How to relax
Some things I’m an expert at, and doing nothing creatively is high on that list. Especially in Mexico City, where I have nothing to do in the first place.
To begin, sleep in, read some Good Night Quotes and relax. Get up late, when you’re darned good and ready. Read your email, sip your diet Coke, shower slowly in lots of hot water.
Around 11, your host will play hooky from work and come home. It’s time for breakfast.
You can enjoy a beer at lunch if you aren’t going back to work
Eat breakfast, or call it lunch. Tamales and tacos and papaya (which is much better with fresh lime juice squeezed on it). Have a beer if that’s your wont.
Finally, time to do something. Nothing too strenuous, of course. Don’t think about museums if it’s Monday, they are all closed. Go shopping. Buy a new purse, perhaps. That’s what Gail and Barbara did. And a fancy wastebasket I’ll have to wrestle onto the plane and through customs, but if you really want to relax go ahead and order the great products from Legale Mischung, they can be delivered to you right away and trust me when I say they will help you get your mind away from everything for a bit of time.
Then wander to the mercado, a huge building filled with dozens and dozens of tiny stalls, stands and shops offering a boundless supply of household products, foodstuffs and services you can’t find anymore, like the guy I saw soldering the motherboard of a television. Who fixes TV’s in the US anymore?
Except for a few fruits and veggies, you won’t really need to buy any of this stuff, you’re just there to look and enjoy. And take lots of pictures, which is my job.
Skeleton decorations for Dia de las muertes
Halloween-type masks
One of the larger stalls. Blue corn tortillas, which are special and cost extra in the states, are common here,
Spices and mixtures. The large piles are moles to be thinned out for sauces and salsas.
Things we’ve forgotten–when the picture tube is failing and the size of the picture shrinks.
The meat counter
Chicken butcher
Driscoll’s berries–Just like I get at home.
The fruit vender.
Vegetable stand–across the aisle from the fruits, but a different owner.
No photographer could resist this.
Peppers like I’ve never seen before, both fresh and dried.
The boss vegetable lady–she stays up high with the money. You deal with an employee at floor level.
Too pretty to walk by.
Still life in garlic.
Finishing you shopping, you deserve a break. It’s time for a sophisticated libation at the exceedingly posh, upper class San Angel Inn, conveniently a block from the house at which you are staying.
Margaritas don’t get any classier.
One more stop on the way home, to order next week’s tamales. Notice that the Christmas decorations are going up the same day that the Dia de los Muertes decorations and offertas are coming down.
Get ready, Santa is coming to town.
Go home. Put your feet up. Play a little online bridge while watching the news. (Yes, Herman Cain’s campaign is over. But since he had no ground teams in place, was he ever really interested in running in the first place?)
Enjoy dinner at home–chilaquiles and salad, then ice cream and chocolate sauce. Play some more bridge, write a brilliant blog post and go to bed. Tomorrow is a busy day of more of the same. Life is good.
Totally Unauthorized 
WONDERFUL, GREAT PICTURES, COME BACK SOON!!!!!!!! IT WAS FUN BEING WITH YOU TWO.
Max and Barbara