December 23

Will, of Will and Eleanor, calls the Tamaulipas, the Mexican state of which Victoria is the capital, "tamale upas", fully aware of his mispronunciation. He also expects Mexicans to make at least as much effort to speak English as he does Spanish. That expectation wouldn't be reciprocated in his bar and grill in South Dakota, I suspect. I have heard many times, "If they wanna live here, let 'em learn English." Eleanor is trying to learn Spanish and is doing better at it than I am.

Rosie came by at suppertime. I had a plate of enchiladas in the brand new microwave that she gave me this morning. She was all gussied up, driving her little red car that is filled to capacity with what looks like junk, and she gave me a calendar. It has a picture of a dove on a background with the bright colors of a serape, and a bit of advertising. Paz en la Terra. We exchanged "Feliz Navidad"s.

I'm prepared for Christmas. I loaded in a lot of food, I have clean clothes, new shoes, beer, tequila, and a bicycle. Those bells do sound on the half hour; they must be church bells. I'll see if I can find it tomorrow and maybe go to midnight mass, if I can stay awake that long. For the last three and a half months I've been going to bed and rising with the sun, and the habit persists.

I called Erin today, and she will be with our good friends Malcolm and Dawn for Christmas dinner, along with the usual crowd of their children and sons-in-law, and other mutual and equally good friends.

As for exchanging gifts, I got an e-mail from Emily this morning. It was thoughtful and intelligent and carefully composed, expressing her contentment and happiness with her job, her hobbies, and her man, in inverse order. She does good things in this world, accumulating and spreading good karma without knowing it, through her work against the flow of global capitalism. Her letter made me very happy, and I tried to respond in kind.