mary eats

“Is this your first time in Cabo?” The lady in the seat next to me asked.
“Yes.” I replied in a tone that neither expressed excitement nor intrest.
“Oh,” she said, her eyebrows raised in excitement. “You’re going to just love it.”

Mexico and I have never been friends.

Though thousands of Americans are drawn to beaches and underage drinking, and thousands of Mexicans are drawn to higher wages, Mexico and I are like oil and vinegar (me being extra virgin olive oil imported from Tuscany and Mexico being two bit hintz white vinegar). That is until my mother-in-law flew me down to join her and Kevin for a week in Cabo (something she is no doubt regretting as she has twice desperately lost to me at scrabble).

After nine weeks of cramming the most arcane of culinary information into that little 12% of my brain that actually gets used, I have hit the wall (didn’t take long, did it?). I don’t know what is going on, really, I never got good grades before (but let me tell you I, though lucky to be harboring somewhere around a 3.0, considered myself right along up there with my friends who got accepted to ivy league schools and scored 1400 on their SATs. It isn’t that I didn’t get accepted to Stanford, I just didn’t want to go there). My misunderstood genius was redirected into making out with my boyfriend or memorizing lines from Samuel Becket plays for upcoming debate tournaments).

I can understand that it is confusing for my family and friends to see me so determined, so intent on a 4.0, so focused on my studies. One friend, in particular, I won’t name names, but we’ll see if she even recognizes I’m talking about her, reminds me, on an almost daily basis that I never used to be like this. “Mary? What happened? You were never like this in high school, organized, and all doing your homework.” But I’ll wear her compliment, “you’re the cutest perfectionist I know,” with pride. The point is this. I want to enjoy my good grades, my success in class, not be made to feel embarrassed for it. And then there is the counter point. Maybe I’m taking this all to seriously. This is school afterall, and not, as my chef reminded me after confessing my bleeding heat, “the CIA.”

I don’t claim to be Jerri Blank, but I am confident that my resolute sense of responsibility stems from hitting the glass ceiling in the world of coffee, glass bottom of the coffee cup so to speak? I have been 23, thinking I was the cat’s meow, but only making 7.25 an hour. Not exactly the place I imagined my BA in the Arts would find me. I guess that is why my classmates like to poke fun and snicker when I get frustrated at their complete lack of responsibility, or try to contest a missed question on a midterm.

Finally getting in a verbal spat with one after one too many of his “I’m just teasing,” got me on the first day of my period. I really hate that our menstrual cycle so often takes the blame, or truly is the cause, of outbursts, emotions, or rage induced flurries. But sometimes it can’t be helped, ( I have a 28 day long fuse) and last Tuesday was one of those days (I’m blaming my 93 on the quiz on it).

So here I am in Mexico, sipping on margaritas Kevin has spent the week perfecting, trying to “do nothing,” to relax. Cabo is a funny place. Too many American tourists, clad in novelty t-shirts, baseball caps, and sport sandals to allow me my usual combing of alleyways and markets (haven’t found a market yet, come to think of it), so I’ve sequestered myself to our junior suite kitchen, fixing up tortilla soup, chicken and greens in tomitallo salsa, and grilled tiger shrimp. Sometimes cooking is stressful to the point of wanting to flip the sauté pan across the room while yelling obcenities then pull out a package of frozen kimchi mondu in defeat, but other times like this week, cooking quietly puts things back in order, allowing one little successes, a round of compliments from snackers, slowly rebuilding what before came crashing down.

Kev demonstrates how to infuse lime into a beer cabo style.

Does this mean I will return to class fresh faced passing out smiles to those that perturb me beyond belief? No. But at least sinister thoughts of how I can sabotage their Chef Of The Day final will have subsided.