There's no place like "home"

I usually caution people who use a Wizard of Oz expression in conversation, that individuals with a connection to Kansas don't appreciate those expressions.  However, two graduate degrees, two years of elementary school and diehard Jayhawk basketball fan status surely entitle me to use one now and then.   But what does that have to do with this blog?  you might ask.  Well, in the movie, the Wizard of Oz, the main character, Dorothy, who has somehow been transported to Oz during a tornado (blatant Kansas stereotype), chants the phrase as part of her effort to be transported back to Kansas--home.  What she finds--SPOILER ALERT--when she wakes up in her bed is that the characters she's been interacting with in Oz actually are people from her life in Kansas and that she hasn't really left at all.  Still, it was all so real and so scary.  I had occasion to return "home" recently--not to Kansas but to Ohio.  Being back in Ohio but then returning here to Mexico City, I shared some aspects of an alternate reality with the movie.  No, there weren't flying monkeys or ruby slippers or a field of poppies; and when I returned here, I really had been gone.  The latter was clear from the reactions of a couple of people I see frequently in my daily life here who pronounced it a miracle that they were seeing me!  (I learned that that's what is said to someone you haven't seen in a long time, on seeing them again.)  The comparison to the movie is that somehow this life in Mexico City feels more real and more vibrant than my other life, even as I was glad to see and reconnect with friends back in Columbus.  (Remember, Oz was in color, Kansas in black-and-white.)

For one thing, things were weird in Columbus--my car wouldn't start because it hadn't been driven in five months; our telephone wasn't working; my office has moved in my absence, so all of my books and office crap were still in boxes and my computer is who-knows-where (I can still remotely access it, but I don't know its physical location).  I was in Columbus for just a couple of days before a conference in Washington, DC.  Although I've done a pretty good job of letting go of the doctoral program while I'm gone, interacting with other OSU faculty sucked me back in to thinking about things that need to be done.  (Seeing my current and former doctoral students didn't have that effect, probably in part because I have continued to interact with many of them.)  That version of reality isn't really real for me right now (no tears here over that!), so I was glad to "click my heels" (by which I mean fly from DC to Houston and Houston to DF) and get back where I want to be.

What's so great about it? someone asked me at the conference.  I gave an answer that probably didn't convince her, which was something like describing my day today.  I'm trying to stick to a schedule of working on weekdays, but today is Saturday.  I had plans to go to the gym and then work on non-research related tasks the rest of the day.  However, my plans changed a little, starting when I remembered that I was out of milk for cereal.  Instead of going out for milk, I just ate a handful of cereal and a banana before I went off to the gym.  The weather has been really gorgeous since I got back (highs in the 70s and sunny).  Today was a bit warmer than the previous days.

Mexico City has a program that places these "eco-bicis"
in various locations.  There's an inexpensive annual
membership that entitles members to take a bicycle
for a half hour at a time, to facilitate getting around
through the heavy traffic in a "green" way.

After I left the gym, I decided to have breakfast--real breakfast--before I returned home.  The gym is three blocks from our apartment in one direction; the place I went for breakfast is almost three blocks in the other direction.  After breakfast, I had to go get coffee, of course, being addicted.  The coffee place is in the same block as the gym (actually, on the first floor of the building while the gym is on the second floor), so that was several blocks back there and then two blocks back home.  A couple of hours later, I was thinking about going to see a movie.  There is a movie theater about four blocks from our apartment.  I haven't found a great way to see what's on there, so I walked over to check that out.  The only thing I was interested in seeing had a showing about 9 p.m.--a little too late for me to want to go there by myself (there's all kinds of security at the little mall it's in, including a guard with an automatic weapon--which doesn't actually make me feel safer!).  I had made a grocery list, though, so headed toward the grocery store, now six blocks away.  Before I got to the store, though, I decided that I was too hungry to buy groceries and then make dinner, so I would just have to go out.  I kept walking past the grocery store, finally ending up about a mile away from home at an Italian restaurant that was new to me.  I ordered pizza, which was really good!  Half of that boxed up, I retraced my steps and went to the grocery store, then carried three bags of groceries home.

This display of honey and other bee
 products is on a dolly that is
pushed around by a vendor.

While I was at the Italian restaurant, sitting outside, I was approached twice for a shoe-shine (I had on running shoes with white mesh uppers--clearly not candidates for shoe-shine);  once to buy honey/beeswax/bee pollen; once to buy cigarettes; once to buy various locally manufactured snacks; lottery tickets; large, long-stemmed fresh flowers; a battered CD of a street performer; big baskets; a book from a Hari Krishna; a copy of the Brothers Karamozov in Spanish, maybe something else I'm not remembering.  The Hari Krishna guy was wearing one of the stranger outfits I've seen--tennis shoes with orange socks; a long orange skitrtlike garment; orange tee-shirt; black glasses; and an orange fishing hat.  Earlier, I had almost been run over twice by the same taxi, the first time because it was backing up the street the wrong way as I was quite legally crossing it.  I think the driver was actually trying to back up enough to turn around to go the wrong way in the lane as far as the intersection; instead, the driver eventually went forward and whipped around a turn-through the median, whereupon he almost ran over me again.  I say "almost ran over me" but it wasn't really close either time.  I've gotten really good at avoiding traffic and minimizing the time waiting for it, much like other people here.

Cart of fruit, stationary in the park at this time,
but it is pushed around earlier, providing a snack
 opportunity.  Fruit is only one of several
types of food that are sold this way.

Returning from the grocery store, carrying my three bags of groceries, I observed the next cardio craze as I walked through the park--Aztec dancing!  Seriously, it is very high energy and would be great cardio.




The park is used for many things, including some combination of dog training and doggie day care:

This stand sets up here several times a week
to sell "nieve"--literally snow but it's an ice
product made in giant freezers like for
homemade ice cream

If I can put my finger on it, I think what I like about being here is the vibrancy.  There's always music--some of it is bad, of course.  Most of the time, there are people outside, coming and going, sitting in cafes, restaurants, the park, on an overturned bucket in front of a store or shop that offers valet parking, cooking or eating at a food stand, loading food onto the back of a bicycle or motorscooter for home delivery, making flower arrangements to sell, with cut flowers.  We can walk to almost anything we need (or take public transportation and then walk).  Not everything is perfect, of course--the sidewalks, for one thing, frequently are in bad, bad shape.  Clearly, many people are struggling economically.  Narco crime is in the newspapers, mostly in other cities.  Traffic can be horrenduous and public transportation full to the gills, so to speak.  Ohio didn't feel real, but this does.  For now at least, it feels like home.

(I drafted this post about a week after returning from a trip to the U.S. in early January.)