WELCOME TO MEMORLY.COM
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so getting back here was sort of an ordeal, but all’s well that ends well - we’re home, pete got to the airport ok, we were reunited with our luggage, and neither of us could get to work today, so instead of rushing right back to the grind, we got to spend most of the day decompressing. i suppose i could’ve posted this earlier, but we were having too much fun with take-out and netflix streaming and getting reacquainted with our living room furniture. overall, it was a pretty fabulous day — we also came home to several pieces of really good news, which i may write about in more detail later. speaking of good news, i found out during the trip that the apartment issue is closed. they dropped the lawsuit threats when i went to the bbb and i now have a paper copy of a letter from the manager promising that the issue is resolved. any semblance of an apology would’ve been nice, and their official response to the complaint was both inaccurate and dickish, but we got what we asked for and i’m happy to be done with it. there’s so much to write about honduras that i should definitely not attempt to start tonight when i have work in the morning. i’ll try to get to that tomorrow. goodnight, Internet!
We missed our flight because e and his dad share a name with a criminal. Incidentally, we almost missed our first flight because I was suspected of smuggling drugs. I guess young white girls traveling in normal, non-missionary clothing set off flags. Whatever.
So E and I are stuck in Atlanta and my brother and the girls are in the air. I hope we get home tonight so I can take Pete to the airport… Good lord, E has a green card. That’s the ultimate proof that you aren’t a criminal. At least we’re having fun making fun of the people here who ARE doing something wrong. Like the Mexican lady who got married in December but is here to meet someone she met online.
Back stateside, more when I’m not rushing through customs.
so I am going to avoid contractions (etc) in this post, as i cannot for the life of me figure out how to make an apostrophe on this keyboard. today is the birthday of Enrique (damn, this is already awkward) and he and my brother and the girls are at the mall buying my contact lenses, since I have had no luck doing so myself. i have not yet reached the level of assertiveness required to get anything accomplished in this country. Here is a sample conversation from the last trip i made to the optometrist…
mary - i am here to pick up some contact lenses that were ordered yesterday
man - what is your name?
mary - i am in the computer under -mary-, no last name, just look for the only mary in october of 2009
man - yes, but what is your last name?
mary - it does not matter, i was here yesterday and the man who helped me found me in the computer and the record did not have my last name in it
man - well, who helped you yesterday?
mary - i cant remember.
man - was it a man or a woman?
mary - a man
man - was it me?
mary - (looks at him weird) no, it was not you. see look, there is my record. the only mary without a last name.
man - Mary Gallegos?
mary - no, Mary nothing. that third one.
man - fine. so you want some bioinfinity lenses?
mary - no, the acuvue 2, like my file says. i have tried the bioinfinity but i do not like them very much.
man - well, we dont have acuvue 2 right now.
mary - the guy from yesterday said they would be here at eleven today. it is twelve oclock, right?
man - something happened with the order. we will have more at 3 oclock today.
mary - ok, so if i come back at 3 oclock, i can pick up four boxes of my prescription?
man - yes, yes, they will be here. like i said, there was a problem with the order and the next shipment will arrive at 4 oclock.
mary - but you just said 3 oclock!!!
man - well, 3 oclock then.
during none of this conversation did he get up to ask someone else for these details…he just seemed to be making them up as he went along. this only days after enrique narrowly dodges arrest on the grounds that he has a nice car and a green card. his saving grace? that one of the police officers was too lazy to properly extort money from him. i love this country so much, truly, and i think the people are some of the best you will find anywhere, but it is definitely a culture shock how much most people do not care about their jobs.
so now i am here with keyla (preparing her presentation for a gynecology class) waiting for Enriques birthday guests to arrive. I have it on good authority that his aunt is bringing a tres leches cake, which is exciting. we have been having a good time. tomorrow we will head to the beach. i think our first guest is here so i will write more later!
everybody always says it’s not a good idea to tell people when you’re not home, but not everyone has Mr. T. housesitting for them, so i feel like it’s ok to share. today’s revelation was the charamusca. a mixture between a popsicle and a milkshake with a shot of liquor? yes please! add a shaded hammock during a bout of rain and this is a happy girl. more soon!
so, i really coudln’t take today off work because there’s just too much to do before Honduras. Pete and I went to breakfast at Rue Cler before work and parked on the street behind an old blue Valiant, probably not too unlike the one my dad loved so much. we smiled because he would definitely like to see us going to breakfast before a big trip.
in other news, it looks like Enrique is getting transferred to Durham with a raise, which is awesome on many levels. we can get lunch together! the new location has a lot of monolingual latin people working in maintenance, so the boss is really excited about having someone bilingual on board. I definitely think he would be great at that, and am so proud that he’s bridged the gap between being seen as one of those guys and someone that the gringos can talk to and feel comfortable with.
i’ll write more a little bit later. for now, crunch time!
i’m moving back to textpattern. if you subscribe to me via rss, you might want to check back at the physical site in a few days for a new feed.
So, I have a very specific list of things I want for the house and have been creeping on Craigslist for them even since we bought it, hoping to furnish the place without going broke. TWO list items appeared this weekend, and I’m still high over it because both are exactly what I had in mind and basically new, only 30% of the price. If we weren’t simultaneously planning a wedding, I feel like it would be fun to limit ourselves to remodeling this house with 100% secondhand stuff and dedicate a real, commercial blog to it.
Anyway, one of the items is a dining room table, which inspired us to scrape the 70 years’ worth of paint/wallpaper/more paint/more wallpaper from the walls in the dining room this weekend. It might be kind of dumb for us to try to finish that room first, since we’re almost certainly going to end up knocking one of the walls down as part of the kitchen remodel, but it’s a relatively small job, and I feel like it’ll be a good room to practice our sheetrocking skills before tackling bigger rooms. I know I keep promising pictures, but I feel like we need to finish a project before posting random before images so we can pair them with the afters. This room should not take long, so hopefully I can make good on my promises soon.
Also, tomorrow we’ll mail our amended 2009 taxes to the get the first-time homebuyer credit, which apparently everyone except us knew could be done. Bonus!
