It’s been a day of highs and lows.  My poor esposo packed one pair of hiking boots and one pair of dress shoes for our San Miguel vacation. Last week the sole of his hiking boots separated, but my vanity-free husband fixed the shoe with duck tape.  He looks a little mental walking the streets of Mexico with duck taped shoes. His response, “It’s Mexico,” as if the duck tape helps him fit in.

As you know, I am consumed by appearance – hopefully not, but probably so. In an effort to give my husband a spiffier look I selected a pair of tennis shoes for him at a local Zapata Store. In the States a men’s size 13 shoe is fairly normal, I think, but apparently in Mexico men have smaller feet and finding a size 13 shoe is as difficult as finding a fat-free meal.

Admittedly, the Zapata Store sold cheap shoes.  I thought the shoes were Nikes because they had a swish on the side, but as my husband pointed out the brand of the shoe was called Musher. In our rental house we opened the Musher box and discovered that while the shoes looked similar that each shoe was a slightly different style. Aside from the fact that I seem to have purchased two different shoes, neither shoe was large enough for my husband’s apparently gargantuan feet.

With my husband in tow, I drag across town to the Zapata Store to exchange the shoes. However,  the store has no shoes larger than the fake-sized 13 Mushers. Obviously, you would think that since there was not a shoe that would fit on my husband’s foot that the store would refund the money. But, NO.  It’s Mexico.

The salesgirl hauled my reluctant husband and me down the street to interrupt the Zapata Store owner in his second shoe store during his 10:30 am family breakfast in the back of the store.  It was a good thing that I didn’t understand the Hefe’s Spanish as he explained to me the reasoning behind his refusal to refund my money. His rationale might have sent me into a ballistic fit, but instead my husband and I walked out of the Hefe’s breakfast room and pretended we dropped $40 on the ground.  I hope the Hefe is pounding his heart right this minute as he chokes on his napolitos.

While my husband doesn’t mind wandering the streets with duck tape on his shoes, he does mind being in a cheap shoe store.  Unlike me, my husband does not derive pleasure from making a good deal, and in fact, he assumes that he will always be ripped off. Quarterly, he pays the government 40% of his hard-earned salary. Why shouldn’t he expect to be fleeced?

With such a typical Mexico morning, I had little hope for a promising afternoon, but the prospect of a good massage held my interest.  Thank goodness for a licensed massage therapist who seemed to be the first masseur in Mexico or the USA to listen to my complaint about how the muscles in the front of my neck were sore and how my jaw hurt.  Within moments this guy was grabbing the thin little strings of muscle in my neck and ripping them from my throat. Stinging pain ensued and continued when he asked me to open my mouth as wide as possible as he milked the muscles on my jaw. Certainly, I would have screamed in pain, but I was so weak with pain I remained silent. When the ordeal was finished I felt like a full bladder that finally had been emptied.

On the walk home I repeatedly breathed a sign of disbelief and associated relief each time I replayed the release of my jaw and neck muscles. Mr. Masseur asked if I held anger.  Anger? Me? Naw.  Masseur guy continued with “whether you hold anger consciously or unconsciously, at night your body tends to work-out the anger in teeth grinding or dreams (tell me about it.)”  Masseur guy gives me homework and instructs me to insert a folded towel into my mouth each night and bite down as hard as possible and attempt to pull the towel from my mouth as I exalt a guttural scream.

I’ll pause while you digest that image.

Now, on to the next subject.

The hubby and I very much enjoyed a night without our children as Gabby the 24% English-speaking babysitter tended the wee ones. Truly, the husband and I could have sat on the street curb and been happy with the relief from constant chatter, bickering and physical assault by our darling children. However, we did not sit on the curb, but instead attended a chamber music concert in a stranger’s home. Dicey.

Truly, watching an intimate performance in a stranger’s living room, eating their homemade food and sitting with unknown guests is a T-O-T-A-L crapshoot. Believe it or not, it was fabulous. The musicians were great and the company at our table was cosmopolitan and wonderfully interesting. I wish they were my friends forever! Now, in addition to holding onto to the inspiration of Edward Swift, who I ran into on the street this afternoon, there is one more reason for me to be happy in San Miguel.