Mexico

I went to the plant in Mexico last week. Flew down on Monday, and back home on Friday. I went with two coworkers. We hadn't been there in a year and a half, which was too long. The people at the plant were grateful that were were there - it's nice to feel appreciated for a change.

I ate too much. Dinners out are always more food than I can manage, these days. Afterward, I would spend 20 minutes on a treadmill in the hotel gym. And I wasn't hungry in the morning, so had only a minimal breakfast. There's a good restaurant next to the hotel, which we ate at twice. The people at the plant took us out to eat the other two nights. Somehow I always ended up at the end of the table, sitting next to my coworkers, so it was harder to talk with the Mexican coworkers. At Thursday's meal, after a short while, I just got up and went to the other end of the table and talked with the plant manager for a while. I hadn't intended on staying there, but I did anyway. A woman from Quality arrived and sat next to me, so I talked with her a bit. Those two were the only ones I talked with, since the rest of that end of the table spoke only Spanish. They all know English, to some degree, but it was a social situation, and I wasn't very near most of them, so I was left out quite a bit. But that was OK.

In meetings, sometimes they would talk at length in Spanish (one of my coworkers was the interpreter). That's OK to a point, because they don't always know English well enough to get their point across, or to understand the issues, but after a while it gets a little annoying. That's because I don't know when they're done with a subject, and can start talking myself. Or I don't know if what I want to talk about has already been covered.

It was very hot there. A weather station at the airport, which was near our plant, said it got to 105°F every day. It felt like a furnace when we walked outside in the afternoon, but we only went between the buildings and the car, so we were never out for very long.

The flights down were very warm. Milwaukee, to Houston to Monterrey, both the planes and the airports were warm, especially the second flight. I was sweating. I wore fewer layers on the way back, but everyplace was damn cold.
The trip went pretty well on the way down. The only snag was that I didn't have phone service. I didn't even realize it until my contact didn't answer me, when I told him we had arrived. I only had data when in wi-fi, which I didn't have at the airport. Cindy tried to fix that, and seemed to have chosen the right options with our provider, but I never did get data outside of wi-fi, like I had the last time I was there.

As part of some little joke I didn't quite follow, one of the engineers there gave me a shiny 20 peso coin. I told her it was my lucky coin. Everything went smoothly on the flight home, so when I got home I told her so, and that it was because of the lucky coin. We had two hours between flights in Chicago, which, I'm told, might not be enough time for an international arrival if the lines are really bad. But it was more than enough time, and we were able to have a sandwich at a restaurant before our flight.

My one coworker and I got the same flights, so that was nice. Neither of us fly often enough to feel like we always know the deal, especially international, so it was nice to have each other there to figure things out, or at least be more comfortable with what's going on.

We'll be back at work tomorrow, following up on what we learned at the plant.

hypochondriac?

An old friend recently mentioned my hypochondria to Cindy. she and I were like, what?

It took me a while, but I may have figured it out. It's because I complain about my health annoyances. I think he doesn't think these things are worth mentioning. He works in a noisy shop, so he's got tinnitus just like me, but he doesn't think anything of it. He's probably like, sure, who doesn't have tinnitus? Why are you talking about it? Maybe? I'm just surprised he doesn't label this as complaining or whining. I mean, I'm already thought of as a complainer by some people. So I'm not sure where this hypochondriac label came from.

Interestingly, I always thought hypochondria meant one was imagining they suffered ailments. The actual definition is "a condition of extreme, preoccupying worry about having a medical disease or developing an illness." OK, so obviously, I don't have extreme worry. Or even regular worry. I'm just annoyed by it, and constantly taking precautions. Like I wear earplugs a lot, because I don't want my hearing to get worse.

the weekend

I got home from Mexico late Friday, after a smooth trip.

Saturday morning we went to the CoPA picnic. I was a nice time, though the rain started an hour early. It scattered and soaked everyone. About half of them returned from their cars when the downpour ended. We dried out partially when the sun came out.

The picnic was in Mitchell Park, which is on the grounds of the Mitchell Park Domes, our horticultural conservancy. It's been many years since I've been there, and have been meaning to go for a long time. This time, though, they had a titan arum, or corpse flower, in bloom. That's a rare occasion, so we didn't want to miss it. The flower seemed to be four to five feet high, but it was hard to tell since it was in a pot. The strange and unusual plant was in the tropical dome, which was nice to see, but I really enjoyed the desert dome. The third dome is the show dome, but there wasn't a show going on, so they just had mostly regular garden plants and trees.

the park is across the street from Cindy's sister's home, and she happened to have stepped outside when we were driving by, so we stopped and talked. Then we went to a nearby antique store. It's three floors of an old factory building. The top floor has many very old Indian and Chinese items. A lot of carved wood - furniture, masks, religious objects, etc.

Today I worked in the yard all day. It was a good day - I never had to put shoes on.

And now there's nothing on my calendar until August 11!