Sonia

Sonia is a bit of a mystery.  We met her a while back when a small group of women came to visit Tonya in regards to her mother.  That is about it.  Odd, because after the first time she came over and had coffee and chatted, we both said how much we liked her.  After that visit, she had rang a few times and chatted with Tonya, but we had not seen her anymore.

Last week we were invited to another friend’s house for tea and then ‘something stronger’.  Sonia showed up.  Again after our time talking and gossiping, we left thinking how we must keep up a relationship with Sonia.  Tonya muses aloud, “How do these ladies even know my mom?”

Today, while in the middle of a heated discussion the phone rang.  Tonya went and looked at the caller ID, she didn’t recognize the number and said she would not answer it, and then she suddenly picked up.  I could tell by the change in her voice something had caught her off guard.  She hung up and said, ‘That was Sonia, she is on her way over.  She said she has something she wants to give us” and with that, a full scale clean up was underway.  In a flash, the place was back to a state of decency and our once heated talk was obviously put on ice.

Sonia comes in with a magazine in hand.  She is older, and moves slow and carefully.  I ask her where she would like to sit, and offer her my seat. “It’s OK” I tell her, “We have plenty of places to sit” She sits and asks for a bit of water.  Tonya fetches her a glass and we all pull our chairs up to the table and begin. One of the first things up was Tonya asking, “How do you all know my mom?”

In our last visit (over tea and…) we had talked about a certain town we wanted to visit.  Sonia had just gotten a new cooking magazine and it just so happened that the cook who puts this magazine out had just visited the place we want to visit.  Sonia saw this and thought we would like to read about it.  “Do you like pasta?” she also asks.  Little does she know that we are fiends for pasta, “Look.  There are many nice recipes in there and even a story about the history of pasta” Perfect.  She is after our hearts, and we have similar notions on her.

She asks about the dogs.  She is a big dog fan, and was quite stricken with our herd.  I had told her last time we saw her, she is welcome anytime…even if it is just to say hello to the dogs.  I was actually quite surprised at our last visit, that one of the first things she asked about was the dogs.  Obviously, she is a dog lover.  She was holding some papers all this while.  She lays them on the table and says, “I know you probably already know everything about Greyhounds and Whippets, but I saw this in a National geographic and I copied it for you to read” and she hands us the articles. I was thrilled!  This in turn, led to a lengthy discussion about dogs.  Tonya tells her about some footage we had just seen from the recent Japan tragedy, where a dog sat diligently by the side of his wounded friend, another dog.  It was amazing footage, as the healthy dog reaches over at one point, like he was human, and actually petted the wounded dog, as if to calm and reassure him.

As we sit and talk, Sonia starts to unravel.  She is very interesting indeed.  She was a big fan of PBS, and heavily into Masterpiece Theater.  She told us of how upset she was when Mexico quit carrying the channel.  She loves music, and started to tell a tale about Beethoven.  This leads to talks about Steinways, and she reminisces about her time in New York as a young woman, the Steinway manufacturing place in New York City.  

How we go from Steinways and Beethoven to earthquakes, I don’t know.  Personally, I am always curious to ask the natives here about ‘the big one’ in 1985.  Yes, she was here, yes she felt it too.  I am more than happy to get a brief history lesson and first hand encounter of the event.  Interesting to hear her side, as she sat in her home with no power and received phone calls as her relatives found out more from the radio, which buildings had collapsed and which parts of town were demolished.  She said although she felt it on this side of town, she had no idea of the horrors that had truly taken place.  The devastation was unimaginable, as was the loss of life.

Sonia speaks very good English.  I ask how she manages to stay up on it.  She tells of how she learned it (from magazines) and the help from PBS and other English television shows.  By the time she went to New York, “I felt totally comfortable with English” she says, it was almost second nature to her.  “I love to read, ever since I was a little girl I read all that I could” she adds, obviously the endless piles of books enforced her ability.  She loves French too.  However, as an older lady, she says the friends she had who spoke French have either moved away or died.  She tells an interesting story of how her mother spoke French and took her to France as a young girl.  She was mesmerized by Paris and seeing her mother talk to everyone on the train. “When I get back to Mexico, I am going to learn that language” she said.  She was very determined, and used the same methods as she had with English.  She admits that as a young girl she had loved many French songs she had heard, but had no idea what they were saying. “I knew words” she says, but not the meanings.  She smiles and then recounts of how as she learned French, she could finally understand the songs she used to sing.

I have been asking her intermittently if she would like coffee or tea.  Each time she politely refuses.  I excuse myself and tell her I am going to make myself one.  A few minutes later, when the water is ready I ask once more.  She concedes, “I would love a coffee” she says.  This catches me off guard.  All along she has declined, so I opt for the bachelor style, instant coffee.  I stand in the kitchen and blurt out, “It’s Nescafe”.  She yells back, “It’s ok”

We move on to food.  Tonya has been toying with the idea of opening a small place.  “I know this Italian girl who opened up a small place near where I work” she says. “She serves lovely pasta and lasagnas.  I will have to introduce you to her” she tells Tonya.  I ask her if the place she is speaking of is the one I am thinking of.  It is!   The conversation turns to the owner and her little dog and how she has expanded her restaurant. 

I ask Sonia about some historical places in the part of town where she works, in Coyoacan.  I find myself gathering facts and trivia about this city on an almost weekly basis.  Yes, I pride myself at my Mexican historical knowledge and trivia…even if I hate the language and battle it on a daily basis.  There is another small church there, that Cortez had built as well as the famous house where he murdered his mistress.

This is a perfect situation that illustrates what I do love about meeting people here; Sonia smiles and tells me with great detail about how to find this small park, and in this park is where she believes the small church is.  Now, with raised eyebrows, she tells me “The house you ask of, where Cortez murdered his mistress, my aunt lives in that house”  She is smiling and continues on, “I will talk to her and arrange to take you two there to see it”. Amazing.  Wait though, the historical lineage gets crazier.  Her aunt studied under Diego Rivera and her husband studied under Frida Kahlo.  He was one of the three ‘Fridos’, as they call them, a select few artists who became famous after studying with Frida.  She tells us some more historical background about how the couple met and other odd facts about the whole ‘scene’ at the time.

A few hours have now passed since Sonia showed up bearing gifts.  “I hadn’t planned on staying long; I wanted to get home before it got too dark.  I am sorry if I took too much of your time” she says.  I don’t know about Tonya, but I shoot down the nonsense with a brisk, “Never. Sonia, we loved having you here.  You come over anytime” She says again, how she is excited about taking us to eat lasagna and meeting the Italian lady at the restaurant.  We all agree that this is a great idea.  She gets up and walks to the couch.  She reaches out to Winston, as he stands to see what is going on.  She talks softly to him and pets him with great tenderness.

As we walk her to the door, we see it is pretty dark, too dark for an older woman to walk home in. We tell her we will give her a ride, and she says not to go out of our way.  It is no big deal.  I run up and grab my keys and walk with her out to the car.  This has been a very unexpected and pleasant surprise to say the least.

Fear of Flying

I hate flying.  I am not too sure why, aside from the fact that you are at a complete loss if the plane goes down. Everything is left up to those two guys sitting up front, and they have you a long way up off the ground.  Those simple thoughts aside, I think it is more down to a comfort thing as far as I am concerned…well, that and a few more neurotic points.

I recently flew home and came face to face with this recurring fear.  Of course, it does not help to quell ones’ nerves when you walk into the airport restroom for one of many pre-flight nervous pees and a little sweaty Mexican is standing in the corner by the sink, staring blankly in the mirror and clutching a beat up old guitar.  I catch sight of him as I walk in.  I do my business and as I step up to the sink I watch him in the mirror.  He stands there.  Sweat is running down his face.  He is holding his guitar in front of him.  He closes his eyes every so often then re-opens them to be petrified that he is still there and waiting on his flight too.  To me, he looks like a poor villager.  Perhaps this is his first flight.  I am just as scared as he is, but I am not freaking out in a public bathroom.  Still, I feel for the guy.

I sit in the waiting area, moaning about how Mexico City’s airport sucks.  It is hot in here and this place has no water fountains.  How can you relax in an atmosphere like this?  The nervous Mexican from the restroom walks past me.  I nudge Tonya and say, hey!  That is the guy I told you about” She says something typical like, “Oh…poor thing”

As our boarding time nears, Tonya points at the pilots about to board our plane. “Look.  Do they look drunk to you?  It looks like somebody had a drink to me!” she says. Great.  The flushed faced kid and old drunk are going to be in charge of my life now.  I squirm in my seat and try to stay cool, “Nah. Not really” I say in hopes that it will erase whatever amount of drinks they may have had.

I dreaded this flight because our seats were in the second to the last row.  I was going to be seated by the window.  I need an aisle seat.  I knew I would be uneasy for the flight.  On the bright side, I console myself with the proven statistics of the safest place to be on a plane if it goes down is at the back.  This is not the place to be when you are 6’7” and have very long legs.

Oddly enough, the panicked Mexican guy I saw in the bathrooms comes walking down the aisle.  He stows his old beat up guitar in the overhead compartment midway down the plane, and nervously makes his way towards the back.  Yes, the nervous guitar player’s seat is on the last row, directly behind me.   I wonder if he will start crying or freaking out during the flight, Lord knows he was feeling pretty scared when I saw him in the restroom.

Our take off was a bit odd.  As the plane flew down the runway, it tugged form right to left and wobbled as it left the ground. “Amateur” I thought, “I hope he gets his act together by the time he lands” It is while in mid air that I start to realize why I am afraid of flying.

I hate being cramped.  I hate breathing others peoples exhaled air. I hate smelling other people because on a plane, they usually do not smell nice.  I hate worrying who will sit next to you.  We were lucky.  A nice lady who sat quietly and worked on her computer the whole time.

I dread airplane food.  I read story after story about whole planes full of passengers falling ill from some rotten food they ate. Me?  I never will touch anything remotely related to seafood while flying.  I worry about what if I eat this chicken sandwich and get sick?  Chances are, everyone who eats them will get sick and that means we will all be vying for toilet time all at once.  This frightens me tremendously.  I pull my stale buns apart and pick at the cheese.  Surely that is pretty safe…I even eat a few bites of the stale bun.  They tried to be ‘gourmet’, but failed miserably.

I get nervous over silly things, especially over the fact of the line that starts building for the toilets the closer you get to landing.  I do not like feeling trapped, and a cluttered aisle freaks me out and is then compounded with the possibility of having to pee really bad on top of it.

I sat and looked out the window for most of the flight.  I was reminded again how much iPod ear buds suck when you fly.  Your ears hurt and you don’t get to hear your music.

The landing was rough.  Just as in the take off, he drops the plane then stalls, and it pulls from left to right.  As we hit the runway the plane jerks from side to side and he hits the brakes.  Perhaps Tonya was right, the young pilot was flush from just having tried several types of tequila before taking the wheel.

Our flight is delayed about 40 minutes or so for our trip home. Delayed flights make me nervous too.  I start to question why the plane is late?  Will they have time to do the pre-flight inspections?  Will the pilot and crew be all hasty and irresponsible?

This flight back brought a new fear into my book.  This time we had the very last row and on the same side.  This flight taught me the fear of sitting at the back when truly provincial Mexicans get on board.  I now appreciate those cultures that fly regularly and understand in cabin etiquette and behavior.  When I saw the old wrinkled lady with skin like leather walking down the aisle, I sensed it would be trouble.  Her grey hair in two braids and a small infant slung over her chest in a blanket tied around her shoulders.  Obviously, by carrying a baby in this ancient manner, she was new to this flying game.

I could hear a kid screaming and crying but never saw him.  The old lady had a younger girl with her, obviously her daughter.  They stood in the aisle and raffled through their boarding passes, all the while, the younger girl kept shouting at the crying kid who was seated apart from the confused parents and grandma.  The rest of the passengers were all standing prone, while these bumpkins yelled at the crying kid and at each other.  We had not even taxied yet and I was about to go ballistic.  Finally, a stewardess yelled at the simple folk and told them to get their act together.  The horde behind them were getting red with anger too, as you could see the agitation as they veered from side to side to peer down the aisle to see what was causing the problem and who was crying.

I started to think this flight would be a nightmare.  I was worried that after the stewardess yelled at them, the old lady carrying the baby in the ancient Mayan way would sit next to us in the empty seat.  Thank God, no!  Some young Mexican girl with ripped jeans and streaked hair was our guest.

For the trip back, we had ice cold turkey sandwiches with a small bag of baby carrots.  No iPod ear buds either. I had come prepared and bought a new pair of headphones while in Houston.  Tonya read her People magazines and new cookbooks and I listened to a bit of music and got a sore neck staring out the window.  Overall, the flight back was ok, but alas, a new lesson was learned.

Never put an old Mexican woman without flying experience in the very last row with a window seat.  As soon as the flight landed and came to a halt, she stood and complained.  She did not understand that 30 rows of seats in front of you had to clear out before you did.  She motioned with her hands and looked like she was about to cry as she argued with the passengers beside her.  She wanted out, but refused to see that the whole aisle was full of people and us chumps at the back could do nothing but sit and wait.  Once again, a stewardess had to yell at the old woman, who still stood defiant and complained, even though she would end up waiting until even after we had emptied out of the plane.