Are we still here? Oh, we're still here.

Are we still here? Oh, we're still here. Did the guys in San Diego overnight the seal to our man Rubén in Nogales? Well, yes, they say they did. But they also say they sent it via US Mail, instead of FedEx. Did it arrive? No. No, it did not. Will it arrive today? Now that is a good question. If it does arrive, it will presumably arrive in Nogales with Rubén’s regular mail delivery, at 2 p.m. If that happens, will Rubén be able to put the transmission back together, with its fancy new seal, in time for us to get out of Nogales today?

I don’t know. I just do not know. And, frankly, I’m starting to like it around here…

We've got caguamas..... (That’s Mexican slang for giant Tecates. Giant Pacificos are called ballenas. Read Richard Grant’s God’s Middle Finger. Or don’t, actually, if you’re planning to travel in northern Mexico by car any time soon.)

And our caguamas have their very own coolies, thanks to Dora. (No, not Dora the Explorer. Dora my niece and nephew’s preschool teacher. Don’t worry; she doesn’t hand out caguamas coolies to preschoolers. At least I don’t think she does.)

Mistah Schleckah has a sad sad face because, well, because he’s a sad sad man. You know, all this stuck-in-Nogales-with-no-way-out-after-8-days stuff. So I escape as much as I can. I bike to the library, I bike to the Motel 8 (vastly superior to the lowly Motel 6) where I sit on the steps in the garden and plug in our laptop and get online, I swim in the pool, and I go to the Safeway. I go to the Safeway about 5 times a day. I pee there more than I pee in our motel room. There’s a wifi hotspot on the tables outside, which is great except 1. there’s no plug and 2. the pervasive smell of pizza drives me crazy and makes me drool all over my keyboard.

Yesterday, after Mistah really thought we were actually going to be out of here (isn’t that cute?), then found out we weren’t, then had a big fight on the phone with the guys in San Diego who were supposed to have fixed our rig in the first place, then had a caguama, then got on the phone with our realtor friend in Texas because in the meantime we’re trying to rent out our house there, I took off on my bike for the Safety of the Safeway. I got online, read delightful online bits from delightful online friends, then biked home. . .

…with:

· Our laptop
· A 1.5 liter bottle of cabernet
· A pound of spaghetti
· A package of frozen meat-a-balls (Mistah thought spag ‘n’ balls would help…)
· A head of lettuce (our motel 6 ice bucket is our salad bowl)
· 2 jars of Safeway brand (natch) spag sauce
· A head of garlic
· Red pepper flakes from the Mexican aisle (we left our spices in the westy)
· Tomatoes (which suck. When oh when will the tomatoes be good?)
· Primo Taglio hot pepper jack cheese (I’m an addict; cheese is my crack)

Which would all be fine and good except in Nogales Arizona, bicyclists are invisible. Gigantic SUV-type monstrosities cut you (well, not YOU) off, and don’t even notice. So you – okay, *I* – don’t even get the satisfaction of the bastid feeling badly about cutting me off. No, I teetered home on my bike with my backpack, and a grocery bag hanging off each handlebar, and the things I put my feet into on my pedals scraping the ground upsidedown – I couldn’t put my feet into them, because I couldn’t get my feet out of them fast enough, every time I had to stop-on-a-sixpence when a gigantic SUV almost ran me over.

The good news? I made it home alive.

And made dinner.

Mistah was right. Spag ‘n’ Balls helped.