Friday

When Sunshine got off work today, the first order of business was to go shopping for the two bottles of rum and hunk of cheese that will sustain me this weekend. She'll be flying to Minneapolis early tomorrow to see her grandparents, and I will be bachelor padding it for three evenings. On the way home the radio reported that protestors were attempting to topple the steel barricades separating them from Mexico City's congressional building where the national presidential address was to happen at seven pm this evening. At home, television news frustratingly broadcast the damn speeches themselves instead of concentrating on the protest outside the building. Soon enough, it was time to go have an incredible sushi dinner at Ikkru with Olga, to which we were all late because we were paying attention to news (and traffic was bad). What happened? I had tobiko rolls, unagi don, and a jo platter, and for once I had the discipline to hold myself to one full sake instead of the usual two halves. Olga informed us that, apparently, AMLO cleverly rallied his troops well away from the congressional building, but the PRD congressmen inside (ALMO’s political party amigos) managed to block access to the podium as Vicente Fox arrived to give his speech. In a move that might play as losing this battle of wills,* Vicente Fox handed a written copy of his speech to lawmakers and left the building without taking the stage. Of course, Fox will say he refused* to address the opposition's disorderly brouhaha. Now he plans to address the nation on video, to be televised later tonight. In the wild west, Hurricane John's creaming Cabo San Lucas,* and poised to march right up the narrow Sea of Cortez, something I've never seen happen before. [Cavin]