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| The Chinese restaurant in Madeira , across from the pottery shop where I bought the rooster |
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| Rooster on display (which makes me think of the Chinese restaurant ) |
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| Mazatlan memento |
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| Mickey shorts |
As I poured my coffee this morning, I said "good morning" to my Madeira Rooster. You see, I decorate the house, my ears, my body, and my internal organs with stuff bought while on vacation. For some totally bogus reason, traveling lubricates my spending senses, lulling me into a drunken state of free spending. This is not helped if the currency is foreign; then the money resembles tokens for the merry-go-round and I instantly devalue their worth. An overpowering need to sentimentalize and remember every place I visit culminates in the purchase of roosters, paintings, shorts, and exotic-sounding Mexican pharmaceutical prescriptions (wart cream in Spanish comes off sounding like
Verrrrrrruga).
The painting is from our last trip to Mexico. The shop proprietor bubble-wrapped the whole thing, then covered it in butcher's paper. It was suddenly three feet tall . I carried it like a precious baby through the streets of Mazatlan. After the Dos Equis wore off I was glad to see I still liked it. Actually, I adore it (plus, it reminds me of the last cruise my dad took with us -
see! you can justify anything if you give it feeling! )
The items I make off with are rarely Sombrero Purchases ( you've heard of this right? - crap you don't want once you sober up and are struck with the realization that big straw hats don't look good outside of Cancun.) That's not to say I don't have a little bit of remorse about the plaid Mickey shorts that spoke to me in a moment of Disney weakness. No, I say that just for Scot. I brought them back to the room and under his breath her uttered, "
sombrero." For the record, these
have been worn off the ship.
