Thursday

Tomorrow is Sunshine's birthday. To celebrate, we had a nice little dinner at Genoma with some friends (Sunshine's crepe dessert came with "Feliz Cumpleaños" written on the plate in syrup), and now we are streaking out the door to make our midnight bus to Tampico. Cross your fingers, because our plan is to then get on the dark am bus to Xilitla (hee-LEET-la) from Tampico, so we can spend Sunshine's birthday weekend here. We do not, of course, have more than a rudimentary idea that this is even possible, and we may end up taking a two hour cab ride. At, like, five am. Anyway, this update column will be going dark for a few days while we are out of town. In the mean time, keep your eyes open for these news items: ALMO is coming under fire from both sides for the opposition shutdown of three key streets in Mexico City (the backlash is beginning); the protest went so far as to bar access to the stock exchange building today, although this does not seem to have further hampered trading. Not that AMLO isn't getting some tacit approval from the seven members of the tribunal deciding election matters: they have chosen to possibly consider caving to his recount demands. All this while AMLO supporters have announced that they are going to close the international border between Matamoros and Brownsville tomorrow morning (Friday). Now that the tropical storm that had been threatening the oil platforms in the Gulf seems to have called it quits north of Hispaniola, the political situation is dominating the news again. [Cavin]