Trip to Mexico; X-mas & New Years 2002

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Tis my engagement ring. Looks old fashioned, but really isn't. One of the first pics ever taken

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That's my little (kinda) keg of love - Papo

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More of the little stud muffin

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Here is Happy. He is an ancient Golden Cocker. Sweetest dog ever. Now his face is all white. He lives w/ my parents now but they are thinking of giving him back because he keeps going swimming in their new pool (came w/ new house) and they are scared he is going to drown one day. He is mostly blind and deaf poor thing.

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My little Suzie Whitey when she was a teeney little kitten. I missed her growing up stages when I was in Mexico. When I returned she had almost doubled in size but still loved me.

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My mom in our wood office. The thing looks like a ski chalet. Very unique building for Miami.

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Bird of Paradise

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Big Museum in Mexico City that we were too scared to enter b/c we had a little bit of bud and pipe that had a little bit of metal in it. We didn't want to get busted by the metal dectectors. Stupid terrorists.
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me on pyramid of the sun

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Me, on top o' the world


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Dont know what kind of flower this is, but um well, I like purple.

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I just like it.

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When you want to be one with a topiary, let nothing stop you. Nothing.

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My now husband, then the young aspiring business man, getting his shoes shined. In Mexico you know.

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Poinciettas! Lots and lots and lots of them all over Mexico. They grow into giant tress there. I love it.



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Us in the hotel room. I love my leopard print hat. Worked fine in Richmond, but in Mexcio everyone looked at me like I was a freak.

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When in strange land, this is the perfect tourist ride - The Turibus!

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Um, driver - excuse me, but there appears to be a limb in our Turibus

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We did this in London too. Take a bus, ride it till the end and then take it from there. Our little Turibus dropped us off a good 4 hour walk from our hotel. Not quite knowing where we were, I insisted we walk home. We found this cute shack while walking though one of the less nicer parts of Mexico City. The kind of parts where you really hope they dont steal your brand new camera because it is worth more than your damn purse. First time ever you would rather have someone steal your purse.

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This is the closest we got to the castle in the center of the city. Not Because We Didnt Try. We are just not that skilled at going exactly where we want to go and when you couple that with a severe inability to inquire about directions you pretty much walk around for ever untill you get kicked off the grounds by guards because The Castle Has Closed. I had seen it as a child so I knew it was pretty, so I really wanted to go see it again. At least it gives us a reason to go back to Mexico.... as if we needed that!

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One of my favorite flower pics. Once again, I have no idea what it is.

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Some sort of purple cactus fruit. Because well, you know.

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This little doggie reminded me an awful lot of my precious Misha who had died less than 4 months ago at the time. Mexican locals dont touch the stray dogs. Once again they thought I was a freak as I was explaining to them that you can tell a good dog by its eyes and this one was most definetly a good dog.

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On a boat in old Aztec canals in a city just outside of Mexico City though I could never tell when we left one city and entered another. Its all so crowded and dense. The city is Xochimilco.

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OK - someone's back yard facing the canals. Now look closely and you can see all sorts of creepy things here.

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Cheap little hotel we stayed in while in Valle del Bravo, a very expensive (for Mexico) town a few hours drive from the City. This was our home base for seeing the Monarch Butterfly Migration.

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Says it all I think.

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My ride to see the butterflies. I always like to take pictures of my rides.

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Hubby's parents house in Zipolite. Third world town but really phat house.

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Not the best, but nice none the less.

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Same caption as above.

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If you havent noticed, I like taking pictures of flowers.

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The dune buggy of death. At least when your knees are killing you from horseback riding and you have a case of the vicious runs.

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Nicer view from house. We can see ocean and a light house. It is soo cool living near a lighthouse. The whole house(not lighthouse) is open. This had to have been taken from the roof (w/ a small pool/jacuzzi!) though because there are lots of plants in front of all the balconies.

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El Mayordomo chocolate factory in Oaxaca.

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Yummy! Lots of chocolate...

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Off kilter picture of what must be an homage to the Chocolate Gods. I really like those gods.

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Hierve el Agua (Boiling Water) is Oaxaca's answer to Yellowstone. Lots of mineral pools but not very warm, expecially in December in the mountains.

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Beautiful sunset but I like the Tope sign. Topes are like giants speed bumps except they even have themon highways. The great part about them is that there are (almost) always people selling food at them because they always cause traffic jams. In Mexico a tope usually equals good, cheap roadside food delivered to your car. What could be better? We were trying to get a good picture of this great sunser but we were in the back of a coverd collectivo driving though curvy mountain roads so husband had to lean his body out of the truck during a turn to get this shot w/o any truck showing and there I go ruining all the effort of eliminating the truck from the picture by telling the story behind the picture.

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See - I wasn't lying! Little white kitty looks like my Suzie. I lost that sweater on my honeymoon. It's kinda cold today and I miss it :-(

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In the blue house garden. Love the contrasting colors and the delicate cobwebs on a decidedly undelicate flower.

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Wolves dancing in perpetual rain. I actually first saw the foutain in the very early morning hours and wanted to shoot it then. I feel that the water obscures too much of the wolves. It is such a beautiful sculpture on its own; it didnt need that extra embellishment.

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A cute ancient hairless dog from the Dolores Olmedo Patino Museum(scroll down a little to see the info and more pics of the museum). It is a beautiful castle that I belive used to belong to Diego's last wife or a mistress....

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A huge bronze Diego Rivera head with a nice peacock for contrast and scale.

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I think these are cala lilies - a favorite flower of Frida and all over both museums.

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I love peacocks - so pretty. They were wandering all over the castle museum.

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And I end it with me as the salad monster. That salad was one of the best I have ever had - a delicious cilantro yogurt dressing surely helped.

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Big Hairy Fuzzy Beasts

That's who I live with. Excluding the husband. A Siberian husky - Jackson, a rat terrierish dog - Papo, a rather large and quite fat Maine coon's cat - Cozmo -short for Cosmolon which is a YKK (check your zipper) brand of Velcro. I named him this because one of my favorite cats was/is Velcro, another Maine coon's cat. I got him when I was in high school. My parents were away and I went to the grocery store to buy some mixers. They were giving away the cutest little bundle of fur. He was the last one left. We already had like maybe 5 cats or something but I brought him home anyway. Told my parents that I found him in the Publix parking lot, which I really did - I just left out the part about him being in a box with a free kittens sign on it and that his human family was still there to protect him. Once we had him for about 5 years and when I was no longer living at home I eventually fessed up. They couldn't get mad because he was and still is the sweetest cat in the world. He tries to make friends with all animals, something cats arent really well known for. Back to kittenhood. When he was a baby he would stick his teeney little claws into your clothes and hang on for dear life. You had to peel him off every time. Hence the name Velcro. My dad said that we should name him Cosmolon because we sell that and other YKK stuff. That is how Cosmo got his name. I also have a large very furry, very white and pink cat named Suzie. She looks really tiny next to Cozmo though. And I also call him Cozmo Kramer and Cosmosis. Why the fuck am I saying this? Am I scared my memory will fail and I will have to refer here to find the pet names of my pets? Oh yes - I was checking my referral stats and some poor soul happened upon this page by looking for pictures of non-shedding dogs. Misha was a Siberian husky. NOTHING can shed more than her and Jackson, and Cozmo, and Suzie. The first two especially. I leave out Papo, because though he does shed, he has short hair so it is much less a giant pain in my ass. That's what started this whole overgrown paragraph. I thought it hilarious that someone would fall into here looking for things that don't shed when I am fucking surrounded by shedders!

Check out the last blog link

Its a blog from someone who got affected by the tsunami and is quite informative and interesting. Sorry I haven't contacted you wonderful people who are trying to help with the pics. As soon as I get my shit together (don't hold your breath) I will be calling upon you. Again - thank you so very much for your offers of help. On the new job front, I begin realtor classes this Monday!!! Hopefully I will buy a non-tandem bike (currently the only one we have) and be able to get in shape as I ride to school. The bike ride to classes was always my favorite part of the day, unless of course, it rained. I did also hate that I started classes at 9am and ended them at 9 or 10pm so I had to have a change of clothes at all times during the winter because you never know when it will turn fucking cold of god-damn hot. I needed gloves, scarf and hat for the night ride back.

As I sit here in a tee-shirt and sandals in 80 degree weather I honestly can say that I still miss the seasons. What I wouldn't give for another fall, winter and spring. Luckily husband has promised that we can spend a few years in a cold climate once in a while.

Married life....How is it different I get asked a lot. We basically lived together from about um, day 2 after we met so until recently it wasn't that much different, but a while ago we got into a big fight - as usual over nothing important. He stormed out of the house. Normally I would have thought about breaking up w/ him, but not this time. I was so much less upset than I normally would have been - and it had nothing to do w/ the Xanex and pot :-) This time I KNEW that he would come home, and I KNEW that I wanted him to.


Happy New Year to Everyone! - ~cheers!~