Thankfully, things are rolling along smoothly this week. Enid is finally healthy again, and although she passed her cold along to Robin, Robin never got too sick and seems to be on the mend now. Hopefully we can at least enjoy a week or two of good health before Enid brings home the next virus from school. We all got our influenza vaccinations last week, so maybe that will help.

Also, we all seem to be sleeping well for a change. That's been a long time coming, and has made a big difference in our quality of life. Again, it will only last until Enid gets her next virus, but we are enjoying it while we can.

The weather has turned pleasantly cool these last few days. Tuesday morning was downright cold. No complaints here though. The days have been sunny and beautiful, and I will easily endure a little morning chill if it means relief from the heat and humidity.


Last Friday Robin had volunteered to help with Enid's class field trip to the Forum (a huge, 80-day, international festival of culture and the arts that is taking place in Monterrey this year). But since Robin felt sick I took the day off work and went in her place. It was a bit of a disaster because we were supposed to arrive at school early to carpool over to Parque Fundidora (where the Forum is taking place). But Enid slept in late, and we didn't want to wake her up since she was just getting over her cold. So when she finally woke up it was too late to carpool.

I could have driven us there, but I didn't want to deal with driving and parking, especially on a Friday, so we took the bus instead. The class was supposed to arrive at 9am and visit one of the exhibits until 10am, at which time they were supposed to go to the "Rincon de la Palabra" for a storytelling show. The bus didn't get us there until just before 10am, so I went straight to the Rincon de la Palabra. We had a good time listening to the stories, but Enid's class never showed up. We found them later, just by accident, at a picnic area where they were taking a snack break. Apparently they decided at the last minute to go to a puppet show instead of the storytelling. Enid and I joined them for the snack, after which they all went home.

So we didn't really end up doing the field trip with Enid's class, but we did have a good time. After the class left we went over to the Feria Internacional del Libro, a book fair that was happening at the nearby CinterMex convention center. I'd been there the weekend before to buy some new books for Enid, and I'd noticed there were activities for kids going on. Unfortunately it turned out that M-F most of the activities were reserved for school groups. But some of the coordinators let Enid sneak in anyway and do the activities in between school groups. So it worked out okay. And we had hot dogs and churros for lunch. You can't beat that!

The skies here are suddenly full of butterflys. I think a lot of them are monarch butterflys that have migrated down here for the winter. We were up at Parque Chipinque on Sunday and you could look up in the sky and see literally hundreds of them. Even in town they are plentiful.

The trip to Parque Chipinque was partly for fun and partly to do reconnaissance for Enid's birthday party, which is coming up soon. We decided to have it at Parque Chipinque because our apartment is too small and dumpy. So we're going to make it a picnic-type affair at the park. The people we'll be inviting are mostly Enid's classmates and their families. Enid was invited to a couple of their birthday parties, but couldn't go for one reason or another. Hopefully at least some of them will come to hers. Unfortunately we planned it for November 3rd, but November 2nd is Day of the Dead. We asked someone about that before we sent out the invitations and were assured that it would not be a problem. But now somebody else has told us that many people go out of town on that weekend. So we might have to change the date. Good grief! Just what we need!

But we've got to make this party happen, because Enid's pretty excited about it. Birthday parties for kids are a big deal here (or in Del Valle at least) and I think she's been getting a lot of pro-birthday-party propaganda at school. She knows she's supposed to have a party, that it's a big deal, and other kids are supposed to come. She's even chosen a theme, which is "Winnie the Pooh and Friends". We have dutifully attempted to find appropriate party paraphernalia, such as plates, cups, napkins, and even a Winnie the Pooh and Friends cake. We were planning to get a Winnie the Pooh piñata, but (even though they had one at the store) she fell in love with a giant pink butterfly piñata instead. Amusingly, she quickly decided that she loved it too much to see it get smashed, so now it will apparently become permanent decor in our apartment. Furthermore we will have to find another piñata to smash at her party, presumably something mean looking that she won't fall in love with. Do they even make mean looking piñatas?

Enid has been sick for the past several days with a runny nose and cough accompanied by a low fever. We took her to the doctor on Saturday, and he said that it was just an ordinary upper respiratory virus and should clear up in a few days. Her fever does seem to be going away, and the cough seems to be getting better, but Sunday she had an upset stomach with diarrhea and vomiting, which was an unexpected and unwelcome complication. Today she seemed to feel better, but her energy level was rather low, so we kept her out of school. Hopefully she’ll bounce back tomorrow or the next day.

On Sunday morning Robin ran a 10K race that she signed up for about a month ago. She didn’t really feel ready for it, since she’d had a cold herself that messed up her training regimen. But she did manage to finish. The race was right here in Del Valle. Enid and I went over after breakfast and arrived at the finish line just in time to see Robin finish. That was fun.

Later in the day I took the bus over to a big book fair that was happening at Parque Fundidora. Apparently it’s an annual event. The plan was for all of us to go, but when Enid started to feel bad that became impractical. So I went alone. I was on a quest to get Enid some new books, since I’m getting extremely bored with the ones we’ve got, and the public library here sucks. The book fair was inside a big convention center, and there were dozens and dozens of publishers selling their wares. It would have been a great place to browse for Spanish books for myself, but I stayed focused on the children’s books. There were plenty, but obviously there were all in Spanish and I wanted to find some in English too. So that took awhile, but eventually I found a seller that had some. In the end I spent my 500-peso budget on a nice mix of both Spanish and English books.

Speaking of reading, Enid is starting to sound out words. It’s amazing how quickly she is growing up! New abilities just seem to appear out of nowhere. She’s getting such a personality too, and a real sense of humor. It’s fun to see. The reading thing is especially nice, because she’s always loved books and I just know reading is going to be a great pleasure for her. I don’t know if she’ll keep going with the sounding out at this point or not. Maybe once the novelty has worn off it’ll be too tedious to hold her attention. But it’s obvious that once she starts school reading will come easily to her.

Have you noticed that I haven’t talked about work yet? WELL I’M NOT GOING TO! That’s because I’m sick of work. Literally. It was driving me crazy. Other stuff probably contributed (like the sick kid) but mostly it was work. For weeks I wasn’t sleeping well, and then several days ago I started having symptoms of acute anxiety that were extremely unpleasant, to say the least. By Friday afternoon I got to the point where I was genuinely worried about my mental health (which of course made me even MORE anxious). After spending all weekend trying to get my mental and emotional equilibrium back, I’ve decided that life is too short for that kind of nonsense. So I’m reigning in my ambitions at work. No more trying to move mountains. Someone else will have to be the hero this time.

I am screwed! The University of Hawaii closed my library account. It’s not really surprising considering I haven’t worked there for almost a year. In fact I was wondering when they would do it. But I was hoping against hope that they might not close it before I moved back. No such luck. I tried to access the electronic holdings on Monday and got the dreaded message: the account expired September 30th.

It’s a harsh blow because the life sciences holdings of the ITESM are meager. I’d use the word “pitiful” but I don’t want to be condescending. Now I’m reduced to reading only the open-access online journals and the handful of journals that ITESM provides electronic access to. Plus maybe some others they keep paper copies of, if I get desperate enough. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten an article *that* way. I feel like a slinking golum who’s lost his ring of power. “Thieves my precious! They takes it from us. They takes it, but it’s ours. Ours! We wants it back!”

You can cut off my thumbs, but don’t take away my access to scholarship.

It’s probably just as well though. I’ve been spending way too much time reading lately. I mean unhealthy amounts of time. Now I have an excuse not to. Things are starting to change direction anyway. Actual work is beginning to materialize. Luis suddenly has proposals for several trials brewing and wants me to prepare detailed protocols and lists of material requirements for the molecular/genomic components. Tricky since it mostly involves techniques that I’ve never actually used before. I’m trying to rise to the challenge though. We’re hoping to get funding from some pharmaceutical companies. If we get the green light on all of the proposals it will be much more work than I’ll be able to do alone. So, trying to be proactive, I arranged to have some fliers posted on campus today to try to recruit some 3rd and 4th year undergraduates. Not an ideal source of labor, but since we’ll only have one grad student in the lab this spring (yes, one; it’s a long story) I have to take what I can get.

Last Saturday we went back to the public library at the Macroplaza. It was open this time, but guess what? The children’s section wasn’t! Only open on weekdays it seems. Also, to get a library card I not only need to show identification and a recent utility bill (which I anticipated), I also need a passport size photo, my CURP (Mexican national identification number), and the contact information and signature of a co-signer who doesn’t live with me. None of which I anticipated. And keep in mind that this is the only public library in Monterrey. Can they make it any harder to get one’s hands on a book? This is clearly not a nation of readers. Still, we had a good time at the Macroplaza, especially Enid who found a puddle of dirty water to stomp about in until her feet were soaking wet.

On Sunday we drove to Saltillo, a mid-sized city about an hour to the west, to visit the Desert Museum there. We went with my boss José and his wife, sister and niece. It was fun to see the countryside beyond the city limits. Monterrey itself is quite green, but the landscape very quickly changes to desert west of here, hence the presence of a Desert Museum. The museum itself was first-class and very extensive. Enid seemed to enjoy it a lot. Unfortunately we kind of rushed through it because José and his wife had restaurant reservations for the afternoon back in Monterrey. I’d like to go again and stay longer.