The 2 Hour Wakeup

It takes me 2 hours to get ready in the morning. My routine doesn’t even involve primping (unless you take into account running a comb through your hair a few times or putting sunscreen on) or even showering. What it does include is several games of Free Cell (which I’ve gotten very good at) with a few games of Hearts or Spider Solitare scattered in there. I jam to a few songs on iTunes (I’ve been enjoying some Enrique Iglesias and Jason Mraz lately), drink a little instant coffee or tea, eat a piece of bread, change my underwear and pants (I tend to wear the same t-shirt to sleep and during the day for several days in a row)…and all of this done at a leisurely pace. Oh. My. God. How am I ever going to go back to the U.S. and the world of rushing around like a madman in the morning to get to work on time? I do recall the days (not so long ago) when I used to get ready for work (including shower, cup of tea, and full change of clothes) in half an hour. I think this new routine fits my non-morning person personality quite well although I fear the ramifications of getting too accustomed to not having anything to do until noon (or maybe 10 am if it’s an ambitious day). I really need to get back into the routine of running (haven’t done so in probably at least 3 weeks) but then again you really aren’t a PC volunteer unless you’ve eschewed all forms of exercise (excluding games of soccer or basketball with young children which I don’t participate in anyways). Only weirdos go running through the cobblestone streets for no reason and if anyone catches you they’ll think you are trying to lose weight and they’ll try to sell you Herbalife. I’m still not quite sure what that is, but I think it’s some system of powdered drinks or pills for weight loss.

In other news, Sarah informed me that today is our 200 day anniversary in PC (woohoo! definitely need to have a party with myself) and that she has 216 days until she goes back to the U.S. for her sister’s wedding and vacation. She’d better start packing, it’s casi aquí.

Pat recently told me an amusing story involving stray dogs and bread. She took her puppy Rumi (which means Rock in Quechua) to the tienda to pick up a few essentials and had her hands full on the way back to her house. She bent down to adjust the leash on Rumi and had a plastic baggie with a few rolls that she had just purchased in her hand and a street dog ran by and snatched the bread out of her hand, one of the rolls falling on the ground and the other still in the plastic bag in the stray dog’s mouth. Of course such incidents cannot happen without some witnesses (the lady in the tienda who was laughing heartily at her) and Pat had to go back to the tienda to repurchase her bread to replace that which was lost in the run by bread snatching by the stray dog. I’ve discovered such episodes tend to happen to Pat…she was also the one who was walking down the street with a bag of tostadas (big popped corn that is slightly sweetened) one day and was approached by a donkey giving her sideways glances and pulling it’s owner in her direction (aka the direction of the tostadas).