The apathy around here is staggering.
It really is. I have no excuse. So in order to halt the slack I'm going to post every day in October. Just to get into the habit again. And since I'm living in Best Case Scenario World I suppose then I'll be all geared up for
NaBloPoMo in November. Yeah. Believe with me.
In the meantime...
Lisa recently sent me a very sweet email asking if she could repost a couple of things I'd written here on her blog, and one of the stories she picked was something I'd totally forgotten I wrote. I'm going to repost it here to bide my time until October One and because I recently reconnected with this friend and I can't wait to remind her of the time we found out we weren't invincible.
***
I managed to bring some sort of crippling intestinal problem home from Mexico last Friday, forcing me to miss a friend's first art gallery show, a formal fundraiser at which I had been promised a mani/pedi and gourmet mac & cheese, and Melati's infamous Tequila Stakes Croquet tournament.
The last time I became markedly ill in Mexico was around eight years ago. A good friend of mine, Jodi, was close to seven months pregnant and desperately wanted to submerge her boiling July fetus in the ocean. Neither one of us ever having actually been pregnant before, and also coincidentally being pretty dumb, we saw no problem with a woman in the third trimester of her first pregnancy driving four hours into a third world country for the weekend.
Sunday morning we had brunch at a beach front restaurant called the Costa Brava where we decided to see exactly how hard we could slap God across the face; chorizo, eggs, ham, chiles rellenos, coffee with cream. Peppers. Salsa. Pork cheeks. Runny cheese. Bring it.
Two hours later I was fighting hard through cold sweats and an intestinal mayday to drive us toward the US border, only slowing down to ninety once I knew for sure we were hypothetically within Medevac range. Jodi was too ill to speak; her husband took her to the emergency room that night where she was treated for extreme dehydration and mind numbing stupidity. Ultimately she was fine. And the baby was fine, a gorgeous boy. A gorgeous boy whose immune system today no doubt rivals that of a Sherman tank.
Several years went by and then the Costa Brava restaurant exploded. I don't mean it suddenly became more popular-- I mean there was a "gas meets lighter" situation late one night and the Costa Brava blew up. My lack of compassion would have made a terminator proud. The rubble is still there, huge chunks of charred concrete and exposed rusted rebar. Every time Randy and I drive by, I can't help it, I have to point.
"That's where Jodi and I ate that time. God, were we sick," I shake my head, "Tacos de cabeza... warm lettuce..." and I stop, unable to go on. Randy pats my knee. It's okay, baby, he seems to be saying, It's okay. You're just an idiot.
I haven't talked to Jodi in a few years, she moved to the other side of town and we fell out of touch. I think about her every time my stomach involuntarily churns in front of the Costa Brava concrete mountain, though. I wonder if she takes her family to Mexico. I wonder if she tells her son, now a veritable child, about the time he made the trek in her belly.
"That's the Texaco station," she might say, passing quickly through Ajo, "where I almost accidentally shat you out in the parking lot."
"That's the restaurant," she might say, pointing as I do at the wreckage, "where Mommy ate something squishy called 'tripe' and chased it with a quart of milk. That's the place," she might whisper, still pointing, "your Mommy had to set on fire."
(originally posted
here.)
