A Mexican Touch

It was a lovely lazy day: first I got a massage from Hilda at the gym, followed by water walking with Bob in the pool. On the way home, a stop in Chinatown for Vietnamese sandwiches. We ate them at the dining room table, first picking out all the Jalapeno peppers. The sandwiches are delicious, mainly because of their crunchiness -- what with the Daikon radishes, cucumber slices and sprigs of cilantro stuffed inside. They're also cross-cultural: pork pate is layered between the Asian ingredients, cradled between two slices of crusty French bread. The Jalapenos add a Mexican touch.

My masseuse is Mexican. As she massaged me, she told me about the Quinceanera that she attended to celebrate her niece's fifteenth birthday. "It was an old-fashioned kind of Quinceanera. My niece looked beautiful, dressed all in white. But I ate way too much." Then she told me about her recent trip to Puerto Vallarta, her birthplace. "Though I haven't lived there since I was a little girl so I really don't remember it."

She goes back for vacations and to visit relatives. "I love that place: the beaches, the sea, the blue skies, but it was so hot!!" As she talked, her massage became a bit overwrought. Her movements were nervous, her energy jangled. "Have you been getting enough sleep?" I asked.

"No, no, I have insomnia!  Ever since Mexico. It was much too hot there to sleep. Four, four thirty in the morning, I'm wide awake. I've been back to California for two weeks and it's cool here, but I still can't sleep." She calmed down as she spoke and her massage improved. Soon her magic hands were putting me to sleep. As I dozed, I dreamed of little girls running along the beach.