Today's headline: Enjoy Being Home

At least in Xalapa, the only thing that has worsened is my desire to spoon my eyes out. Not too much fear here, and hopefully still no flu, just boredom. My friends were planning to escape from D. F. and spend a few days at my place, but they're stuck at home as everything seems to have frozen to a standstill.

I was counting down the minutes until my jarana lesson today, which would have been quite the outing since it's a whole two blocks away. Upon arriving with my neighbors Katie and Riley, we found the courtyard deserted. We spotted our teacher's mom, Angela, doing laundry, but no sign of the other students.

Angela kindly allowed us to go through the motions of getting ready for class, taking us into the deliciously woodchip-scented workshop and turning on the lights. There we sat on stools and chatted for awhile, touching on all of the biggest Mexican grandmother topics, namely the flu and our marital status. We idly strummed our jaranas, until it became obvious that Angela's son was not going to show up. 

Katie, my neighbor, gave him a quick call on her cell. I found myself copying her frown as she spoke to our teacher sympathetically, "Yes, yes, stay at home with them. I hope they get better soon." So there would be no lesson today, instead just another moment of what we can only hope is needless concern. I wasn't ready to go home, but we thanked Angela, wished her the best for her grandkids, and left.

My daily source of excitement has been juice. For the past three days I have walked to the corner and joined a long line of people, some in face masks, all of us eager to drown ourselves in vitamin C. The juice stand is like a neighborhood institution, so I feel closest to being united with my Mexican neighbors in this crisis (not so much when raking the State Department website for travel alerts) when I'm waiting with them in line.

The girl in front of me carried two jugs to be filled with fresh-squeezed orange and beet juice. She's taking them back to her family, I noted with a twinge of envy. I didn't know that we could bring our own vessels, so I walked up to the counter and asked for my liter of orange-and-carrot in the customary eco-unfriendly plastic bag. While slicing my oranges, the young juicer's eyes seemed to glance at me curiously over his blue mask. I hope I didn't look as far from home as I felt.