What's going on over here

Okay, so you may have noticed a serious lack of blogging going on over here.  I have noticed it as well.  There is a reason for this.  Actually, there are several reasons for this.  And I initially didn't want to come here and say "Oh poor me, here's this thing happening in my life.  Let's all feel bad for me".  But then the second thing happended.  And then the third.  And it has been like walking around waiting for the other shoe to drop around here.  I have seriously had the thought "wtf??  Why is all this happening at the same fucking time??"

But I have bucked up and chosen to see the good in each issue rather than focusing on the oh poor pitiful me, why does this have to happen to meeeeeeee?

Because truthfully, why NOT me?  Why not?  I am just as random and deserving of a few pieces of bad luck and timing as anyone else.

You know the saying about if you were given the opportunity to put all your troubles in a pile with everyone else's and then choose which ones you were taking, you would most likely take the ones you came with?  Well, that particular bit of wisdom has been running through my head a lot lately.

I don't want to give you the wrong idea about all this.  Nobody in my family has been diagnosed with leprosy, none of us have moved to the Poor Farm, nothing like that.

And yet I just kept thinking that if I came here and talked (typed) about these things they would be more real, more of a pain in the ass to deal with.  So I am just going to share with you a few things that have happened lately.

First up, we had soooo much stuff plannned for the summer, it was unbelievable!  Seriously, one of us (and by that I mostly mean me) had a trip planned at least every other week from April through July.  It was kind of scary to look at the calendar and realize how many trips were on the books.  Then while I was traveling on the 3rd of many trips I noticed one of my teeth felt odd.  Kind of sensitive to pressure.  So I got home and made an appointment with my dentist.  The Readers Digest condensed version of this many part saga is that I have to cancel a bunch of the summer trips and spend lots of quality time and quality money with my dentist this summer.  Nice.

I hate to be a big fat wussie about things, but you know the whole laying back in the chair with your head really lower than your ass thing? I hate it.  It's a very vulnerable position.  And you know the horrible metal pokey pointy things that make the horrible sounds on your teeth?  O.M.G. That is one of the things I hate worse than anything.  Worse than nails on a chalkboard.  Worse than clowns.  And even worse than balloons.

But let me tell you what I did.  I went to my aromatherapy textbooks and looked up essential oils for mouth infections, anxiety and calming.  Then I made a blend of them and applied this mixture of oils to my pulse points, my third eye and temples and went to my first appointment.  And it was not too bad.  I have been using the oils each day since to help with the dull achey feeling in my mouth and jaws.  I will be going back for many visits so I may need to just mix up a quantity of this and bottle it to take with me.

My husband, Mr. Big Ed, has a boss whose son is terribly ill.  He has a cancer that has been extremely aggressive and it has been a year from hell for this poor family.  This precious boy was 9 when diagnosed last July and he has now turned 10 but the prognosis is not good.  So his mama is taking a leave of absence to be with him and Mr. Big Ed is taking some of her work responsibilities.  This is a tragic situation and my heart breaks for their family.  It also means that Mr. Big Ed will be doing some of his own business travel and also making a few trips on her behalf.  So he will not be attending many of the scheduled family things this summer either.  If you are the praying sort, please add little Nicolas to your list.  His family has had more than they should have to bear this past year.

Last week I was on my 4th trip (by myself since Mr. Big Ed has new work commitments) heading to a nephew's wedding.  It was a great trip and I made good time.  (I have this thing where I like to see if I can beat my best time to each destination.  And it's much easier to do when I don't have anyone with me who wants to stop and pee in every fucking Dairy Queen we come to.)  So as I was pulling into town and off the highway, I turned off my cruise control and all the sudden my car wasn't shifting from first gear up to second.  It was scary as hell as I was trying to take off from a stop at a traffic light and nothing was happening.  I kept thinking I was going to be rear-ended.

I limped on over to my aunt's house and called AAA.  (Another long story that need to be Readers Digest condensed here.)  I ended up having my car towed to the Honda dealership and waiting for hours to find out that my transmission was shot.  At 6 p.m. on a Friday.  On a Friday of Memorial Day weekend.  A 3-day holiday weekend.  Which meant nothing was going to happen to fix my car till after TUESDAY!

I was devastated for a few minutes and then decided that if this had to happen at least it was the best way possible it could have happened.  No one was hurt or killed.  Praise the Lord for that!  I am headed back down that way next week for another graduation trip, so I would have been going back there anyway.  Only now I am driving a rental car and taking it back home again and picking up my car (which I love) with a brand new transmission which should last it another 100,000 miles.

None of the issues that have happened around here are tragic, they are inconvenient and expensive.  But that is a small hiccup in the grand scheme of things, now isn't it?

I need to get my camera over here and show you some pictures of some of the fun things I have been able to attend.  And I need to quit whining about the trips I won't be able to make.

I hope all is well with you and yours.  Any great summer plans at your end?

Trust me on this, one of the best investments you can make

I know, you think I am talking about that other kind of investment.  No, I mean investing in yourself.  Investing in learning how to relax, how to just be, and how to cook truly authentic Mexican food.  This is Poblana style cooking which means from the Puebla area.

Mexico is a huge and very diverse country and of course there are regional differences in the cooking.  Just like people in Maine don't eat the same locally as someone from say, Amarillo or another inland city.  Most people will tell you that the Poblana style of Mexican cuisine is the finest, the top of the food chain, if you will.  It is a beautiful fusion of indigenous, Spanish and French.

I was lucky enough while living in Mexico City to find this fabulous cooking school and spend a week there with a very dear friend.  We had a ball!  I learned so many things and have added all those recipes to my regular rotation.  In addition to that, we shopped like fiends, we wandered around, I found myself waking up really early and taking a walk with the dogs while drinking my morning tea.

Hand to God, you will not find a more beautiful locale to hang out and be treated like a queen while learning how to cook.

Below is the little review I wrote about this lovely cooking school for the newsletter for the Newcomers Club of Mexico City.

REVIEW OF MEXICAN HOME COOKING SCHOOL

FOR NEWCOMERS

I just spent a week in Tlaxcala attending the Mexican Home Cooking School.  It was fabulous.  Imagine a wonderful, typically Mexican home out in the country overlooking a lake and all 3 volcanoes.  Then imagine yourself there in the clean air and learning to cook tons of Puebla-style dishes. Try to imagine doing it with no can opener!  You won’t need one since Estela will teach you to do everything from scratch.  Really from scratch, not the way I always have thought of as being from scratch.

    The schedule is that you arrive one day, relax, get settled, have cooking classes for the next 5 mornings, and free afternoons to go sight-see or shop or sit around and soak up the atmosphere, then on the last day you leave.  I did just about every afternoon trip there was.  We went to Puebla and bought loads of antiques, we went to Santa Ana and bought textiles, we went to Tlaxcala and wandered around, we went to San Martin to the huge market and bought pottery and all sorts of treasures we couldn’t live without. In case you are not a shopper, there are some fabulous ruins close by. The Cacaxtla murals are probably the best-preserved murals to be discovered anywhere. You won’t want to miss them.  Luckily, all this is only a two-hour drive from Mexico City, so you can fill the car up with all sorts of artesania.

Estela Salas Silva and her husband Jon Jarvis run the cooking school out of their home.  She and her brother Rogelio do all the cooking instruction and are very good.  No matter what your level of expertise, they will make you feel like you are a genius.  After a day or two you will begin to feel like part of the family.  Since the school is at Jon and Estela’s home, there is a cozy sort of bed and breakfast feel to it.  The rooms are very nice, quite spacious and with fireplaces in each.

Here is the website www.mexicanhomecooking.com that you can go to and find out all the particulars.  Also, feel free to call me, Lisa Pie at xxxx-xxxx or email  if you want a student’s perspective.

Now I attended classes there in 2000 or 2001, I can't quite recall.  And I still correspond with Jon and Estela.  They are lovely people and make you feel right at home.  They also work with their neighbors Gundi and Erik who do the Mushroom Tours.  My husband and son attended one of those and really enjoyed it.  And if you look in the photos of the previous tours you will find photos of them.  

Enjoy perusing the Mexican Home Cooking website and then shoot them an email to find out availability to fit your vacation schedule.  I promise you will be happy you did this.

Cruisin' - Part Dos

You know how some people are called Anglo-philes or Franco-philes?  Because they love everything English or French?  Not me.  Not even a little bit.  I swear I was switched at birth and should have grown up in Mexico.

I am a Mexi-phile.

A Mexican-wanna-be.

So of course I was most excited to get to Cozumel on our cruise since it was the only Mexican port of call. What a wonderful way to end the cruise with a day in Mexico.  And you already know what this means, don't you?

No matter how nice Mexico is, no matter how gorgeous I found Grand Cayman to be; nothing prepared me for how gorgeous and seductive Jamaica is.

I am in love with Jamaica.  I loved all the people I met.  I love the accent!  That should go without saying. The lush, tropical green-ness was espectacular, to use the Argentine vernacular.

Our boat docked at Montego Bay.  I didn't see a great deal of that fair city as I was on a tour of Croydon Plantation.  Check out the website of this gorgeous place.  I'll wait.  Immediately, I was taken on a wonderfully air-conditioned tour bus up the windy road up the mountain to the Croydon Plantation.  Donald, our bus driver immediately put on the Bob Marley tunes and we all were mellowed out and happy to be there.  Natalie, our tour guide was the cutest thing you ever saw!  I wanted to fold her up and put her in my pocket to bring her home with me.  Her two kids might have missed her, don't you think?

Let me show you a bit of the Jamaica I saw:

This is from our ship looking at our entry point.  It was very cloudy and lush, that was my first impression.

This is from our tour bus.  Just green as far as you can see.

Look up there!  The Uptown Cuisine Restaurant.  Very Rastafarian.  And don't you love how they put the green trash can in front of the green part of the building?  Love it!

And in case you missed eating at the Uptown Cuisine, why, right up the road is the Lick Finger Cook Shop.  Is that the cutest thing ever?

This is at the Croydon Plantation.  We were way up at about 5000 - 6000 ft. elevation and had the most gorgeous panoramic view.  I will get some of those shots in here, don't worry.

Now, you may not be able to tell what this is.  It is a close-up of the leaves and fruit of the almond tree. Yes, these little green things will become the almonds we all know and love so well.  Next, is a better shot of that same tree.

Look at that tree!  Isn't it gorgeous?  The other thing you should notice is that it is on an encline.  We really were up at the top of the mountain.

See that up there?  That's not grass.  That is a field of pineapple plants.  Gorgeous!

Look at that one!  That's a Neem tree.  I know!  I was so excited.  I use Neem oil, Neem shampoo on my dogs.  Neem is good stuff.  It's like tea tree in that it is so versatile.  My very first Neem tree.

This is the bottom half of an Ackee fruit tree.  You know the song "ackee fruit, salted fish is nice, and the rum is fine any time of year"  This is the tree the ackee fruit comes from.  Apparently ackee fruit and salted fish is the National Dish.  Unfortunately, they only served us one meal and it was jerked chicken.  Which was wonderful, but more about that later.

Now get a load of that view.  What would you give to wake up every day and see all that?  Heaven on earth, that's what that is.

This is a close up of a few of the TWENTY-SEVEN different varieties of pineapple they grow on this plantation.  See the cute little baby pineapple growing up top of the plant in the middle?  We were given tasters of 7 different varieties to try.  And yes, they did all taste slightly different from each other.

Another panoramic shot of the view.  But what I want you to notice is the pine trees in the front there.  Pine trees.  In Jamaica.  Did you ever think you would see that?  I believe they were called Jamaican Pine trees.  Beautiful!!

And believe it or don't, but that little guy up there?  That is a coffee plant/tree.  This is where the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee comes from.  The best coffee on earth comes from these little trees.  Each of these coffee plant/trees has a companion banana tree right behind it to give it shade so that they get just the right amount of sunlight to grow the world's best coffee beans.

Next is a more close-up shot of the coffee berries/beans.

See them all in there?  All different stages of ripeness.  Aren't they gorgeous?  Aren't you tired of me going on and on and saying how gorgeous everything in Jamaica is?

Well you are in luck, because right after this picture we made it to the pavilion where they had prepared a lovely Jamaican meal for us. And right when we got there the heavens opened up and poured rain like you wouldn't believe for the next few hours.  And this made for a very interesting ride home down the mountain now that the roads were all wet and running with lots of water.

Back to the lunch they served us.  We started out with a lovely little cucumber dish.  They were sliced paper thin and then marinated in a sweet vinegar/sugar concoction much like you use on sushi rice. Then we had a greens dish called Callaloo.  Tasted like greens.  And I like greens, so that was fine. Next was a rice and beans dish.  The rice was a basmati type rice with little red beans added in.  Then we had jerked chicken.  I don't know if the correct name is "Jerk Chicken"  or "JerkED Chicken".  Regardless, everything was wonderful.

Also they gave us little cups of the coffee grown there and then led us to a booth where they were selling said coffee.  And that is where I bought as much coffee as I could carry.

There were also lessons on the steps to produce the coffee, and on the honey they raise there.  So I had to buy honey too.

It was a prosperous day for the Croydon Plantation with me and my family all visiting and shopping there, is what I am saying!

We got lots of lessons in how to speak in the patois from our tour guide, Natalie.  By the end of the day, we were all saying "Ya Mon" to anything they asked us.  "No problem Mon".

Jamaica hasn't seen the last of me.  I suspect there might be a love affair brewing for me and that island in the sun.  Sorry Mexico, but sometimes a girl has to step out and see what she is missing.

One love, baby.  or not!

Cruisin' - Part I

For those of you who know me you may be surprised to learn that I was totally unprepared for being motion sick on the cruise.  For those of you who don't really know me you may wonder why on earth a person who has always been motion sickness-prone would not seriously consider that this might be a teeny, tiny issue with going on a cruise.

I have always and I mean ALWAYS either had to A. take loads of Dramamine and sleep like the dead through a trip or B. be the driver.  You will be happy to know that since I learned to drive and figured out that driving really helps stave off the effects that I don't take the Dramamine.  I don't know what they put in that Dramamine shit but it knocks me flat the hell out!

Back to the cruise.  Every time I have asked a cruiser how they deal with motion sickness I have gotten the same response from all of them.  (and they are all big fat liars)  "Oh, the ship is soooooo big and stable you won't feel a thing!!!!"  Lying liars, is what those jack asses are.  Lying liars.

So I went with the information provided to me (by the lying liars) and did not prepare myself for being sick.  and dizzy.  and nauseous.  and did I mention dizzy?  We boarded this ship and it was Party Central immediately.  Oh, the happiness surrounded us!  We set sail around 4:30 - 5 -ish.  I didn't wear a watch. It is not a vacation if you have a watch.  We then got ourselves all dressed up and made our way to the dining room.  And immediately upon sitting at that rocking, rolling, vibrating table I had to get up.  I was having such a hard time keeping my lunch where it belonged that there was no way I could eat.  So I excused myself and went to my room and was very sad for myself that no one (ahem, no one, cough, Mr. Big Ed) came with me and tried to take care of me and make me feel better.  No one.

You know, when you take a little trip with 15 of your closest family members including your mother, and your husband and your offspring that you very nicely carried around in your womb for 9 months each, you would think that SOMEONE, anyone, would want to feel for you  and take care of you.  Well, if you think that then you my friend would be like me and be sadly mistaken.  Miss their elaborate 3 course meal presented with flourishes by our lovely wait staff?  Not a chance.

To make this sad and very long tale much shorter I will just say that Monday brought more of the same dizziness, vertigo, nausea, etc to my door.  By Tuesday morning I was figuring out ways to get off the damn rocking boat and fly my ass back home to terra firma.  But first I was going up to the Spa Deck to rub a ton of conditioner into my hair and then sit in the steam room.  And when I got to the Spa I read the Menu of things available to me and my eyes lit on the Accupuncturist and choices of treatments.  And down in the middle of the list was . . . . . . . .



Sea Sickness!!!!



O M G!  The stars had finally aligned for me.  Relief might be in sight.  So I asked at the desk and made my appointment and then rushed through my steam and shower to wait for the accupuncturist.  And then he came.  My saviour.  His name was Garith and he is a Kiwi.  And what a nice and soliticious soul that Garith was.  We talked for a good long time and then I layed down and got needled and relaxed for a good long time.  And I started feeling better.  And better.

And that for me was when the cruise really began.  Before Garith?  That was not just my first cruise, but my last.  After Garith?  That was my first cruise of who knows how many!

I had a ball.  I joined in every trivia and name that tune challenge I could find.  We played games, we laughed, we danced in the disco to all of Michael Jackson's hits,  we ate fabulous food, we slept like babies being rocked to sleep.  I have never slept so long!  I swear I slept a minimum of 10 hours each night.  Well rested, I was.

We had a room steward assigned to us.  Ours was named Leslie.  Leslie is a nice young man from India who has never met an orthodontist.  Nevertheless, Leslie has a very large and warm smile.  And one of his duties each day was to take a bunch of towels and create cute little towel animals and leave them on our bed with our "after dinner and going to bed" mints.  Let me now share with you a few of Leslie's creations.

Now isn't that guy cute?  I thought it was a bunny.  But everyone I showed it to said it was a dog or a pig.  Adorable!

Then we got this really cute komodo dragon looking guy.  I loved him!!

Look at that elephant!  Isn't he precious?  And let me show you a picture of my sister's elephant.  You will see that Leslie is a far superior towel animal folder than hers.

See what I mean?  Her elephant doesn't even have eyes!

And look who we found hanging around in our room!  A cute little monkey.  How cute is that! And if you look in the mirror behind him you will see the reflection of my side of the bed with millions of pillows.

And this little sting ray followed us back on board from Grand Cayman.  Heh, that Leslie is hilarious!

And the very last night there was a bat hanging in the rafters.  You can't make it out very well in the photo, but he had fangs.

Now, after all that excitement do you think we gave Leslie a nice big extra fat tip?  Of course we did!  We loved Leslie.  Every single time we left the room and that must have been hundreds of times a day, he ran in there and cleaned up after us and made everything all pretty and clean again.

Tomorrow we will continue the exciting saga of Lisa Pie's First Cruise.  I know y'all are now all going to go origami your own towels, aren't you?

Back from the Cruise

Yes, I am back from the cruise.  I made it through.  The first 3 days were "rocky" indeed!

And then I found the accupuncturist guy up in the Spa and he fixed me.  Only now that we are back on terra firma; I am still rocking!!  WTF???

Today is unloading suitcases and doing tons of laundry and taking the small and perfect Rachel Pie shopping for even more clothes to stuff into her luggage before shoving her on a plane.

So, exciting photos of the cruise and destinations will have to wait till tomorrow.

But I just wanted to let you know that I am back and to wait with anticipation for upcoming pics!!!

p.s. My little Fergus Jackson MacPhee is doing much better.  thanks for all the prayers and well wishes for my little kitty boy!