el rinconcito

Paletas are basically popsicles. All over Mexico you will see people pushing carts selling them. Here is a picture of a typical paleta cart from the flickr user Made in Mississippi..

They are all very similar looking, like a small freezer on two big tires. It's strange, I've driven in very rural parts of the Yucatan of Mexico, two hours from anywhere really, and somebody will be pushing one of these things down the side of the road with not a customer in sight forever and ever.

It doesn't surprise me to see them all over Charlotte where I worked all this week.

This past Wednesday, I was returning to my hotel from work and noticed a classic paleta cart with salesman near the front of the hotel. After relaxing in the room for awhile and doing a little net surfing, I went to the restaurant across the street for dinner and could see the guy with his cart from there as I ate. I spent a long time in the restaurant. From the time I first saw the paleta guy, about three hours had elapsed and it was getting dark. As far as I could tell, nobody had talked to the guy and he had sold no paletas, though I did see him eat one. I was getting curious and decided I was going to go talk to him as soon as I finished eating.

It had been hot and humid that day, and the guy looked really withered as I approached him. I'd guess his age to be in the range of 18 to 20. He was *dirty*, bad dirty, and his clothes were so filthy that they had a sheen to them. He was very sweet, personality-wise, and chatted readily. His name was Rodrigo and he came from the state of Chiapas, Mexico, which is right next to Guatemala.

I asked Rodrigo if he spoke English:
--un poquito (which means "a little", but in reality means next to none).

So there he was for three hours that I knew of, dirty, tired, sun-baked, and not able to talk to anybody.

I asked him what was going on. He said, "they were supposed to come pick me up, but I think I've been forgotten". Apparently some of these popsicle guys are dropped off and picked up by somebody each day, but they were way late in coming for Rodrigo.

Then he confessed that he was very nervous. He was worried that he might get bothered by the police for standing there so long. He asked me if I thought the hotel owners, who were sitting nearby, were angry at him. I told him they didn't seem to be, in fact they didn't seem to be aware of him at all.

He then moved close to me and let it all out:

"What do you do for work?"
"Is there a job for me there?"
"Can you help me get a job there?"
"Do you know of any jobs anywhere?"
"I need a job, man."
"I'm not eating all that well."

I kind of freaked out at the gravity of his situation and wanted to bolt. I told him that I was going back to my room, but if somebody bothered him, to come get me, and I gave him my room number and pointed to the distant door. We said "que te vaya bien" to each other ("bye" in other words), and I split.

I sat down on the sofa in the room and promptly fell asleep. Over an hour later I woke up, and said, "Rodrigo!" I ran out there and he was gone. They came for him, I suppose.

What a situation young Rodrigo was in. I then thought I should have offered to get him something to eat or drink, to use the bathroom, chatted with him more, whatever. I wasn't thinking.

Danger! Run-on sentences and gossip ahead.

You can't really see anything in the pic. It was dark in there and my phone/camera is cheap, but that was one of the ones who was in tonight's drag show at the disco, which everybody now calls "the club". Nobody says "disco" anymore, 'cept us old ones.

Sooo, we went out tonight and had a couple of beers, or maybe 6, or 20, or 100, I'm not sure, but we saw the show and heard some NICE gossip. Apparently the club is merging in a way with the Latino community, which, of course, needs a place to party, too. Thursday nights will now become Latino nights, and all the other nights the club is open will be the usual traditional gay nights, as the club has been gay for nearly 30 years anyway. Kind of a fun/new/strange business combo.

I don't even know where to go with this except that this uber-hot Puerto Rican who just started as a security guard for the club, AKA "bouncer", who is training to be a bartender for the new Thursday "Latino nights", and who speaks almost no English, which makes it all the more exciting, was out at the bar tonight on the gay night, I guess being some type of ambassador. He is supposedly straight and had the girlfriend on his arm, but the more he drank, the more friendly he got. Everywhere he went in the bar tonight he caused a flash mob, and the more he drank, the more he took things off, which caused major disruption, to say the least. Damn, this makes no sense whatsoever.

Anyway, this whole damned thing is causing major excitement in the club, and everybody is hoping for a lot more "merging" in the future.

More details later as decorum permits. The club: Warehouse 29, Greensboro, North Carolina. Start practicing your English/Spanish, whatever the need may be.

Prior names of the bar going back decades were: Wham!, and Encore. It was once the most popular bar between Washington, DC, and Atlanta.

Reedplayernc and I drove 1.5 hours to the south today just to go shopping at Ikea in Charlotte, North Carolina. We both love their furniture so much that previously we drove almost 6 hours to the Ikea in Atlanta, Georgia. Now that Charlotte has one much closer, we're all set, or doomed, not sure which!

You can see the entire set here on flickr, but I'm going to post a selection below.

Images are clickable for greater detail. Select "all sizes" after landing on the flickr page.

Image #1: Here we arrive in the pick-up truck so we can carry a lot of things home, if necessary.



Image #2: Brian looks pleased. We enjoy Ikea a lot.



Image #3: The Ikea stores are so huge, that after we go in here, it will be HOURS before we emerge from the exit.



Image #4: Maps, and arrows painted on the floor, are necessary to steer the shoppers through the giant store.



Image #5: Brian tries out a Kramfors leather sofa. Only $1398.



Image #6: It's me beside a sign advertising food in the Ikea restaurant. The place is so large that a food stop midway is often necessary.



Image #7: Pseudo-Swedish food on the menu in the Ikea restaurant.



Image #8: Brian taking a break on the Malung swivel chair. $189.


That's all! This trip was just for a good look-see. We'll go back another time for the big haul.