Monday

Yesterday I hinted my concern about the chances we'd be completely moved out by this evening, citing the whole lot of our stuff that still remained unboxed. Apparently, the movers were worried, too: this morning at nine am four workers showed up instead of the usual two. They worked diligently until five pm, but they still did not get everything packed, let alone loaded onto a truck. They will be returning tomorrow morning. Tomorrow makes day four. Sunshine will be back at work so it will fall to me to have the last several influential Spanish conversations with people who kind-of control our future. Is that dramatic? After they left, Sunshine and I went to eat at a salad restaurant with no vegetarian food; and then, after her meal, we went to the local fish restaurant for mine. Here I noticed there was a little auxiliary menu with "oyster shots." Close your eyes for a second, picture an oyster shot. This will work particularly well if you have actually had one--but here, I'll help: a shot glass with either beer, vodka, or some other type of less-flavored clear liquor, lime juice and Tabasco, raw oyster. I love oyster shots, so I ordered one. What I got was four oysters in a four-ounce thick-bottomed juice glass. They were chilled, swimming an a ounce of cold tequila at the bottom of the glass. Layered on top was hot vegetable broth with floating onions and fresh parsley. The two levels don't mix together because of the different chemical and temperature properties. The "shot" was great, by the way. I'm pretty sure I'd like this better than the shots I'm used to--if only it was possible to shoot them. But it's difficult to chug a half-a-cup of scalding tequila soup. [Cavin]