Amusingly, my work flow went from RED ALERT to wondering if I’m ever going to sleep again in the space of about 12 hours. I’m booked through to the end of next week. Wow!

Since things have been so slow, I’ve been taking it easy and haven’t felt much pressure to go out and run errands. So of course I’ve ended up with just about no food in the house and the nearest restaurants being closed. Therefore, huge work day be damned, I had to run into Chelem today for emergency rations.

I’ve been here, what, five months now? And I have yet to manage to time a trip to Chelem with the sale of chickens. I’m either way too early and they’re not cooked or I’m way too late and if there are any left, I’m concerned about how long they’ve been there because they really don’t look fresh. Today, I was determined to be there around 1PM, a time during which I’ve ascertained there should be cooked and still fresh chickens available.

First, I went to Willy’s to get some cheese as well as food for Puppy. I had cash, but decided to try my new debit card. It worked!  Unlike with Canada’s Interac system, the money is not yet debited from your account. It works more like a credit card, where your available balance changes, but the amount has to post.

I don’t know yet if there is a fee for using the debit card. I’ve had fees for depositing cash into the account and a PayPal transfer so I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m really starting to wonder if I will actually save money having the Mexican account, but regardless, the practicality makes it worth having!

I then went to a chicken stand almost right by Willy’s and, sure enough, there was cooked non-scary chicken left. I asked for the price of half a chicken. The lady sized me up and said, “Half is $55. Whole is $95…” I grinned at her and said I’d take the whole one.

I watched as she bagged it up for me, then added baggies of rice, salsa, and a mushy white thing. When I got the bag, I fished out the white thing and poked it, completely confused as to what it might be. So I asked.

It was mashed potatoes.

I’m still laughing at the look on her face at my question. It says a lot about my diet and my expectations for food here to not have recognised the contents for what they are! Since I was obviously new to the world of mashed potatoes, she slipped a second baggie of them into my bag, saying that I would find them so delicious that I’d need a second one. 🙂

One final stop for water later, I was home (and amused that Puppy was way more interested in the water than the chicken!). I laid out my lunch and tucked in. The chicken was great, of course, and much meatier than other chickens I’ve bought in Mexico. The rice was like the rice I recently has in Mérida and must be the way it’s cooked in Yucatán. I don’t care much for it, to be honest. I didn’t sample her hot sauce, saving it for leftovers since I’d had hot sauce at breakfast and was still feeling it. As for the potatoes, they were very tasty indeed! It’s a rare day that I prefer spuds over rice!

Thanksgiving is on Monday, so I should have at least one leftover meal of the chicken and spuds with gravy, peas, and carrots. 🙂 I’ll miss the cranberry jelly, but I’d have to go into Mérida for that and that’s not happening until at least Saturday. But, hey, at least when I get to Mérida I can actually afford to go pick up a few pieces of furniture and get some paint mixed up! The tides of fortune do ebb and flow… 😀