Tuesday January 25, 2011 — The gang's all here

Just after 3:00 they all began arriving. Pedrito brought the first group. Chaio and Conchita made cheese and chicken tamales and black beans and a delicious pineapple-papaya tart. The garden provided a special blend of greens with a host of different flavors.

We assembled for dinner about 6:00 after Sarah and Nancy arrived with JP. Lovely to see all these old friends from east coast, Idaho, Canada, Colorado and points between. Sarah Swett will be teaching this session so I'll describe what she has in store for us tomorrow. Sarah and one other participant are going to spend their nights at a borrowed house a few blocks away. This is the house Skip was planning to stay in while he explored El Tuito in more detail during our weaving time. Sounds like a place he would have loved as a crash pad. I'm sure I'll get to see it later in the week.

We also have one woman from Brazil in the group. It took her almost three days to get here from southern Brazil. She teaches tapestry weaving at a university there and brought her own very clever little wooden loom on which she'll place a continuous warp using cotton. She says they also use cotton as weft because they don't have any wool. That will certainly be interesting to see because cotton doesn't have the stretch that wool has. I'm sure she has worked it down to a fine science. It's going to add an interesting dimension to this year's retreat. Learning new things, gathering new ideas and having a few surprises is just the ticket.

It's still unusually cool here, so everyone is talking socks, heavier pants, sweaters and the like. In my mad rush to get out of town I left my new black sweater that was going to dress up for openings and down for walking about town. By the same token, I doubled up on bamboo longs sleeve tops which I'm thinking I could wear together if need be. So funny to even be thinking about things like this but that's the way it is this year. Good not having feet or ankles swell. I'm not adding salt to anything for a change and it seems, along with mother nature and the weather to be making a difference. To tell the truth, I really hadn't given any thought to how much colder Mexico City will be. Good thing I always bring socks which I never wear. Happily, there's always a first time for everything. Abrazos amigos.