Ok darling faces.

Much ado in the last little bit and much that makes me happy. I've been ever so miserable at work and had determined that I was desperate for a change so I've been trolling online for job openings in Chicago or somewhere around here or there or what have you. On Monday I had an interview with a company based in Riyadh and am now the happy new hire set to begin teaching English online to Saudis next month.

Pretty excited about this and also a little curious because it will be my first time both as an online teacher and as a teacher of English to Arabic speakers. For that matter it will be my first time teaching non-Spanish-speakers. I'm expecting good things, though, and can already tell that my supervisor is a million times better than her current counterpart.

This Monday I have another interview for a job as a high school trip leader to Costa Rica. That would be for the summer and of course it too would be quite delish. I imagine I'd be put in the Spanish immersion program and would get a new shipment of tweens every couple weeks or so to dazzle with my expert conjugation of the verb gustar. I think it's a long shot but we'll see.

I'm also waiting to hear back on an application I sent out a couple weeks ago for a Fellowship beginning this fall in Athens. It would be teaching English and in turn I could enroll in any of the classes at the university and would have free Greek lessons as well. I've been practicing my Greek alphabet and almost know all my letters.

The trip planned to Michoacán is currently being arranged. I have to figure out first if I'll have internet access to teach, and because of the time change to the Middle East, my classes are 11pm to 3am, meaning no internet café.

Then there's also Carnaval starting tomorrow evening.

Life here is pretty quiet. Monday through Thursday focused on work, Friday I have the house to myself while the boys are at work, then usually happy hour in the evening. The rest of the weekend is some whatnot or the other but usually not too crazy. Last weekend was a friend's birthday and he had a big party complete with a surprise performance from a mariachi band. I tried the chile salsa and nearly died, then made the mistake of clawing at my eyes in pain and spreading chile poison into them. They say that if you put a napkin in your mouth it will take away the heat and normally that works for me but in this case I was a goner. It occurred to me bread + milk = relief, so I was rubbing my tongue with birthday cake and vowing never to do such a thing again, while the guys were doing the same minus the vows and replacing them with more bites of the chile. Now I know that I tried that shit but I think I can't be blamed because I didn't realize it was poisonous and anyway it looked good like nice innocent green pico de gallo or something. But why do they do this to themselves? I like spicy, but I don't understand why. Is this an evolutionary thing? Masochism? Do I think this is an interesting commentary to be included on the update of my life? No, I do not. And yet I wonder.

Manchas is doing quite nicely. Last week she became a woman and was bleeding all over the house from her bum-hole. Pee outings became traumatic when a neighborhood's worth of strays would follow us eagerly at a barely restrained distance of nose to ass. Manchas spent two evenings at the school with me this week and of course everyone adored her because she's the most precious thing on the planet. Right now she's chewing quite noisily on tortillas I gave her and I think more likely it's the accumulation of both tortilla one and two because I'm telling you, I'm not sure how that squeak is possible and I think at any given moment I should be prepared to give her the heimlich. Fortunately when you type "heimlich" into google to check your spelling (I spelled it right), heimlich for dogs is the fourth search term to pop up and now I know but anyway the tortillas have disappeared and she's done squeaking so I think we're in the clear.

Also I'm issuing an official denuncia on my old landlord because he's a terrible human being. You would not believe the dickbag. I waited two months-ish to get my deposit from him because he was in Mexico City. Finally he comes back and Mono comes with me to talk to him because I know he's going to be difficult. Yeah, he's a machismo asshole prick and was so rude to me but fluttered his eyelashes like a bunny rabbit to Mono. He says he's only going to pay me a fifth of what he owes me though, only I'll have to come back a different day for the cash. Mono goes back the different day because I'm going to murder this guy, and now he's reduced it 40% and also nope, don't have the money today. Mono goes back the NEXT day, sees Guillermo in the window, calls out good afternoon (he promised me he'd only keep up the polite act until the money was forked over and then he'd call him out like the bitch he is). Only Guillermo the buttmunch goes and hides in his house and refuses to come outside. So I'm doing the denuncia and also sending very very bad karma thoughts his way.

All in all I'm in a much better mood today because of the job change, Guillermo notwithstanding. It's getting hot hot hot again so earlier today I got to use the pool at our apartment for the first time, along with of course a book and a dog in the perfect combination of outdoorsy bliss. In a couple hours I'm going to Jeanie's for happy hour and best of all the medicine I've been using to get rid of the fungus growing on the top of my left foot seems at least to be mildly effective. I have to sweep up the bedroom later today because it's littered with confetti scatterings of the various items Manchas rescues from the garbage can and tears into a thousand splendid pieces. The cutester has a penchant for finding the most harrowing bits of somethings in the garbage, so the weekend plans as well include the procurement of a close-top trash can.

I guess that's really all I have for now but please pay close attention to the wrinkles on Manchas' forehead because they make my heart drip with honey-flavored adoration and love. <3