Random Bitching

This is the second weekend I’ve spent laid out sick in bed. I woke up feeling worse yesterday and stayed home all day, leaving my room only to eat. Today I feel a little bit better, but only a little. I still have a cough that’s going to give me a six-pack if it doesn’t break me in half first. The result of all this is that I actually have very little to update with. My friends have invited me to go out a couple of times, but I’ve been sick for ten days now, so I’m refusing to go out until I get better.

Got up this morning and had breakfast by myself, since mom was getting her weekly massage from the girl that comes to the house. About an hour after I ate, she knocked on my door and told me to come eat. I explained that I already had, but she told me to come downstairs anyway, and insisted that I have tea and more bread, and made me another one of those awful combination juice-Parmalat drinks. I asked how she slept in reply to the same question, and she told me she slept with María del Camino, her granddaughter, who had come over obscenely early this morning. It’s quite common here for people to share their bed with random relatives, but I still find it a little freaky. I can’t imagine sleeping in the same bed as my grandma!

Camino ate lunch with us, and I still can’t figure out whether she’s just shy or doesn’t like me. I get along pretty well with her younger sister Isabela, but Camino hardly ever talks to me, just to Lucía. On the rare occasion that she does ask me something, I usually don’t understand it the first time, but when I say I don’t understand, she doesn’t slow down or speak any more clearly, just repeats herself. Maybe she’s frustrated with me being the stupid gringa who doesn’t understand anything…

Mom is starting to drive me a little nuts, too, but I’m sure that will be fixed when I can actually get out of the house again and not eat all my meals here. She means well, of course, but she’s impatient and often seems not to listen or pay attention. She’ll call me to come down to the kitchen and eat, and I reply that I’m on my way, and she immediately calls for me again. I end up having to yell really loud to get her to hear me, and then I feel bad for yelling in the house.

She also has that classic “Italian-mother” tendency of trying to force me to eat more. I eat plenty here, but she’s always trying to get me to take more food. After I’ve already finished lunch, she’ll offer me every plate and pitcher on the table in turn, and I have to politely refuse every one in turn because I’m already stuffed. Normally all this stuff wouldn’t bother me, but while my body is still sick and content to hang around the house, my mind is perfectly fine and really wants to be elsewhere.

A random picture of me and Mark at Azuca (Mark was from the Delaware group):
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh276/keskipper/100_1329.jpg