Once again, John and I had a busy week, and are happy about having a Sunday with absolutely nothing to do but relax.
The week started with me taking a TDYer from Monterrey to the outlet mall so she could catch up on some U.S. shopping, followed by a delicious gordito lunch at The Little Diner – which always reminds me of our former neighbor here, Martha, because she’s the one who first introduced us to it. We also made another trip to El Paso on Tuesday night with another TDYer from Merida – his wife will be happy to have some corn starch and a flour sifter – things she hasn’t been able to find down there.
Monday night we had book club at our house. The book this month was about the femincides in Juarez – we had an interesting discussion, but it was a terribly written book (“The Killing Fields“). If anyone is interested in reading about the murders, “Daughters of Juarez” was better.
Wednesday we had another professional development event at the CG’s house, this time to talk with the visiting gentlemen from the Office of the Inspector General. They joined the Foreign Service back in the 1970s and had a lot of interesting advice and observations.
We’ve also had two enjoyable dinner parties – on Thursday we went to Whitney and Ali’s for raclette – it’s basically a little grill that sits in the middle of the table – you toast raclette cheese underneath it, grill sausages on top, and eat it with boiled potatoes. Ali’s Swiss, so she always has interesting things going on!
Last night we went to Tom and Beth’s for dinner – they made a mini-Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey and dressing. It was a lot of fun, and we got to meet their neighbors, a Mexican-Swiss couple.
We were surprised that we didn’t have trick-or-treaters at our house Friday night – we finally gave up on the kids and we went to Michael and Teresa’s to trick-or-treat them for a cocktail.
Yesterday John and I had a really enjoyable outing. We drove over to Las Cruces where John went to his favorite used bookstore and I wandered around the farmers’ market (I bought some yummy green chile sourdough bread). Then we wandered around the town square in Old Mesilla, where they were having their Day of the Dead celebration. Families had altars set up to honor their dead (including favorite pets) – it was interesting and moving. Just from looking at the altar, you get a feel of the person, because the families put favorite foods, hats, photos, etc.
On the way home, we took the backroads through the pecan orchards, which was really relaxing and shady. Along the way, we found a corn maze that we want to go back to.
Today will be a great stay-at-home day. I ran up to the grocery store and got ingredients to make a pork stew with ancho chiles – I’ll let you know how it turns out!