up taking off our wet shirts and putting on the brand new t-shirts my folks had just bought as gifts for the family back home. “Oh,” she said, “I’ll just iron them when I get home and they won’t know the difference.” (Sorry to blow your cover, Mom.)

I drove around the park until I found a restaurant, and ran in for some food. Everyone else opted to stay in the car and attempt to reset their body temperatures. When I came out with some barbacoa tacos and mushroom quesadillas, I learned that there had apparently been a pow-wow in the car without me; and the consensus was that perhaps we should just call this a day and head home. You know, being soaked and tired and blisters re-aggravated and such. Maybe we should reconsider the long trip to San Miguel de Allende that evening. “Blasphemy!” I thought. If we go home now, we’ll have a hard time logging the thousand miles we so desperately need to make. Mexico City is great; it’s fantastic and amazing and splendid. But, now that you’ve seen some of it, you simply have to see some other parts of Mexico. So, despite the rain that continued to pour (it couldn’t possibly last much longer, the rainy season was supposed to be over for crying out loud) we headed onto the highway toward San Miguel via Queretaro.

And that’s when it happened. The REAL rainstorm began. Everything up to this point had been a relative drizzle. As night fell, so did the buckets upon buckets of violent water. The visibility was for shit. I mean, literally nil. Everyone in the car was surely thinking that this mad tour guide had finally gone too far. This would be the first and last tour of Mexico. It would all end here. And poor little Miguel strapped helplessly in the back seat would never live to see his first michelada. The lightening storm that ensued was literally the greatest I had ever seen in my entire life, an incredible etch-a-sketch of electricity in the sky. Long winding Jackson Pollock like displays that hung longer in the air than I had previously known was possible. It was breathtaking and beautiful. A truly natural fireworks display. Not that I was supposed to be watching any of this as I barreled along through the ever-growing lake sized puddles and the crowded, erratic traffic, both hands clenched to the steering wheel, torn between giving my parents the Mexico tour they surely deserved and the thin black line of tragic family car wreck. But, I couldn’t help but drive on and watch it all unfold.

I had already overruled the goup and committed us to getting to San Miguel de Allende, so press on I did, praying (cursing?) for the rain to stop. Trying to calmly breathe the air in the Jeep, so heavy with the doubts, fears and judgments of those I loved most. The silence was almost as defeaning as the rain beating upon the Jeep. Just as I thought we had reached some level of resignation, that things couldn’t get any worse--blink. On goes the interior light. Ok, whose door is open? Check. No one’s. Ugh. My father offered that maybe the water he’d been feeling leaking in under the dash was now affecting the electrical system. Suddenly, a quick painless car crash seemed the least of my worries. What we were looking at was an electrical failure that would leave us stranded on the side of the road in Mexico, in the dark, during the storm of the century.

Final installment to follow...

Abuelitos in Mexico!

My friend Pete, who is smarter than me, wrote me after my last blog to say, "Hey, this is good shit, but I wonder how many people manage to finish reading them when they are so long. Why not issue them in smaller installments." So, I'm going to try that this time. If I get more feedback from people saying this helped them read them and enjoy them, then I'll make it a new thing. If not, then Pete doesn't know shit. I wrote this blog while on a tour of Baja California Sur, a truly amazing place. Mexico is so diverse and incredible. Don't know if I'll squeeze in a blog about that trip, but I'll surely have pictures of it (as I already do of my parents visit) posted at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/miguelito2066/sets/72157622745419733/show/ Check 'em out!

My parents came to visit us last month. At the October/November Cusp. Day of the Dead/Halloween. All that. Not that this is why they came then. I needed to use the last three days of my “paternity” leave before November 1st. So, that’s when I told them to come on down. Of course, I’ve been telling them to “come on down” pretty much since I’ve been here. (You know, like for my wedding.) But, circumstances (read: global financial crisis and housing sales slump) and a longstanding provincial attitude about international travel kept them from responding to the invitations. Enter Miguel Alberto. The little guy had only been on the planet for a month and a half and he already had my parents buying plane tickets to Mexico. Well done, Son. I didn’t really care what had pushed them over the edge. I was simply ecstatic that my rents would finally be joining us in Mexico to get a first hand view of our lives. It’s weird that I care so much. At what age do you stop wanting your parents to be proud of you? I know I’m not an old man, but the signs indicate that I am getting “older”—the eyesight is failing, the libido is not as chipper as it once was, the recovery time after intense physical workouts is longer. (The recovery time after intense partying, however, seems to be lessening—this is probably a bad sign.) At any rate, at 43 years old I was totally stoked that Mike and Louanne would be visiting us and I counted the days down until their arrival.

Of course, looking back, it's clear that my enthusiasm got the better of me; I took them on a whirlwind tour that left my mother barely able to catch the flight home to NJ. Of course, she didn’t arrive in the best of shape either. My mother and some of her other siblings suffer from a rare condition that causes fainting at times. I can remember my uncle Patrick (the eighth of eight children, and thus only a year and a half older than me) sprinting away from the Fourth of July parades whenever the fire engines would approach, blaring their sirens. Apparently, for some reason, that would kick off his fainting spells. And I can also remember my aunt Margie being found passed out on the bathroom floor of my grandparents’ house when I was little. In recent years, my mother has developed additional physical quirks, like occasional migraines and something else that causes her to experience uncontrollable rapid heart beats. (I can’t remember the names for any of this stuff.) Not that any of it happens frequently as far as I understand it, just that it happens, sometimes. My mom is a sweet and fragile person, nothing terrible in that. So, when my parents confessed shortly after arriving in Mexico City on Tuesday night that my mom had passed out on the plane on the way to Mexico and given themselves, and everyone on the plane a good scare, it was not all that shocking of a surprise. But, I probably should have taken heed.

But, I didn’t. And the whirlwind tour commenced immediately after dropping their bags off at the apartment by walking them down the street to the Califa taco place. I’ve shared a lot with my family about the delights of Mexican food and wanted to introduce them right a way. This wasn’t the street tacos that I adore, but Califa is pretty tasty. So, we headed over there and had some tacos al pastor and some gringas shortly after they arrived at our apartment at 11pm. They seemed to enjoy them well enough before we went back home and finally put them to bed in Miguel’s yet occupied room at 1am after a long day of traveling. Oops, that was 3am their time. Sorry guys.

Still, the tour needed to continue (like the Milgram experiement), so the next day we got up and quickly started their personalized walking tour of my surrounding neighborhoods—Hipodromo, Condesa, Roma Norte, Juarez. We hit Buena Tierra for brunch, then Parque Espana and Parque Mexico, the Cibeles and Diana Fountains, Reforma, Little Korea. We did stop for a rest at Cafemania off of Parque Mexico. As we headed home after this long first day, I heard some mention of blisters emerging on their toes and “I haven’t walked this far in a long time.” Oops again. (Did I mention my parents are in their mid-sixties?) Sorry again guys. Well, not sorry enough to not schedule a dinner out at the Lebanese place we like so much with 12 of my closest friends. I really wanted my awesome friends to meet my awesome parents. Of course my folks were slightly subdued for the event, given the 3am bedtime the night before and the ten mile walking tour. Even so, we had a nice time, finishing off the evening by toking on the hooka. My friends got a glimpse of the two people responsible for making me me. Afterwards, I’m certain both my parents were asleep the moment their heads hit their pillows.

But, hey man, there is a lot to see in this great city of mine. So, the next day after breakfast we headed up to Chapultepec Castle, which I’d pointed out to them from my 9th floor apartment windows. After walking up the long steep hill that leads to the castle, we toured the residential portions of former emperors and presidents and headed into the museum portion for some more when my mom suddenly decided she needed some air. Too stuffy, she said. Gee, Mom, sorry about that. Ale went outside to sit with her. My dad and I hurried through the rest of the museum in order to catch up with the girls and Miguel outside.

Still, the day wasn’t over yet. Shoosh, it was only 3 o’clock or so. The show must go on and all that! We drove downtown, after a stop for some street quesadillas, to the Bellas Artes Palace to show them the El Greco exhibit that I’d heard so much about. Ale and I had been dying to see this and had waited specifically for my parents’ visit to finally go. When I heard my mom saying, “who exactly is El Greco again?” it dawned on me that Ale the art buff and me the history buff were perhaps not thinking straight when we set up this part of the itinerary. (Still, it was really cool, set up in the dark with highlight lights on the paintings. Better even than the normal showcase in Toledo, or so I’ve been told.) We left the museum and headed down toward the Zocalo, the huge central plaza of the city. (They assured me their feet were up for the mile walk or so through the old weathered buildings of El Centro.) After taking in the wonders of that mighty plaza, peeking inside the Catedral Metropolitana and taking a gander at the ruins of the original Aztec temples upon which the city is built, we headed over to the La Casa de las Sirenas restaurant and enjoyed some truly fine Mexican cuisine, garlic trout, chile enogada, and mole con pollo. It was on this satisfied note that we headed back to the apartment to put day two in the books. Way to hang in there you two!

Installment II to follow...