by day we work on the suites, but night we´re crime fighters!

tonight´s action movie was reality t.v.--just minus the t.v...

all the action began a little after 10:30 pm, after our last constultant had left our place after tonight´s meeting. it all began with the chilling sound of glass breaking. a sound that we had heard a little more than 2 weeks ago from our neighbors´ from across the street, the municiple office of our city.

tonight´s characters, in order of appearence:
tio chuy: police reporter
tio temo: fearless thug-chaser
beka/me: thug-spotter, information informant
police truck 1:gave us not so direct direct phone number, correctly predicted that thug would return
lawyer: works for municiple office
lawyer´s friend: motorcycle driver
lawyer´s brother: tragic tripper
tia dona: vet but acting as evening´s medical professional, see ¨tragic tripper¨ above
police truck 2:chauffered captured thug to police station
thug: the unfortunate main character of this evening´s adventure


so after i told you about how we heard the guy break the glass from the municipal building, to steal the birth certificates and marriage licenses (you know how valuable those things are!), tio temo trailed the guy by foot, past the farmacia de guadalajara until he lost him, and finally the police showed up!

we missed the guy but the policia supposedly gave us their direct number and told us that the guy would come back...

so a sandwich and some papaya later, we heard more glass break!

since tio chuy had called the lawyer that works across the street at the municipal building (thankfully, she had given tio chuy her business card as 2 weeks prior their office had been robbed), she and her brother arrived in a car, and their friend on a motorcycle, just after the guy was leaving. instinctively, tio temo hopped on the back of the motorcycle of their friend and the 2 attempted to follow the guy but lost him as the rest of us waited for the police to return to the scene.

tio temo and the motorcycle guy returned and the 6 of us waited and discussed how the police had let another guy get away as they took so long to return---then i saw a large shadow move by a nearby tree, no more than 40 yards away, but thinking it was my nerves i only mentioned it casually, until the shadow broke into a mad dash and 2 of the guys went after him and the other 2 hopped in the car and followed him leaving the female lawyer and me by ourselves in the dark, although secretly i was hoping that the thug would come back so i could actually use the self-defense moves i had learned in college! thanks ms. scribner...

finally 3 police trucks stormed by, one waved at me to notify us that they were on their way...shortly after, they returned, with the guy in handcuffs in the back of the truck. we took a look at the man, to verify if it was him and we were surprised to see a very ¨gringo¨ looking guy with bright green eyes and a mustache, just like an old-western villain. he was still wearing his not so helpful disguise of a wide-rimmed beach hat and was squirming from being detained. he also showed visible signs of being on some illegal substance.

thankfully, through all this drama, no one was seriously injured, except for the lawyer´s brother that got scraped up badly from a big trip he took when his sister yelled out to him to ¨be careful¨ as he was chasing the thug by foot...tia dona was on medical duty, and we assured him not to worry as she was a vet! :)

i´m happy to report the happy ending:
tonight´s experience with the police redeemed my attitude toward them and i´m happy to say that this guy that they caught won´t be getting out any time soon. he dropped his grocery bag with what random object james bond would carry (including the keys he had used to try and break in-nice job with carrying the evidence!), but this time they didn´t help him successfully get whatever he wanted to get from the office. maybe he´s trying to nullify a mistake of a wedding from this past weekend but it looks like he´ll be having a rough night on a cement floor instead.

if my life is¨stranger than fiction¨, i hope i´m not a tragic hero.

so i just finished watching ¨stranger than fiction¨, a film about will ferrel´s character whose life is literally a book unfolding by an author who is famous for tragedies in which all of her heros die. naturally, this ¨tragic hero¨ becomes paranoid and determined to change his death by urging the author to rewrite the ending, since it´s not ¨good timing¨ as for the first time he´s actually living life, persuing his dreams, well his only dream of playing the guitar, and is in love with a someone so unlike him, someone who lives life in her unconventional ways, changing the world one cookie at a time; someone who used to hate him, but somehow has begun to fall in love with him. (here opposites do attract.)

the question of who determines our fate really started to gnaw at me...as in, do i passively wait for life to happen or do i actively persue my dreams and live?! do i merely wish good things or do i start the momentum and ¨pay it forward¨, yes another movie reference, and get the momentum started by a 1st act.

these are big questions to ponder, especially when i think about the fact that this came from a film in which the main character is warmly remembered for lines from his many snl personalities like: "we need more cowbell" or "me thinks we were eating goat meat in the fall"...thanks mr. ferrel, for making me take a more active concern about how i live my life! kinda ironic that your first name is ¨will¨!!! ironic, me-thinks...

my 3 things:

1. brie made me cry.
2. mexico: where mi casa is (and can be) your casa!
3. my new favorite website: http://passiveaggressivenotes.com/

aa brings people together!

this one goes back to last weekend, but it´s still something that i want to share and since it´s my blog, i guess i can do what i like...

so, last weekend was my last weekend in the city. my brother called me on saturday and he was asking me what i was doing and invited me to go back to boston to visit him since had the day and the next off from work. although i had just been there the prior weekend, i was sad to refuse the invitation as it was last weekend here in nyc and i had plans to go out for one last horrah with my friends.

a couple of hours later, i had gotten a crytic voicemail from my brother asking me to guess where he was. so i naturally called him back and found out that he was outside the city and he joined my friends and i as we spent the night with drinks in one hand and a bocce ball in the other.

the next morning, at aa ("all angels church"), i urge my brother to stand up and introduce himself. he doesn´t but this guy by the name of chris does. yeah, it just so happened to be chris, this guy that my brother had been friends with years ago in college! he had been living in mexico for the past 5 years and was headed to spain the following day, whereas i was heading to mexico on thursday. well, that´s not as important as he and my brother got reunited and it took coming to aa one fateful sunday to do so.
thank god for aa-and i mean that on so many levels.

top chef no longer on top.

ok, so for those that i´ve been bad about keeping in touch with, you might have heard that i was going to culinary route and had scored the oppurtunity to help the stylist on the show top chef. yeah, i´d be in chicago, one of my favorite cities around and would be apart of this fun project....but instead i optted to go back to mexico and finish what i had started. yes, i went to mexico to assist my family´s undertaking of openning up the alcazar suites, a luxe, eco-friendly place to stay while in guadalajara. my role here would be from a creative, branding end, where i help with the marketing and final details to help get this place open by november.

also, while here, i have a couple of side projects, one of which is a dream that i´m actually hoping to see through. i´ll tell you more about it once i actually get moving on it, otherwise i´ll feel like a total loser if you ask me how it´s going and i just respond with a sheepish "yeah, so about that..."

beka's awaking from her monthlong blog siesta.

i've noticed that the last blog entry was when i was still in mexico, nearly a month ago...and i've been to boston 2 times, styled a photoshoot, reconnected to people from highschool, had my sister visit, my roommate got engaged, got a subletter for my room (i'll explain this more in the next entry), cut my hair, went to a gallery opening, then got asked out by the artist's brother, celebrated 2 going on 3 friends' birthdays, and the list goes on.

so, i need to catch you up and be more disciplined about this blogging business. and i will, assuming that your patience as reader stands.

so here we go again.

this picture is worth about 400,000 people!

i need a t-shirt that says something like: i survived the line to get into the frida kahlo 100th anniversary exposition in mexico city´s palacio de las bellas artes and can live to tell you about it.

yes, this picture is for real.
yes, those are people and not ants.
and yes, i was one of the first people to get into the museum.

after hearing from my cousin, a painter here in guadalajara, that mexico city was hosting the largest, most complete exposition on my favorite feminist-mexican-surrealist artist, frida kahlo, i knew that i had to make the 6+ hour bus ride to go see it in person. sure, mexico city is one of those places that even mexicans don´t like to venture into, but somehow that heightened the adrenaline for this adventure. my uncle forewarned me that the lines had made international news, so i was aware that it might easily take 3-5 hours to even get in.

but regardless, the mission was on.
saturday (the second to last day of the exposition) morning we arrived in mexico city and quickly made our way to the palacio de las bellas artes at 7:15. there in line, i left my accomplice, stephen, to hold my spot in line as i went in search of some coffee and pan dulce. we took turns holding our invaluable spot in front of the museum and of course made friends with our neighbors. although we were over 3 hours early, the people ahead of us were there at the front door at 5am, so this experience as you could have imagined was pretty bonding. in fact, i think it put waiting for the coveted iphone to shame! there were literally thousands of people (just take another glace at the picture)-i think the news reported that there were upwards of 400,000 people on that one day, so the fact that stephen and i got inside within the first group felt like we had won the lottery!

there were snack vendors and police men, museum security guards and art fanatics. one sleazy new yorker, tried to offer us money to let him and his wife in line with us when there were clearing thousands of people behind us. proudly i can testify that we didn´t give into his offer albeit he did laugh that we actually considered it a moral matter about letting him cut in. and even if we had, we would probably have been arrested if we had given in. so yeah, one can say, frida kahlo is kinda a big deal!

after all this, i feel like i´m a part of history. i haven´t really any pictures to show you what i actually saw when i was in the museum, but i can tell you it was pretty awesome. the best i can offer you is a picture of a door that has her picture on it and a couple of postcards i picked up at the gift shop. sometimes seeing is believing. but even if that were the case, a picture is worth more than a 1,000 words.

3 things.

1. making friends that are counselors=free therapy
2. surrealism= artistic sarcasm
3. public transportation: not always safe, but will promise to at least take you for a ride.

1st anniversary.

today marks the first anniversary of the passing of my grandfather (¨abuelito toño¨). he goes down on the top of my list of the coolest, most interesting, good-hearted people of all time. okay, out of people that i have actually met in real life.

today included a list of the normal´s but ended with a family reunion/mini-feast of tamales and desserts, food and fellowship: 2 of my abuelito´s favorite things.

later tonight, as i was online, some time after midnight, i noticed my abuelita sitting down journaling something while seated on the couch. she told me that she was writing her ¨tres cosas, piensamentos, recuerdos¨. in other words, she said that she started writing 3 things down in a journal. 3 things that happened during the day. a memory, an adventure, an unexpected detail. a complaint even...so that she could remember....memory: something that i take for granted.

she inspired me. and with that, i actively decided not to wait until i couldn´t rely on my mind/memory, and would start today, with my 3 things. so with that said, when i actually remember, i will actually post my 3 things for the day with that simple title. you can decide in which category they fall into, whether good or bad. just know that i´m making an effort to actually remember them.

so my first edition of 3 things:
1. uncle ronnie left for dallas
2. zucchini bread
3. 1st anniversary

sunday is for tequila.

tequila, to most of the alcoholics out there is just a drink. it´s also happens to be a little town about 45 minutes away from guadalajara which is the birthplace of my ¨abuelita¨. we started off our daytrip at the ¨toma¨or natural spring waterfall located down the mountainside just past the village where, what-do-you-know, tequila was first invented.

after our swim at the pool at the base of the natural spring, my mom and aunt, with the aid of my dad, built a hickory fire to cook ¨carneceria¨or this amazing beef steak which guadalajara is famous for...and my uncle is still trying to convince me that is really just horsemeat, which if it is, well i say, i could definitely eat more horse.

anyways after our grilled feast and siesta (another thing i advocate to be observed in american culture), we went int0 town, got some homemade ¨paletas¨(popcicles) and i got some tequila icecream (2 things that should spend more time together). from there we headed to the jose cuervo factory, where those of us of age and interest, so a small demographic (just my sister, angie, and my brother´s friend, stephen, and myself) went on the tour. touristy, perhaps, but i can say that i now know how tequila is made and have now tasted the process along the way its made (delight numero dos for the day)-2 important keys for a successful life, maybe not. but a memory to savor.

so the next time you come visit guadalajara and you want to do something ¨educational¨, take my lead and go to tequila. drink some tequila. and love some tequila.

beka vs. the ¨vinagrilla¨

it´s a good thing that i can´t post pictures on this blog...yet. anyways you probably would think that i photoshopped the image since this thing, otherwise known in spanish as a ¨vinagrilla¨, looks like something from an nightmare. so let me describe it: it´s a 5 inch scorpion with 2 large horns and atenae and i´m convinced that it roams around, lurking to find people like me who are deathly scared of eight-legged anythings.

anyways, this thing followed me into the my grandmother´s laundry room and literally cornered me as i was screaming for someone to come rescue me. (it wasn´t a good day for wearing shorts and flip-flops!) finally, my seemingly fearless aunt, being a vet and kind to even the smallest creatures, trapped it in a tupperware container...yeah, because the little guy was thrashing its stinger at me not because it wanted to sting me but rather because it was scared of me. right!

anyways, there´s a happy ending for this villain:
she and my mom drove in a car the next day for an hour and set it free in the country. talk about pro-life. i say, if it can kill you, you´re allowed to kill it.

delayed flights and all that jazz.

the upside to delayed flights is that there is an extended opportunity to meet some (hopefully) interesting people who share at least 2 things in common with you: a.) they´re going to the same destination; b.) they, too, are going to be late. sure, i´m no stranger to the occasional late flights, but for some reason waiting for this flight was an especially entertaining one. just imagine little kids corralling together and rioting the flight attendants. ok, but instead of little kids, think about grown adults rioting, in spanish...yeah, it was all fun and games until they brought out a police force and started to escort people out. but by the midnight, we were finally on board and were on our way to mexico!


although joe and i bonded early on, sometime after hour 3 of our wait, it wasn´t until we were in line waiting to report our lost baggage that elio, a fellow new yorker finally started up a conversation with me. although i couldn´t tell if he was hitting on me, all i knew is that we had one thing in common: it was 5:30 in the morning and american airlines had officially lost our bags. anyways, he was a nice cuban guy with dreds who happened to be in mexico teaching at a music conference and to perform at this club. did i mention that he´s a jazz musician? brie would have been impressed.


well, long story, hopefully short(er)...


he called to see if i ever got my lost luggage, yes, our original connection. and asked if i was coming to the show, which i did, with my uncle and his girlfriend. i felt like a chaperon but it was fun and cultural and yes, a little smokey too. but in the end, we all had a fun and i even got a little shout-out from the stage.


so my new friend, he has a website, and you feel like some good jazz, check it out at http://eliovillafranca.net/ or go see him play live sometime. then again, he lives in nyc, so maybe you already have.

i´ve discovered the NEW biggest threat to our airport security.

it brings both a smile and a furrowed brow to my face when i recall my newest encounter with the law, more like the airport security at newark this past monday. as you might note from the picture i have generously enclosed, that the band on gels, liquids, or aerosol containers has now carried over to include boycotting sauces-YES, my organic apple sauce to be exact.

call me crazy, but when did apple sauce become the biggest threat to our airport safety? let me just say that my guffawing response didn´t go over so well with the big, burly security officer who quickly escorted me out with his plastic gloves carrying my seemingly innocent container of individually packaged apple sauce....yeah, good thing i stopped mid-sentence or who knows if they would have even let me get on my international flight...let me just say that one of my fellow passenger friends wasn´t so fortunate on our connection flight, but that is a whole different story, along with the fact that my bags got lost too.

a brief introduction.

for those of you who know me, you know that i am a person of many words....and although you discreetly roll your eyes when i would famously utter the words: long story short. i know that you do your best to listen, but now i have found a better, more efficient way to keep you posted, literally and figuratively, on the happenings of my random adventures on this path called life.

this time, you can tune in when you like. and anwser that lulling question: wait, where is beka again? and now, my roommates can be kept abreast on what i´m up to, since apparently i´m not always the best at keeping even them, in the know. sorry guys. now you know what to do when people asked you what i´m up to.

i, therefore, unofficially dedicate this blog to torey shearer. a dear friend who encouraged me to start a blog since these next couple months i´ll be all over the place, on this journey figuring out what i´m suppose to really be doing in this thing called life. don´t worry, i won´t be trying to be overly deep or profound...just keeping you in the know and sharing my antidotes and my thoughts along the way. feel free to share your thoughts.