Monday took me to Guatemala City for a few days of work. I had done some pre-reading on my destination but wasn’t really sure what to expect. Customs and immigration was a very quick process and I found myself looking around for my car service and without mobile phone service (should have double checked that before leaving). I had been strongly warned not to take a regular taxi but was close to taking that risk. Fortunately, the driver showed up about 20 minutes later and, after a short ride, I was checked into a very modern Marriott hotel and enjoying dinner. This was the view from my balcony.
Guatemala City has a population of 2.5 million people and is situated at an elevation of 4,921 feet. The city is surrounded by volcanoes and I took these pictures from the office balcony.
They say Guatemala is where American school buses go to die. Not exactly – they shorten them, put in powerful engines, and paint them very bright colors – each color signifying a route for a population with a very low literacy rate.
This view from the office balcony shows shacks built into a valley, right next to a very modern office complex. It was a bit disconcerting to learn that all the executives in the office drive heavily armored and bullet proof cars but I was happy to know that on our way to dinner on Tuesday through some very interesting neighborhoods.
Guiseppe Verdi (do you think it’s Italian) was the dinner choice and we started with some hand cut carpaccio. Then I enjoyed a perfectly cooked duck breast with gorgonzola risotto.
Wednesday was a long work day and so we opted for a local restaurant in walking distance of the hotel. Kacao provided a good sampling of local cuisine – very similar to the Mexican food we are familiar with . I had a very good mixed seafood ceviche.
It was back to Dallas on Thursday morning. A short 3 hour flight and I was back home shortly after noon. Thankfully Friday was a quiet and low key day of catching up on work and other paperwork.
We awoke to a light dusting of snow on Saturday morning and it’s been so cold this weekend that it hasn’t quite melted yet. You can imagine how much McD is enjoying the cold weather and biting wind. I heard the classic, “I’m ready to go and lie on a beach now”, comment this morning. Quickly followed up with “and I mean a warm beach!”.
The Kessler beckoned us to another excellent concert on Saturday night. We checked into the Nylo (now called the Canvas) hotel and Ubered over to Nova for a pre-concert dinner. The special of scallops on a bed of ratatouille was excellent.
The concert was by Joe Ely, a performer that I’ve seen a couple of times over the last close to 30 years and always enjoyed. He was born in Amarillo in 1947 and has spent most of his life based in Lubbock, TX (famously the home of Buddy Holly). Here is his performance of “Dallas”, one of his best known songs and the 2nd in the setlist:
We heard a Joe Ely song on the Bruce Springsteen channel driving to our workout on Saturday morning. This was interesting as I don’t remember hearing him on the radio in years and here he was on the day of the show. It was a guest performance he did at a Springsteen show at Giants stadium. I read that Ely and the Clash were big admirers of each other and Ely actually sings backup vocals on “Should I Stay or Should I Go?”. He opened for several Clash shows in the US in the eighties. Here is his performance of Woodie Guthrie’s song “Deportee”, written in 1948 and just as relevant today:
The first time I saw Joe Ely was at an amphitheater in San Antonio in the early 90s and his new guitar player was the excellent Ian Moore, who went on to have quite the solo career. Moore had replaced David Grissom, who left Ely’s band to join John Mellencamp and played guitar on most of his hits. Interestingly, Grissom plays a free show at the Saxon Pub in Austin every Tuesday (a mile or less from my new apartment). I look forward to catching some of those shows soon. Here’s the final video I captured from Ely’s show, his beautifully nuanced cover of Billy Joe Shaver’s “Live Forever”:
The accordion player on all three of these videos is Joel Guzman who just finished Paul Simon’s final tour. He and Ely have played together for years and he added some great accompaniment to the mix.
There was some hilarity on our Uber ride back to the hotel after the show. We commented on a huge new gas station that we passed and our driver told us that the owner kept a bison, a longhorn, and a zonki behind the store. What’s a zonki? Exactly – we had no idea either. My Dad guessed correctly earlier today – a cross between a zebra and a donkey.
The view of the sunrise from our hotel room was quite impressive on Sunday morning:
I chose Standard Pour as our brunch destination. This was our first time trying the food here (we learned from Martha, sitting next to us at the concert, that our favourite brunch location in South Dallas, Smoke, had closed a few weeks ago) and we enjoyed the whole experience. Diana chose the economical carafe of mimosas but didn’t quite finish it. That washed down a very stacked burger. We have lots of leftovers for dinner.
Meanwhile, in New Orleans, Thom and Denny had a similar idea as they prepared for the Saints game against the Los Angeles Rams:
We’re watching the game now and hoping the Saints can win and secure a spot in the Super Bowl in 2 weeks. Denny and Anne seem to be enjoying the game so far (particularly Anne with her Veuve Clicquot champagne glass):
Will is spending the weekend in Lake Tahoe, snowboarding at the Heavenly resort. They have several feet of new snow and the conditions should be excellent. This is the first time Will has felt his knee is strong enough to ride in several years. I hope he’s having a great time, being safe, and has a smooth drive home after the snow abates a bit.
I finally finished “Independence Day” by Richard Ford this week. This 450 page, small font book has been with me for several weeks now.
The story is the sequel to “The Sportswriter”, a book I enjoyed last year. Frank Bascombe is now 44 years old and returns as the narrator. The time is 1988, and Frank is looking forward to the Fourth of July weekend, when he’s arranged to meet with his girlfriend, Sally Caldwell, and then take his 15-year-old son, Paul, to the basketball and baseball halls of fame. Paul has never recovered from the death of his brother, Ralph; occasionally barks like a dog; and has been labeled by a team of therapists as “intellectually beyond his years” yet “emotionally underdeveloped”.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and all that it has to say about family relationships, the politics and happenings of 1988, and Frank’s struggle to find a meaningful place in the world.
I’ve written a lot about music in this posting so far and so will just add one more quick update. This is a song from an Australian funk band that I heard in the Opening Bell coffee shop by the Nylo hotel on Sunday morning and enjoyed.
Late breaking news, the Saints just lost to the Rams in overtime. A horrible missed call by the referees at the end of regular time led to this loss – otherwise it would have been an easy Saints win. Denny and Anne made it on TV again and clearly have something to say (middle right side of the TV screen):
