Viva La Mexico!

I just returned from vacation in Mexico, or as they call it, The United States of Mexico (yeah, totally trying to copy us). I spent my days on the beach and in the pool, sipping on margaritas, eating chips and salsa, and bargaining for cheap souveneirs.

When you sit on the beach in Puerto Vallarta, every thirty seconds a different vendor approaches you asking if you want to buy what they're selling. Their persistance is admirable... if a tad on the annoying side. If they catch your eye, you'll be talking to them for ten minutes, no matter how many "No, Gracias"'s you throw their way. And once you buy something... every vendor on the beach comes your way, as if they all simultaneously received an instant message on their Blackberries saying "American frivolous spender! Hurry now!"

So I bought sunglasses. And a wooden turtle. And two silver plated fish-shaped bottle openers. I passed on the henna tattoos and hair braiding-- though I was tempted to buy the hand-woven New York Yankees sunglasses lanyard (yeah, odd they're selling that in Mexico).

I didn't want to leave, but my employer doesn't have a Mexican bureau. So I flew back into Newark on Sunday. The man in front of me farted every five minutes. Damn Mexican food!

When I came up the escalator from Penn Station and emerged onto 7th Avenue, a mass of cabs jockeyed for position along the sidewalk. The usual line had broken down, people were running everywhere, so I saw a cab and took it ("You must never hesitate!" --Sean Connery, The Rock). As I got in, I heard a man yelling "Hey!" (Note to non-New Yorkers: "Hey!" will not get a New Yorker to look at you). A woman screamed as I closed the door, obviously ignorant of the twelve other empty cabs around her. "Shithead!" she squawked.

Ahhh. Home sweet home!

I'm sad to see, in my absence, Bush hasn't yet grown a brain. This is not a liberal comment... it's a fact. The evidence?

His deep thoughts about the escalating violence in the middle east?? "It's shit."

And then there was this embarassing event. Someone forgot to let Bush know that the sexual harassment he gets away with in the office is not appropriate for press conferences with world leaders.

What's next? He gives Kofi Annan a wedgie?