We are learning how to do things. Very basic things. Like get potable water and figure out the Mexico recycling system. Most often this is achieved through a wide range of embarrassing interactions (hint: the color of a garbage bin DOES NOT indicate what it is to be used for and the sign above it is a crapshoot)
Mostly this week has been for exploring my neighborhood and settling into some basics of living here. This has involved purchasing some much needed and fundamental items (e.g. silverware, sheets) and then a healthy selection of shall we say discretionary items. First and foremost checked out Mercado Juarez, it’s a traditional stall style market that’s only a few blocks away from me! I’ve always shopped in these while in Mexico, but this one is definitely less on the tourist path than those found in Coyaoacan or Mercado Medellin deep in the Roma neighborhood. Instead of buying anything useful, I just bought houseplants. 3 of them. And they’re big. Sometimes I forget that I don’t have a car. Fortunately afterwards I discovered a nursery that’s not even a block away and very willing to let me take trips to collect all my plants.
Some of my very essential purchases. A piglet unicorn made of coconut shell to hang on the wall. The smallest of the 3 plants. And copal, a copal incense burner and charcoal to burn it. Copal is a type of tree resin that produces kinda deliciously piney lemony smell. Mesoamerican cultures has used copal ritualistically since Pre-Hispanic times to cleanse spaces and ward off evil spirits. They found medicinal value in treating poisonous animals bites, diarrhea, and apparently, the hiccups. This range of uses appeals to me. It’s harvested a bit like maple syrup or rubber. A copalero makes an incision into the copal tree and the copal resin oozes out and is collected. It’s then hardened and sold in rock form. You don’t burn the resin directly but purchase charcoals that heat it from around and below. We learned this the hard way. The traditional burning vessel is made of glazed clay and has a series of holes to light the charcoal from below, turns out they were not just for style.
In keeping with being gentle on myself, I am choosing to be amused by the complete irrationality of my purchases. (Ok and in fairness, I am having a bit of a frenzy due to the extremely low pricing of houseplants here. The one picture above was about $7 USD).
It’s been helpful being at a distance from the election. My doorperson didn’t even know that the US election was last Tuesday. There’s also just a general sense of chaos, loss, and bewilderment in my daily existence that it’s really hard to suss out where what is coming from.
I’ve changed my work schedule to Mon-Thurs which is a boon since I already generally work 9-10 hour days and I’m actually much better at taking a day off than leaving on time. And you know, today was the first day since August that I felt like I put in a solid day’s work. That I accomplished things, that I was clear minded and purposeful. I mean, this is post early morning cry, sad yoga cry, and “this is not the soup I wanted” cry, but still it felt really good.
So I love public transit and I love using it in other countries. I’m just always very fascinated by the commonaltiies in distinctions in how cities solve problems and I find public transit to be one of the most obvious. And I’m fond of Mexico City’s subway system, being reasonably clean & efficient and having women’s only cars. I also like that it’s a bit tricky cause they’re rather fond of naming the subway station and bus stop the same and rarely are they in line of sight of one another, so there’s a spirit of adventure before you figure this out. So one of my plans for the weekend was to take the subway to City Market which is a higher end grocer here, or rather the higher end market of a rather large grocer. And this is how I now know that the two nearest subway stations have been closed for renovation for a year with no current reopen date. Wah wah. Thank god Uber is cheap here.
It was in some ways a weekend of mini fails. After missing my meditation class due to a mishap with some coffee, Leo and I took a 6 mile walkabout in search of a salsa class in a park, a fancy Mexican cheese shop, and a plant store I heard about (yeah, I’m not stopping). We encountered none of these first having arrived at Parque España at 1pm on Sunday, only to learn that it was 12pm at Parque Mexico on Sundays and actually at 1pm on Saturdays. Then we walked up and down Calle Zacatecas and found nothing resembling a cheese shop, nor the address. We went from 214 to 222. No 220 in the mix. This place actually seems really amazing, while they do import a number of cheeses, their primary focus is on Mexican produced cheeses and we’re talking blues, bloomy rinds, aged in a cave, not just tu madre’s queso fresco (although they do have that and I’m sure it’s divine). This is definitely a business that has a different address on their Instagram and on their website. So the search will continue. Finally my phone died, so while I’m pretty sure I was on the street the plant store is supposedly located on, I never arrived.
In exciting news, my order from Arca Tierra showed up! This is a group that has ties to Xochimilco as well as several local agricultural communities and promotes sustainable agricultural development and well as preservation of ancestral farming practices and heirloom seed varieties. In addition to a CSA style vegetable box (minus the US element of choice), they offer a variety of dried goods & carnes regerativas, which I passively assumed meant somewhere in the vicinity sustainable. Every thing is in adorable small paper bags. Oh and one MASSIVE bag of bay leaves, like full on lunch bag over half full, reminding me once again that I am not in Kansas anymore. It also reminded me that I am not accustomed to life with a mini fridge and that Tetris is a lifelong skill.
Leo & I also found a vet and a doggie daycare. I’ve been feeling a bit bad about his socialization cause I simply know less people here and no one with a dog yet. The plan was to try to find more training classes but it appears to be more common to drop off your dog and collect your trained dog. So doggie day care it is. But they have rules. Which means I spent quite a bit of time trying to find a vet and another solid two hours trying to determine the difference between a fijo collar and a martingale collar cause I swear the receptionist kept sending me pictures of the same thing. Carolina, our English speaking vet is lovely and adores Leo and took a photo with him, then the tech also took one. Leo received a giardia vaccine which is required for daycare here. Now if you are thinking “what the hell, there’s a vaccine for that?!” There is. It apparently doesn’t work per my new vet. But nonetheless it’s commonly required.
Several exciting things on the horizon for this week. I’m hoping to actually catch that meditation session as well as the salsa class. I have figured out how to use the public bike system, Ecobici, and identified bike routes, so that’s also high on the agenda. Although I do really struggle with pronouncing the c as a c and not as ch, as in Italian. Bike lanes are increasingly common in the gentrified area I’m living in and basically have a rather pokey speed bump between the traffic lane and the protected bike lane. Fran & I have tickets to go see Corona Capital Fest on Sunday whose line up includes Leon Bridges, Iggy Pop, Beck, Jack White & Paul McCartney. Ending this a bit abruptly tonight as I can’t stop yawning.
Year One Project 
Leave a comment