Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Mission ALMOST Accomplished


The weather has cooperated. It's so blistery hot no one dares stick their nose outside. So I've been cloistered away writing, writing writing on Virgin Territory. It's close enough to finished to say almost done. I'll get the big working document printed off once more and in a binder to carry with me to Texas and Oklahoma these next two weeks. I leave tomorrow to see Mom and family. But that manuscript will be my constant companion as I edit, edit, edit.
So I'm going to stick my neck out once more and make my plans public: I want to get this into print so I can introduce it at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, November 28 - December 6. There! Hold me to it, Friends. Your support has been SOOO helpful. The guest of honor this year is the City of Los Angeles. This is such a natural! Read more about the fair here at Wikipedia.
So that's me celebrating a little early last Saturday night. Eddie and Roberto are opening Xaltemba for two Saturday nights, to give their new chef a little try out. There were nineteen reservations this past Saturday, and forty people showed up. Whew! Talk about crunch time! Check out their menu for this coming Saturday and eat your hearts out, you fair weather amigos who have fled north!
Larry surprised me that evening with a banner wishing me "Feliz Cumpleanos," and a chocolate birthday cake, which we parcelled out among all the people present. My friend Ann painted me a birthday card, bought me a crown (Ann, I'm still waiting for those photos!), and wrapped everything up in Quincianera packaging. She just put a great big "X 4" in front of all those number 15's. Every girl should get a crown sometime in life, and I say, better late than never!
But the real crown in a woman's life is a group of special friends wherever she finds them, and mine were at breakfast this morning. Our Tuesday morning ladies' breakfast club at Irma's La Casita has not dwindled with the heat. The group has grown larger and more devoted to getting together than ever. It may be a hot weather thing, but for some of us, this is the highlight of the week! So thanks Piedad, Lupita, Elizabeth, Melanie, Sarah, Jane, Linda, and Trish, for your birthday greetings and goodies this morning. And Jeanie, Barb, Marilyn, Lin, and Ann, we missed your smiling faces.
I'm off to pack up and go. Hasta pronto, ya'll.

Friday, July 17, 2009

A 17th Century Feminist


I've been spending today with Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. I can't believe I carried away a degree in Spanish and Latin American Area Studies and never got to know her better. The textbooks I studied described her briefly as a nun who wrote a lot. That says something about the state of university curricula prior to the emergence of women's studies.
Juana Ines de Asbaje y Ramirez was born in New Spain (now Mexico) around 1651. She learned to read when she was three years old and wrote her first play at the age of eight. She mastered Latin in twenty lessons before becoming a teenager. When she was fourteen, she became a maid of honor to the wife of the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico City, and delighted the court with her erudition and learning. But at twenty-one she entered a convent because in order to continue her life of writing, musical composition, scientific and mathematical studies and vast correspondence with the other literary lights of the day, that was the only option available to her. That's when she became Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.
For the next twenty years she wrote prodigiously on theology, mathematics, and philosophy, which brought down the anger of the church hierarchy for dealing with subjects outside of the purview of women. But she also wrote about love, rapturous, passionate works of poetry and prose. Her most famous work was a response to the bishop at Puebla who was supposed to be her friend. He had written in subterfuge, disguising himself as one of her sisters in the convent, and advising her to leave off her studies, not to meddle in the affairs of men, and to devote herself to the religious life. Her Respuesta is a classic text in defense of woman's intelligence and the right to education.
She died in 1695 during a cholera epidemic. Shortly before her death, she had sold her library of over 4,000 volumes and given the proceeds to charity. What remains of her writings is contained in three large volumes, though it is agreed that the majority of her prose work, aside from her Respuesta, was lost or destroyed. Her image is perhaps in greater circulation than that of Guadalupe, as it is imprinted on the 200 peso note. Before the last devaluation, she was on the 1,000 peso note. Sor Juana is definitely a trail blazer in Virgin Territory.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Santa Maria del Oro


On Friday last week, Larry, our houseguest Patricia, and I escaped from the coastal heat to a little corner of paradise tucked up in the mountains between Tepic and Guadalajara. Santa Maria del Oro looked like an interesting little town, but not interesting enough to keep us from forging on through it to the lake beyond and below. First we stopped to look at it from above, then we drove down the narrow winding road to the lake itself. The drive around the lake is something I'm glad we did, but happy we don't have to do again. The road is pretty rough, and sometimes practically disappears. Maybe people get to those big pretty houses by boat rather than car.


We settled in for lunch at one of the shore-side restaurants.
It wasn't exactly crowded.


But there was a floor show -- one lone water skier who made pass after pass doing a flying flip on a wake board to our applause and cheers.
The temperature said 85, but with the humidity down in the 30% range it felt cool and pleasant. Santa Maria del Oro is just 40 minutes east of Tepic, even on the free road. I would think there would be a lot of visitors from there, but on that day we had the place practically to ourselves.
Here are a couple of links that have more photos and info.





Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Virgin is NOT the only universal icon

The air is so heavy you need to drink it rather than breathe it. But, hey it's cloud cover. I headed for the market just to get out of the house and to buy some ceviche for lunch. On the way out, I saw the caretaker, Regino, applying herbicide to the sidewalks. (Never mind the streets. They're green already). He had a face mask, a hoodie, and a big glove on the hand that held the bottle of poison. "Pareces como Michael Jackson!" I called to him from the window. He waved back and did a little jerky dance. "Mas o menos!" he agreed. Ah, Michael, You're everywhere.