End of July Already - How Time Flies

Finished my pool-room floor several weeks ago. I am now trying to get my game back to where it was. I actually still have a number of little things to do around the room but can’t seem to find the time or the ambition while the table beckons.

We had a rain Friday night that was the mother of all rains. Canal street was a river, (could that be where it got its name?). It must have been two feet deep as it raged to the lower end of the street past the pub in which I was stranded. Couldn’t get home till after one. That is my story and I am sticking to it. My front door is wet and swollen. If we get much more I may have to get out the planer.

I am planning to go with the Audubon group to Jalapa and environs in the province of Veracruz this fall for a five-day look at the birds in the area. I am looking forward to seeing that part of the country.

Mexican legend Cuauhtemoc Blanco will make his Major League Soccer debut on Sunday with the Chicago Fire - playing against Toronto. The America’s striker was scratched from the Mex Selection for the World Cup last year (rumour had it that he was not a “team player”) and has had ongoing injuries, but his new contract with the Fire guarantees him about $3milllion in the first year so I guess he will be alright. He says his wife is not as famous as Becker’s but just as beautiful. USA soccer is clearly betting a bundle on making soccer a household game to watch.

Mexican’s are treated to quite a lot of Canadian TV programming. The “Human Cargo” and “Intelligence” series along with “DeVinci” aren’t bad, but the life story of Tommy Douglas?? Actually Mx TV is a riot. I watch a morning program while reading the mail. A guy and 3 babes animate my program of choice. The women look more like they are from Sweden than from Mex. They run the full gamut of issues apparently vital to all Mexicans – sex, fashion, Hollywood, sex, babies, Soaps, astrology, futbol, food, sex, health, nutrition and sex. Some of it would not play too well on Cdn TV I am guessing but walk by any tienda in town and the attendants are watching.

The fashion loop often includes bikinis and lingerie modeled by some very foxy 18 year olds - the catcalls and whistles from the camera and production team are audible and appreciated. Health and nutrition is usually about the figure and these segments either include elaborate interviews with hawkers or are followed by advertisements from hawkers selling things like “liftys” –tape designed to lift sagging breasts and return every woman’s figure to what it was at 18 – invisibly! At no extra cost, included in the package are a dozen “niplets” that are apparently pasted on over unwanted protrusions in that area – I trust someone will blow up that plant; or some vibrating gadget designed to return every woman’s figure to what it was at 18 - in 2 weeks or less or your money back; or a new fangled corset manufacturer who’s product, using space-age material, will reduce any figure by at least two sizes and take out all the unsightly rolls, folds and bulges to make one look 18; or specially constructed jeans for a "tighter more natural fit" that will make any woman’s rear end look like it was when she was 18 – before and after pics leave no doubt; or creams, dyes, elixirs, ebullient and scents designed to make us look, and feel, like 18. Clearly what you see and what you get in this country are often different. Is it like this elsewhere? I digress.

The whole show is interspersed (under the guise of “health” one supposes) with frenetic dance sessions led by an 18 year old, scantily clad drill sergeant who forces the hosts to overexert themselves to blaring socca, salsa or the latest Mx equivalent.

Discussed at length, with relevant clips, are the events the day before in the current soaps - which is doing what to whom and the torrid (always) drama of it all. This might be followed by a run through by the resident expert of the signs of the Zodiac and what it all means for that day. Then a sexologist comes by to help everyone match their libido to that of their latest squeeze – usually followed by some huckster with the required herbal remedy, pill, book, or specialist to make it easier.

This is all done with unabashed commercial intent with the hosts themselves often holding up the product in question and extolling its virtues. I am not making this up.

And did I forget Hollywood, which can now be combined with the inevitable futbol piece now that Beckam and his star wife (ex-Spice Girl) are residents there, not to mention Blanco (see above). The antics of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are followed in detail, as are those of a dozen others, including the hottest Mex entries of course – while the, always over-excited, hosts discuss how “guapo” or “guapa” they all are. Oh, and then there is the required 30 second news break where the latest events of the world are covered comprehensively, followed of course by the scantily clad weather girl who exclaims excitedly that Mex will, for the most part, be sunny and warm. You gotta love it.