Getting Soft

We were gearing up. We stocked up on food. We had 15 gallons of water. We had lempiras. We had our toque de queda faces on. We were listening to the rumors on Sunday that lead one to think that Zelaya was going to go out big. So we stayed tuned to the news. We checked our email and phones frequently for a text or message alerting us to civil unrest in the city and the impending school cancellation.

But it never happened.

The city is peaceful. The Zelayistas are tranquilo. Toque de queda has only been declared during night hours. We have gone to work for 3 days now. In a row. And we are swapmed.

We have been so busy with school, meetings, after school commitments for the kids and general life stuff that we are stressed-out to the point of exhaustion and giddy, non-sensical laughter (or fighting). I am busy beyond belief trying to catch up on all the missed days before the end of the quarter report cards are due and E is looking down the barrel of meeting with 60 some-odd students (and their parents) who got progress reports a couple of weeks ago during what the should have been mid-quarter, but school was cancelled because of an h1n1 outbreak!

We came to the realization that we were growing accustomed to the flow of having our normal life interrupted by h1n1 scares, political instability and mob insurrections in the streets. We got soft! We could go-with-the-flow of curfews, on-line class assignments and hours upon hours of Uno card games as a family, guitar playing, water coloring, rice krispie treat making, pina colada recipe tinkering, and... what in the hell else did we do during all of those missed days of school? Looking back on it now, having all of those free hours was like being in college again where the hours passed so quickly, but you could never quite recall what you did the day before.

Ahhhhhh. Those were the toque de queda days.