Perfection Can Be Small

Yesterday was a perfect day. At least, it was as perfect as one could ever reasonably hope a day might be. And it wasn't perfect because I got any amazing news or even did anything so incredibly different that it is unimaginable. It was perfect in all of its little things.

It started off with Dungeons & Dragons. In May 2020, as COVID kept me in my home, I reached out to the guys I used to play with in high school when I lived in Florida. And we restarted our group. We meet every few weeks on the internet. There is always some time chatting about our lives, children, goings-on. Sometimes there is some politics. But ultimately, we get into the game and play.

Yesterday was a pretty major boss-level battle and the party won! No one died (though a few were close, and one character was one hit point away from the end.) It was pretty fun. I'm the Dungeon Master, so there was no threat of my character dying. (Or you could say that all my characters, the enemies, died.) 

After we finished our game for the day, Alrica and I walked to the historic center of Puebla. We were planning to go a dance performance, traditional Mexican dances. But along the way, we stopped at a street vendor and bought two cemitas with carnitas. Carnitas is a marinated pork. You can find carnitas in the United States as well.

Then, across the street from where we bought cemitas, we found a market with several stalls serving all kinds of foods and drinks. We went to a shop selling juices and aguas naturales. I got a coco (which is coconut) and Alrica got a jugo verde. (That literally means green juice. But it is an orange juice base with several greens like celery and cilantro added.)

From there we continued our walk and reached the Zocalo. The Zocalo is the center town square. The entire downtown region was hopping. The skies were blue with puffy white clouds. The temperature was around 70 Farhenheit (21 Celsius) and super comfortable humidity. There were families out walking and shopping and enjoying themselves.

We sat on a bench in the shade of a tree very near the fountain in the center of the Zocalo. We just listened to water, watched the people, and enjoyed doing nothing. There were families with bubble wands and children excitedly chasing the bubbles. There were couples walking together or eating ice cream. We probably sat there for 45 minutes and it was perhaps the best time of the day. I got to thinking about this crazy life, all the adventure, being in so many new places, and having Alrica with me for all of it. It was a beautiful moment to spend with the perfect adventure partner.

Statue at the top of the Zocalo fountain, white stone with black metal

We left the Zocalo and walked around the gorgeous Puebla Cathedral to reach the dance performance. The performance was fantastic. It was perhaps 90 to 120 minutes long. And one didn't really need to speak Spanish to appreciate it.

Aztec Dance

We saw dances that called back to the Aztecs. In some, women danced with earthenware pots on their heads. In one of the dances, then men wore masks and carried canes, as if they were very old and infirm, but then stomped and jumped and kicked. There was a balletic dance. And there were many super colorful costumes throughout. In the dances in which the women have flowing skirts with stripes of color, and they have their hands in a pocket so they can swish the skirts in arcs while they dance, I get mesmerized by the moving stripes of color. I sometimes forget there are people attached, it's just a flow of hues.

You don't call them potheads, right?

Point being, we loved the performance.

The "old men" approach

After the dancing we got a momia. Now, the word "momia" means "mummy" (and in particular a female mummy. A male mummy is momio.) But this was not eating a mummy. A momia is a hot dog on a stick, surrounded by a fried bread (like a corn dog, but the bread isn't cornbread) and then a strip of something similar to bacon is wrapped around the bread. I suspect this is what inspired the undead name, the bacon around it like the bandages of a mummy. It came in a paper cone full of fries and with a sweet sauce on them. The only real downside is that, near the end, you couldn't help but your get your hands sticky as you reached for the remaining fries.

Don't her toes hurt on a stone floor?

It was a fun day, and fun in so many different ways. And it made me appreciate just how perfect the little things can be.