Huevos Rancheros

"You shouldn't have ordered the eggs" she said, "the doctor says your cholesterol is already too high and they'll be dripping in oil"
"But I like huevos rancheros" he said.
"They're bad for your health."
The man said nothing. His gaze, benign and unruffled, settled gently on the space just behind her (his wife, I had no doubt) left shoulder.
"I'm having the gazpacho" she said, with a touch of defiance.
"And I'm sure it will be delicious" he replied.

The food arrived quickly: her thin, pale soup decorated with five carefully placed croutons and his two golden-yolked, fried eggs covered with thick, oregano-scented, tomato sauce.
"How are your eggs?" she asked solicitously.
"Delicious" he said, smacking his lips "how is your soup?"
"It's special" she said, "I think it has peach in it"
"Mmmm"

They ate, he silent and focused, whilst she kept up a more-or-less continuous stream of chatter about the office, the street, their plans for the weekend. Then the woman broke off a small piece of bread, and casually, without pausing her conversation she reached over, broke one of the yolks and dipped her bread into it. He paused, his fork suspended just above her wrist, but said nothing. She dipped again and informed him that María-from-work has a new boyfriend.
"You have something on your chin" he said. There was a drip of egg yolk.
"Oh my goodness" she said, quickly covering half her face with her napkin, "how long has that been there? Why didn't you say something?" she wiped her face thoroughly and grumbled gently as they both continued to eat. She, delicately sipping her soup and reaching across now and then, to dip her bread and he, slowly but with relish, only pausing to watch her hand, each time it advanced and retreated.

He stopped eating, looked directly at her and pointedly rubbed his chin. She grabbed her napkin once more and thoroughly rubbed at her face.
"It's all right for you" she said "your back's to the room"
"What?"
"I look ridiculous!"
"Do you?"
"With egg all over my face!"
"There's nothing on your face"
"You rubbed your chin!"
"What? Did I?"
"You know you did! You told me I had something on my chin"
"I may have rubbed my chin. So what?"
"You rubbed your chin!"
"So?"
"If that was a joke, it wasn't funny." She sulkily helped herself to a small piece of egg.
"Can I try your soup?"
"Of course…" he leant across, borrowed her spoon and took a generous spoonful.
"You took a crouton!" she said.
"You said I could try your soup! It comes with croutons!"
"Yes, but not enough…"
"Shall I ask the girl for more?"
"No, they're too fattening"
"Then it is good that you have one less to eat."
They glowered mutually and she dipped a small piece of bread into the tomato sauce.

He also tore off a piece of bread and wiped it in the sauce, she recommenced her chatter and he listened carefully. Then she took the last piece of bread and dipped…
"Of course I told her that wouldn't work, but she wouldn't listen to me… what?"
"You have something on your chin – sauce I think"
(There was nothing on her chin)
She glared at him and considered the situation. He met her gaze calmly.
"Stop it" she said.
He shrugged.
She quickly wiped her face with her napkin and looked around her to see if the congregation of the crowded café was smirking at her behind their hands, as she clearly believed them to be. They weren't. Or maybe they were just being extra subtle about it.

The waitress came and cleared the dishes.
"What did you order next?" she asked.
"The pork."
"Oh, me too" she said, somewhat crestfallen.
Personally, I thought it was for the best.

*Translated from the Spanish… and possibly embellished a little.

Cleaning and other considerations

This week I have been mostly sulking. I am still in Antigua – waiting for the swelling (from the ousted wisdom tooth) to subside sufficiently for the dentist to oust the other wisdom tooth. It’s so nice to have something to look forward to.

I have spent a lot of time in-putting books into Library Thing. That “Words” blog opened up a whole can of worms! But it’s kept me occupied – so for that, I am grateful. Digging out my Book Lists also inspired me to do a little spring clean of my ‘Personal Organiser’. (Remember them? The thing you used to have before your Blackberry – they do much the same job, don’t need batteries, but do require a biro.)

So I emptied out all of the various pockets and spaces.

I threw away:

• Several business cards belonging to people I am sure I’ve never met.
• Several email addresses from people I am certain I will never contact.
• Some passport photos, which should never have seen the light of day.
• Numerous scraps of paper with “To Do” Lists on them – nearly all of which were undone.

I kept:

• A membership card for “Perama Travel – All Over Indonesia!” Which expired in 1998.
• A bus ticket from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng (Laos) dated my birthday, 1999.
• A Donor Card.
• An “I do something amazing, I give blood” Card (although I haven’t, for a long time – but perhaps this will inspire me.)
• A London Underground map
• Business Cards for a Photographer in Sussex, an Italian Hair Stylist in Mexico and a handsome man in the Philippines (you never know).
• A photograph of my parents
• A newspaper clipping from November 2000 – which made me very happy and looks like this:

And

• The Proust Questionnaire

I cut this out from a magazine several years ago, with the intention is doing something with it... filling it in I suppose. These days there are so many imitators knocking around on Facebook and the like, that I have got truly sick and tired of Questionnaires. Most of them are so banal – “what time did you get up this morning? Who is most likely to reply to this questionnaire?” Yawn! But this one is actually quite interesting. It supposedly gets to the very heart of an individual. Maybe it does. Kate Winslet apparently uses it when developing a new role.

Here are the questions:

• Your favourite virtue;
• Your favourite qualities in a man;
• Your favourite qualities in a woman;
• Your biggest flaw;
• Your favourite occupation;
• Your chief characteristic;
• Your idea of happiness;
• Your idea of misery;
• Your favourite colour and flower;
• If not yourself, who would you be?
• Where would you like to live?
• Your favourite prose authors;
• Your favourite poets;
• Your favourite painters and composers;
• Your favourite heroes in real life;
• Your favourite heroines in real life;
• Your favourite heroes in fiction;
• Your favourite heroines in fiction;
• Your favourite food and drink;
• Your favourite names;
• Your Pet Aversion;
• What characters in history do you most dislike?
• What is your present state of mind?
• For what fault do you have the most toleration?
• Your favourite motto;
• How would you like to die?

So I did finally complete it. It concerned me how many flaws I could think of and how few characteristics – none in fact. I don’t know what my characteristics are – I don’t think I have any. Maybe glibness. Is that a characteristic? Facetiousness? My flaws, on the other hand, had to be both long and short-listed.

It saddened me that my favourite novelists, poets, composers and painters were all men. Especially having recently read ‘Unless’ in which she blames her daughters descent into depression on the marginalisation of women in the Media. Has this been truly ingrained in me? Or are there (dare I say it) simply less creative women than men? Mind you, all my most hated characters from history were also men (book burners, all).

Even sadder, I realised that I have absolutely no heroes or heroines in real life – but many from fiction. Naming my fictional hero/ines was easy! (Frodo Baggins, Ford Prefect, Levin, Eowyn, Beatrice and Lessa – in case you were wondering). But people in real life are so tainted – how can anyone be so above reproach that is possible to feel nothing but admiration for them? Even after much consideration, I can think of no one. I did, in the end, come up with three names, but I am not completely happy to pronounce them ‘heroes’. (Alexander the Great, Elizabeth I and Emmiline Pankhurst). Does this reflect on me? Am I being realistic or too cynical?

And how would I like to die? Healthy, of course.

I’ve posted my full answers as a comment. Feel free to leave your own – yes, I am interested! Mr Botogol recently mused that every blog gets the readers it deserves... so I have no doubt that you are a sensitive, noble and discerning bunch!

“Word, words, words”

I am a voracious reader. You don’t have to take my word for it – I keep a list of every book I read, so you can decide for yourself: In 2008, I read a total of 41 books; in 2007, a meaningful 42. So far, 2009 has been a big year – I have already read 45 books. Voracious? I would say so. As a traveller, being a voracious reader can be quite hard work. I obviously can’t afford to buy books. Instead I exchange them, sometimes with other travellers, but more often at Book Exchanges – which are found in Hostels, Book Stores, Cafés and occasionally, even Dive Shops.

Frequently, my first mission in any new town is to locate my next book. I could write a Guide Book on books, and how to locate them. Sometimes I am lucky and find excellent Book Exchanges with an abundance of interesting and intriguing titles to choose from. Sometimes I seem to be following in the footsteps of peasants, and I end up with nothing but light romance and ‘Airport Blockbusters’.

However, when it comes to the crunch, I would rather read anything, than nothing, so sometimes I read truly terrible books. Low points this year have included ‘Wedding Season’ by Darcy Cooper (the heroine cancelled her own – did I care? Hell no) and the entirely unmemorable ‘False Memory’ by Dean Koontz (I have no memory of what it was about – but it’s on the list, so I must have read it.) Although, the fact that I will read anything does also lead me to some good books which I probably wouldn’t have chosen: ‘Killing Pablo’ by Mark Bowden, which was about the pursuit of Pablo Escobar, was a surprisingly good read. ‘Reminiscences of the Cuban War’ by that well-known, homicidal nutcase, Che Guevara, insured I would never, ever be tempted to wear one of those naff t-shirts adorned with his face. And I would strongly advise anyone who owns one of those t-shirts to read this memoir and see if you can justify the many senseless murders he proudly confesses to.

A few years ago, in the absence of anything better, I read a book called 'Chasing Copernicus' by a bloke who was tracking down all the ‘First Editions’ of Copernicus’s masterwork, ‘On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres’, and trying to establish if anyone had actually read it! It seems Isaac Newton wrote notes in the margin of his copy (at Cambridge) – so he did his homework. But the author found several copies in which the pages had yet to be cut! His conclusion was that ‘Revolutions’, although containing an incredibly exciting theorem, is actually a work of staggering monotony which almost no one has read – preferring instead to get the gist of it from Isaac Newton or other, more available, science geeks at dinner parties. Sadly the same could be said of his own book.

But, in the wonderful world of literature, there are always more high points than low. This year’s notable highlights have included ‘The Book of Laughter and Forgetting’ by Milan Kundera (if I ever am able to complete a novel, I would like it to be just like this one); ‘We Were The Mulvaneys’ by Joyce Carol Oates and ‘Daughter of Fortune’ by Isabel Allende. All wonderful.

I never look for ‘Classics’ (by ‘classic’, I mean a timeless works of genius, rather than a book that necessarily belongs to the canon of literature – although the two are often the same) because I had an insight at University, which terrified me. In my second year, as instructed, I dutifully read all (truthfully? Ok, most) of Shakespeare’s Plays*, but it was only when I had finished them that I realised, with profound sadness, that I will never again, in my life, read a Shakespeare Play for the first time (unless someone finds 'Cardenio' – you never know...).

It occurred to me then, that if I kept devouring the Classics at my usual pace, then it was possible that by the time I was 60 or so, I might have read them all! “The horror! The horror!” And then what would I do until I died? Of course, new Classics will always be written. And they are joyous because you often don’t know they’re a work incomparable greatness until you finish them. That is a different experience (most recently ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro was a unexpected pleasure). But nothing can compare to that thrill, the excitement, the relish of sitting down and opening the first page of ‘Anna Karenina’ or ‘Don Quixote’ and knowing you are about to bring a sublime creation into your mind.

So I made a decision – that I would never actively look for these great books. Instead, I would patiently wait for them. I know that sooner or later they will all cross my path – and I will read them, when I am meant to read them, during the course of my life.

Despite knowing without any doubt, that it would inevitably become one of my most beloved books – I managed to restrain myself from reading ‘Lord of the Rings’ until I was 26. And then, even as I read it, and delighted at every twist and turn in the story, I also felt that inescapable sadness that I would never be delighted in this way, by this story, ever again.

I waited years before stumbling across ‘War and Peace’, and nearly cracked and bought it so many times. But in the end it was here, in Antigua, six years ago, that I came across it in a Café. I read it whilst visiting Lago Atitlan, in the shadow of a volcano.

This morning, I noticed a single shelf of dusty old paperbacks in the corridor of my hostel. Out of habit, I glanced over, although I am still halfway through my current read... and there it was, patiently waiting for me – tatty, battered, but still in one piece – ‘The Iliad’.

I am very excited! This week I am mostly going to the dentist (a fitting end to a truly crap summer) and The Iliad seems to me to be an appropriate accompaniment!

* Except for five, which I started, but couldn’t finish because, they were tedious! Don’t make that face! He wrote 36 Plays; you can’t seriously expect them all to be brilliant!

Addendum

I forgot to mention the cats! I am not sure how many we have because they are all identical. So, needless to say, they are all equally adorable. I am encouraging them to hang-out up here and be fierce with anything smaller than they are.

Last night a very grown-up spider emerged from the rafters – easily as big as my hand and particularly ugly – but he was crouched just beyond my designated loft space, so I made the decision he could stay! Ha!

I managed to convince myself that he was in his space and I am in mine and he has no reason to invade my loft. Of course this is a ridiculous argument as it presupposes the spider recognises the distinction between my loft and his rafters. It also assumes that he gives a damn. I decided not to look at him. That helped. In my favour, yesterday I did sweep my loft with a verve and ferocity that only those of you who knew me as a small child will be able to imagine. However at bedtime I was forced to fully embrace the fact that, should he choose to do so, he could in my bed in less than 30 seconds. He was almost the size of a small cat!

So it’s not surprising that, when one of the small cats jumped onto my bed just as I was dozing off, I should jump, momentarily leaving my skin, and catapult (or kick? I am not sure) the small cat off the bed and across the room. He/she retreated to the bookcase and sat and glared at me with equal parts bewilderment and hatred.

I said sorry, but you know what cats are like – it could be weeks until I’m forgiven.

And no MG4D, I am not travelling with a mosquito net, but it’s something I think I may need to acquire. Because mosquito nets are impenetrable (I believe they are made of the same fabric as Batman’s cape) to any and all monsters. That’s what I choose to believe anyway, and I don’t want any of you to tell me otherwise.

Please.

Ever thought you might have accidentally joined a cult?

Don't worry! I'm not dead - I'm doing Yoga. No really. All of the time. Because, as my teacher... (or should I very tentatively say... Guru?) says -

"Everything you do do on your Yoga mat, should be Yoga. And everything you do off your Yoga mat... should also be Yoga"

Quite. So, I am doing a Yoga Teacher Training course at the moment and in the spirit of practicing what I intend to preach, I am doing my best to immerse myself in the philosophy as well as the course. I feel I can officially describe myself as a Yogini. I will, of course, blog a lot more about this enormous, life changing topic... but at the moment (to be honest) it's just too enormous, too all encompassing and too life-changing for me to be able to reduce it to a small, mildly glib, Blog Post.

In the meantime I shall leave you with this, from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: Yoga is

"To still the restless mind (and thus find peace)"

Malapascua

Tiny island - maybe 2k by 1k. Not many people, thousands of cockerels. The 'dawn' chorus is deafening and starts at about 3am. It goes on all day [breaking only for the extreme midday heat] until about midnight.

I lie in bed dreaming of having some heavy artillery. Perhaps an automatic rifle or a machine gun. I could finish off a few hundred of them from my bedroom window - cock a doodle doooooooarrrraaaawk! Hahahahahahaahahhahahaaha... feathers everywhere! [sigh] It would be bliss! [grin]

The rest I would pick off with a sniper rifle from the top of a very tall palm tree which [in my daydreams] I can climb easily. Cock-a-doodle-phfffit. Smack, all over and I sleep!

But these are fighting cockerels, proud bird-warriors who glare at me with imperious and knowing eyes as I pass by. They're probably packing a pair of pistols under those feathers. I wouldn't win.

I give in, get up and go for breakfast.