The Great White El Norte

Sasha is spending this weekend in beautiful Duluth, MN helping her brother Sam get moved in and ready to start pharmacy school up there this coming week. That leaves it to me to handle updating the ol' blog. I tried to have LouLou post something but that ended up being a huge mistake -- nothing but atrocious grammar and pictures of sausage. From now on I'm just gonna leave her to her core skills: sleeping 23 hours a day and paying our bills.

Not a strong writer.

Speaking of awesome dogs, our thoughts this weekend are with Duke, Sam's dog and LouLou's best friend, who apparently has taken ill since completing the long trek up North and actually had to spend the night in a vet hospital. Last we heard, he's recouping at home now, slowly working his appetite back up, but that was only after having to take him to the emergency room very late on Friday night.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, the Big Fella, as we call him, packs 100+ pounds of loyal companionship on a long Labrador frame. He's as black as black can be in this galaxy. In fact he's so dark he's been known to suck in all light around him such that he can be standing directly in front of you and you'd still be blind to his silent presence. He's a cosmic phenomenon. A force of nature. We hope he gets well real soon.

Some call him simply, The Darkness.

In DF news, I went to my first soccer game today at Estadio Azteca, home to the venerable Mexican league team Club America, and a massive structure to behold, with a top capacity of easily over 100,000 people. America was playing some last-place team from Guadalajara so it was expected to be easy to get tickets for. But, as often happens in Mexico, nothing is as easy as it seemingly should be, and it actually took a herculean effort to get into the Stadium. There were several moments when I was convinced that our "vendor" would have run off on us had we not wisely insisted on not paying until we were actually seated. We ended up with great seats though and got in just as the game kicked off. The visitors actually scored first and at halftime it was a 1-1 tie but America came out hard in the second half and ended up winning 4-1. A good time was had by all.

And yes, you'll have to settle for my lame verbal description of the game because Sasha took the camera with her. Among the many photos I couldn't take today:

• an Eagle (the team mascot) flying a graceful, menacing loop around the Stadium before finally running down a soccer ball on the field
• a group of scantily-clad sorta-cheerleaders with the word BIMBO on their chests
• 2 guys sharing a moped, both wearing Nazi-style Panzer helmets

Oh and did I mention we started the day off at Hooter's? Look forward next week though to lots of shots of Lake Superior and northern Minnesota real estate. Love you Sasha, please come home soon...