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???