December 14, 2010 - Illinois for the holidays

This year, we are spending our winter and our holidays here in Illinois. This is a change from sunny, warm Merida and we miss our home south of the border, especially on days when the thermometer dips below freezing, as it has been doing ALOT lately.

We came up, driving our last time, and arrived here in April. Rented a wonderful apartment in Glenview for 6 months -- Sandy played with pals while Eva worked. We were close to the Glen (formerly the Glenview Naval Air Station which has become parks and open lands, restaurants, shops, movies, homes, and a real community) and so could walk almost every day and enjoy being outside without worrying about where our feet landed (as you have to do in Merida since most sidewalks are far from level or safe!).

Then September arrived and things changed. Eva was anticipating her 50th birthday the middle of the month, and we had discussed various ways to celebrate, but fortunately, had planned none of them since she went into the hospital on the 1st with severe back pain. She had tried various remedies for about a week and when nothing worked, we determined that the pain must be a kidney stone or something equally serious that could not be improved with analgesics, pain meds, anti-inflamatories, Xanax, or a combination of all of these. In the ER, we learned it was not kidney stones, but that was the last of the good news.

Eva was told she was diabetic and a raging diabetic -- blood sugar should be between 90 and 120 and hers was almost 600!! And so the doctors began to focus on this issue and completely forgot her back pain for the moment, but did prescribe dilaudid for the pain. The endocrinologist began shoving insulin in her arms and via IV in megadoses, since we'd told her we would be leaving in November for Mexico and she wanted things under control before we headed off. And four days later, Eva was released with so much information about her new lifestyle and having learned how to shoot up four times a day... in her stomach no less!!

Getting used to news like this is not the easiest, especially when you are still experiencing back pain that ultimately was proven to be stenosis which might have been treated with steroids had she not been diabetic.

But Eva was valiant and we began a low carb diet, more walking, and thinking carefully about what and when we eat. Whether it was the insulin or timing or nothing in particular, a lump in her breast appeared to be growing and had become painful. The endocrinologist said this was not because of mega doses of insulin, so we headed for a mammogram and ultrasound and learned from the radiologist who clearly skipped his finesses class, that she had breast cancer and should get a biopsy before lunch.

So we found a breast doctor, had the biopsy on both sides, since there were lumps on both sides, and learned it WAS cancer, the tumor on the right side might be as large as 5cm, there was lymph node involvement, and the left side was ok. Decisions, decisions. We spoke to EVERYONE including a plastic surgeon about reconstruction, an oncologist about treatment, the breast surgeon and her staff about options, and anyone we knew who had gone through this or heard of someone who had. Finally, Eva decided to do a double mastectomy with axillary node dissection which means a complete removal of both breasts and the removal of the lymph nodes on the right side. This was scheduled for November 17 here in Highland Park hospital.

Surgery went off without a hitch, although it took longer than expected and for some reason, it took much longer to get Eva out of the recovery room than expected. Fortunately, our sweet surgeon saw Marilla and me still sitting in the waiting room hours later and got right on getting Eva to a room. Marilla flew in for the procedure to hold my hand, spell us both, and be a rock. She was awesome!!! A huge help and support and just plain wonderful in every way. Little did we know how thrilled we would be to have her in town....

Surgery was on Wednesday and on Friday Eva came home. (We are staying in the home of a lovely couple who have the most perfect home we can imagine. It is airy and bright and cozy and warm, and filled with fascinating art and more TVs than one could imagine (7 for 2 people!). We have been so very happy to have this gift and live here.) Then on Saturday, the phone rang and it was Sandy's dad calling from Florida to say her mother had fallen and had a heart attack and was scheduled to have a triple bypass the next day since one side of her heart was 90% blocked. Zounds!!

So, Marilla agreed to stay with Eva and Sandy flew down to Palm Beach to check on the old folks who needed her to be there. Mother changed her mind about the surgery and finally, we got her released from the hospital and home to recuperate on Tuesday. She had fallen flat on her head, we think, since she had a lump the size of a baseball over one eye. Her entire head, neck, and arms were purple from bruising. Her legs were both ripped up and sore. She has emphysema and is old enough to make her own decisions, which she has done. Knowing that the surgery could prolong her life if she lived through it and could get off the respirator afterwards, she chose not to have the 4-8 hour procedure at all. And we all chose to respect her wishes and not argue with her or with each other about her decision.

So, Eva is healing well and doing everything she can to do so. She began physical therapy and is not bossing the therapists too much. She will see her oncologist in January to determine the chemo protocol. And radiation has been recommended since there were 4 lymph nodes involved, but she is still thinking about that. My mother is healing well, too. Her lump is only golf ball sized now, and the purple has faded to yellowish. She has oxygen at the house and a visiting nurse who tends to her wounds and takes her blood pressure. She is beginning to boss us from 1500 miles away so we know she is feeling better! Darling, perfect Marilla finally got to go back to Boston after saving us all!!! And Sandy is not so exhausted any more, but her bridge-playing has not been helped by all this commotion!!

And so, we look forward to 2011, knowing it could not hold this many surprises again, and praying that everything and everyone remain as healthy and happy as they are right now! Cheers to you all from frozen Illinois.

April 16, 2010 - safely in Illinois

Yes, we made the crazy drive north one more time and yes, we finally made it here in one piece or rather three pieces (Eva, me, and the car) but boy are we exhausted!!

Originally, we'd planned a rather leisurely wander north stopping in Puebla and San Miguel de Allende to shop, but changed that to a more grueling drive along the Gulf coast so that we could stop and see some things we'd never seen before. Worth it?? Ask us in about a month!!

We left Merida Tuesday and drove to Palenque where we spent two nights at the Chan Kah resort. We were greeted by Roberto, the 150 year old owner, who selected our cabin and it was one of them as far away from things as possible, but newer with a TV and very quiet, around a small swimming pool of its own. Just lovely. The food still isn't very good at this hotel, but the setting is just lovely, surrounded by jungle and arched flowering vines, and cabins covered in flowering vines. Palenque was as lovely as we remembered it, but quite crowded since this was the week after semana santa when Mexico is still on vacation.

Continuing on, we spent a night in Vera Cruz. The hotel Mocambo had been built in 1932 and we don't think ever updated but you could imagine that this was once the height of a very nice vacation. Built on a hill overlooking the bay but along the boca de rio far enough away from the port to be very nice. Then a drive through Xalapa or Jalapa where there was a large protest about something that completely took over the down town and removed any charm from the place to stay in Papantla. This was a scenic drive but Papantla is nothing to write home about except for its location near El Tajin where we began the next morning with a visit to its ruins and the niche pyramid with 365 small geometric niches. On to Tampico for a night and then a 4 hour drive to Xilitla, the object of this drive.

In Xilitla, we stayed at El Castillo which had been built as a temporary home for Edward James, a wealthy, eccentric, artistic, surrealist-loving Englishman who'd left his country and manor house West Dean (which he later gifted to become a college) to acquire 80 acres of land in a perfectly gorgeous valley near this tiny town in the 1960s. We watched a documentary about James who'd wanted to be a poet or artist but succeeded only in being a collector of artists and poets as friends. The only son, he was heir to a fortune and so lived well travelling the globe, but finally finding this remote spot in Mexico in which he could fulfill his dream. Edward James designed and had built surreal sculptures in the jungle that are truly astounding in size, scope, and thought. There are a few terraces with giant concrete flower sculptures that kinda make sense and that any of us could have conceived. But then, there are 70-80 foot towers simulating bamboo and flowers and stairways to nowhere, and geometric shapes that are simply magnificent and would never have grown from my own imagination. We were just wowed and were glad to have braved whatever roads and potholes and topes that we'd faced to be able to spend time here in this fantasy. Finally, (and apparently all it took was about $5 million US and all the concrete that could buy), Edward James had the last word -- he was an artist and a visionary.

We tore through Texas, Arkansas, bits of Missouri and Kentucky, and the length of Illinois and are safely here in Highland Park. The only mishap that occurred was at the border town of Matamoros. We had carefully selected this as the safest crossing with the least likelihood of drug/gun violence (and we were correct) but found there was a price to pay for this "safety". We were stopped not once but twice by transit police insisting we had somehow broken a law of driving and would be subject to fines or imprisonment or both, plus of course they'd take our drivers' license (well, Eva's since she was driving at the time) until the fine or prison time was done. Clearly, a scam!! We might have been really annoyed if we hadn't already heard story after story from gas station attendants, fast food servers, and chambermaids about getting deported after 8, 15, and 27 years in the US. Interestingly, one of the cops said he'd prefer that we pay him in dollars instead of pesos, but the other was very clear that 600 pesos was the going bribe. This man is one of the two who robbed us in Matamoros.

22 March 2010 - time flies

As we are approaching our leave-taking from Merida (Angela, stop cheering), we are amazed at how fast these 5 months have flown by. It seems only yesterday when we were still butt-sore from the drive down here and now we have to face it again. But it has been so wonderful to be home in our home which is so fabulous and getting better day by day. This year, we added some new treasures from our travels to Puebla and Mexico City, from the store of our friends Francois and Geraldo (the tree of life which we are delighted with every single day), and most recently, from an exhibit by a photographer here named Barbara McClatchie, formerly of Canada. And it has been wonderful to connect again with friends we've made here and make some new ones.


We caught up with our pals, JoAnn and Paul, from IL when we were all in Cancun. They almost made it to our home in Merida, but then there was a glitch, so we were "forced" to go to Cancun a day early to spend a wonderful evening at Harry's celebrating Paul's birthday. In addition to the cotton candy, they also bring a birthday cake to the table and all the waiters sing, which is quite festive. Clearly, Paul enjoyed being the center of attention!!


We also hosted Tom and Jerry for a few days in Cancun and again returned to Harry's for a fantastic dinner after days in the sun. We also went downtown for a meal at Locando Paulo's where Paulo was not cooking on Sunday night, but his adorable nephew Alberto was. We've been hearing about Alberto for years and how we went to Italy to learn cooking and he clearly mastered his craft. Not only gorgeous but also a wonderful chef.


And then as the week in Cancun progressed, we met up with another old friend, Linda Scharf, who was visiting the area from her home in AZ. Linda and Sandy used to work at CCH when it was CCH and Linda continues to plod away there even though it changed its name to Wolters Kluwer. Linda was visiting the Riviera Maya with her pal from Mesa, Melanie, and Melanie's family (whom we didn't meet since they were at Chichen Itza for the day). We drove down to have lunch with them at their resort only to find the security there was incredibly tight and annoying, so we whisked them away for a quickie tour of Cancun's hotel zone, our security-light resort, and lunch in downtown Cancun. Seemed to them like a jail-break!!

Cancun remains for us a terrific getaway spot. We leave it relaxed and refreshed even though our lives are not hectic in Merida, but somehow a week of reading on the beach, swimming in the ocean and pools, and shopping, not to mention great dining, is just the ticket.

Mexico City trip, Feb. 2-9, 2010

We're just back from a wonderful week in Mexico City (DF or daya effe for those in the local know) and thoroughly enjoyed everything about it -- even the nosebleeds!! We'd been warned that day 3 in DF brings with it "boogers the size of Nebraska and nosebleeds" and sure enough, we succumbed, but it didn't keep us down. We had an immense itinerary of things to do and see and managed to accomplish most of them, leaving for another trip some of what we didn't have the time or energy to get seen or done. Below is a quick and dirty description of our trip.
We arrived in a rain storm and checked into our hotel, the Sheraton Maria Isabel, serendipitously located right by the golden angel that is the Independencia monument on Reforma Avenue. The hotel is also across the street from the Zona Rosa and in front of Lerma where lots of restaurants lurk. Eva didn't like the first rooms we were assigned so we grabbed lunch at the deli downstairs while the concierges tried to find something more suitable for Ms. Carrillo and they soon did. The same rooms only 7 floor higher and minus the view of the giant AC units right out the windows!! We unopacked a bit and then spent that afternoon at a perfectly divine museum called Museo Artes Popular, MAP. We were greeted on the street outside by much larger than lifesize alabrijas made of papier mache and there were more inside, to Sandy's delight. However, the three story museum holds many more treasures of typical crafts like trees of life in every style imaginable and more modern works.
Thursday was also rainy, so we opted for a day in the Anthropological Museum. This is a stunning space filled to the brim with anthropological and ethnological goodies, but just trying to get through the first floor of anthropological relics proved adeaquate for us. Grouped by cultures, there are amazing wonders recreated and found, which really makes one appreciate the culture in this region all over again. There is a roof that appears to be an inverted pyramid floating around a large decorated metal cylinder that held the rain at bay.
Friday, the sun came out and we hailed Alfonso to take us to Xochimilco. This is an area of canals which keeps alive what Mexico City was like when Cortez arrived. You rent a boat and float around paying mariachi and marimba/xylophones to seranade you, or not, and buying food and drink of all sorts, or not. On festival days and holidays, the place is packed, but we were there early on a weekend and had the place almost to ourselves. And we were four gringos who got taken advantage of -- they charged us 900 pesos for what should have cost 250 pesos and we were so dumbstuck that we just paid the man. Then on to the Dolores Olmedo musuem where Diego Rivera lived and worked after Frida Kahlo died and where one of the largest private collections of his work resides. Unfortunately, theworks by Frida were in Europe but we saw so many works by Diego and his pre-Columbian collections, that we were sated. A gorgeous estate with peacocks running wild, sleeping in trees, and making lots of noise. Not having quite enough peacocks for one day, we asked Alfonso to recommend a wonderful place for lunch -- and he did, the Antigua Hacienda de Tlalpan. Here we found not only delicious food and a beautiful setting (a las Mananitas in Cuernavaca) but also regular, albino, and beige (!!) peacocks strutting their stuff. Finally, a stop at Frida's blue house which looks nothing like the movie set. The garden and courtyard are large and open and there were calla lillies in bloom. An interesting exhibit of photos she'd taken and owned was inside a second building.
Saturday, Alfonso took us to colonia San Angel to Parque Jacinto for an art fair, recommended by Paul Ziegler. We all loved this and bought many things. There are three areas we saw filled with artists and artisans, plus shops along the squares. Spent the day here wandering and discussing and purchasing and finally, having lunch at an outdoor cafe and then heading back to our hotel. Eva and Sandy bought beautiful wooden spoons, copper sculptured egrets, two small fanciful paintings, a rebozo or table dressing, earrings, and some pen and ink drawings from Xalitla -- this last we'd been aching to own since we first saw examples at Hotel San Angel here in Merida and the Pineda Covalin scarf and shoes using these designs.
Sunday, we saw the Zocalo, Cathedral, Templo Mayor excavation, and Palacio Nacional which house Diego's murals. The zocalo is a huge, immense, open plaza. One one side is the cathedral. Next to it, is the Palacio, a mammoth 3 story building with spectacular murals along half of one story along the courtyard and a stairwell. The murals are almost indescribably alive and passionate and colorful, describing different events and people in Mexican history. We ate lunch at a 6th story open-air restaurant overlooking the zocalo, palacio, and cathedral and enhanced further by two snow-topped volcanoes in the background.
Monday, all the museums are closed so we opted for a double-decker bus tour around much of the city. On a perfect sunny day, we saw alot and managed to get through much of Chapultapec park that we'd never have seen otherwise.
And Tuesday we headed back to Merida, with a little oops at the airport -- Eva and Sandy missed their plane despite being at the airport an hour ahead of schedule. Clifford and Grant tried to call us but Eva's cell phone was off, so we sat near the wrong gate and then were not allowed to get on the plane once we finally figured that out. We got on a later plane and got home just fine, sadder and wiser.
Pictures are at http://picasaweb.google.com/necshs1/MEXICOCITYTRIPFeb2010#.

January 21, 2010 -- rollicking start to new year

We've now recovered from hosting and then saying 'hasta pronto' to our dear girlfriends, Angela and Marlene, and are ready to talk about their visit. We've been waiting almost five years for them to head south and finally, Angela accepted the fact that we've moved to Mexico and chose to visit. Eva welcomed them Tuesday with a pork roast and delicious stuffing as only she can prepare and that was the end of our quiet time.
We began with a baby ruin, Dzibilchaltun, which also has a wonderful museum and cenote of clarity and calm (sometimes), then lunch out in Progreso at Riko's (where on Saturdays they serve a wonderful queso relleno but during the week not such wonderful choices), and finally dessert and coffee while relaxing at Hacienda Xcanatun. A quick nap before a cocktail party to share these women with some of our friends here and then of course, a dissection of attendees and quirks.

Thursday we spent at Uxmal, our favorite ruin in Yucatan, with yet another guide who talked to us about how the steps on the back of the Magician's pyramid were carved to reflect sound and make the acoustics for performances on the plaza more robust. Home and a quick lie-down before seeing Avatar in 3 D again -- our third time and we just can't get enough!!

Friday was our own version of the Merida house tour where several friends were nice enough to host us and feed us some, too!! Then lunch with Ana Rosa to take delivery of the octo-child painting (which we adore!!) and some bridge with Paul back at our house. Saturday early, we headed off to Chichen Itza for a quickie introductory visit to this wonder of the world and on to Cancun to bask in the sun, enjoy a fabulous dinner at Harry's, and more basking Sunday before they flew home and we drove back to Merida. There IS beach now in Cancun and it's amazing to walk on. There is also however, a 7-9 foot drop down to the level of the water so the resorts have dug steps down to it!

We miss these two women so much and hope they'll come back and spend more time with us in 2011 as we are now basking in the sun and 80s which eluded them while they were here. We've been having an amazing run at cool weather, which pleases Eva immensely and almost no one else. But finally, we are seeing more normal temps and we've all relaxed.

Both Marlene and Angela have been obsessed with watching TrueBlood, a TV series on HBO. We bought the first season at their behest and watched it before they arrived. And we loved it. Fortunately, season 2 in on demand so we began by watching 3 episodes after they left. The next evening we planned to watch 2-3 more episodes, but could not stop and actually watched 6 in one evening. Last night, we finished off season 2 and are hooked big time!!! Where's Bill???