SMA: “M” Does NOT Mean “Men”!

So, a funny thing happened to me on the way to the Forum…

Well in reality a lesson in paying attention and using my brain.  I did neither in this instance and wound up walking into the then deserted “Mujeres” which if it had remained deserted would have been ok (with me anyway).  As it was, I failed to note the lack of purely male facilities, proceeded to a stall and thence to wash my hands.  As I was doing so I noted a chap in front of the mirror primping hair and such.  “Funny, odd thing for a man to do” I thought and while washing my hands noted that the man had quite shapely hips, for a man, and high heels and was now adjusting his bra… “Oops”  I thought as the “man” noticed me, with some shock, in mid-adjust, I am in the wrong room!

Since this was several weeks ago my ability to say much in Spanish was limited to things like “I need…”, “I want…” and “can I have…” none of which were appropriate at this moment (I might have gotten slapped).  I shrugged, (s)he shrugged, I left the room to face the laughter of the table nearest said room that was waiting for my grand re-entrance.  More shrugging, a grin or two and I sauntered casually past my mockers with as much grace as I could muster.

Since then I have been more careful and have learned not to take directions given by well-meaning people at face value.

Darcie and I went out to one of the local hot springs, La Gruta,  with our friends Gregg and Karen (Blackburn’s no less but not related).  La Gruta is a nicely landscaped collection of pools with the crowning feature of the eponymous Grotto (la Gruta).  Three hours of swimming and lounging in 100F give or take water was most excellent and highly recommended to any and all that come to SMA.

The grotto itself is a man-made cave using local stones to form a large domed room accessed by a long, birth canal-like tunnel.  As you get closer to the grotto the atmosphere gets increasingly steamy, great for the lungs but not so great for waterproof cameras seemingly as ours has picked up a minor twitch in the focusing.

  

The other night was the annual Gemenid Meteor shower which promised to be pretty decent here in SMA.  We hiked up to the local botanical garden, El Charco del Ingenio, which is relatively isolated so light pollution could be expected to be lessened.  The Charco had an expat astronomer on hand and several avid amateurs who brought telescopes.  Before a thin but highly reflective cloud layer rolled in we were able to look at Jupiter which had four or five moons strung out in a line a few on each side of the gas giant which was very cool to see.  The astronomer, Phyllis who is the sister in law of my local cycling buddy Gregg, gave us a good talk about the visible constellations using a highly effective laser pointer. 

We saw a total of exactly two fabulous shooting stars which in reality are grains of sand (roughly) which are exciting/ionizing the atmosphere through which they are passing. When we got home we saw three more shooting stars before the cloud layer got too thick to see anything.  A bit disappointing but there you go.

Monday I had a very frustrating time with my homework.  Seemed like I had gone backward more than half the time.  I finally gave up in disgust and went for a walk with Darcie around town before returning home to wallow in self-pity and read some Mexican history (and some yummy mystery-meat tacos (mystery since I couldn’t understand what the lady told me).