Elio himself serves as host, sommelier, waiter, and gracious dining room chef, alternately soaking up praise then insisting, in a grandfatherly sort of way, that you finish every morsel on your plate. Malcolm and I arrived to find a smiling Elio in an open kitchen, and a small dining room that is much warmer than most you’ll find on the beach. He bustled around setting up our table with decanters of oil, vinegar and towering pepper grinder and also brought us drinks, red wine in a big, beautiful bowl for me and a Johnny Walker black label for Malcolm. A touch so simple as a bowl of ice for a drink served neat was noted with pleasure.

As we are such cynical expats we were sure they could not provide every item on the menu. But, miraculously, everything we ordered appeared just as described. The ingredients are fresh and there is a loving attention to detail apparent in every dish. We started with a Caprese and an avocado with fresh mozarella salad. Both were as they should be, simple, minimal, salted, peppered and drizzled with extra virgen olive oil. These light plates went well with warm bread and shrimp and mushroom dips. We also ordered the filete pizziola, spinach ravioli, gnocchi with gorgonzola cream sauce, as well as more red wine, tiramisu, grappa, sambuca, and espresso.

The pasta is fresh and housemade and cooked al dente, with well-seasoned filling and your choice of white or red sauce; as it is a first course option the portion is perfect when you are doing a survey of the kitchen’s aptitude. The fish was white, flaky and mild, served in a rosemary scented broth and smothered in a chopped tomato salsa that was perfectly light and complementary. My plate of gnocchi was a creamy sea of garlicky goodness. The potato dumplings melted in the mouth, sensual and transcendent, like Tantric sex with Sting. Dessert was the very last order of creamy tiramisu that matched well with the syrapy sweetness of my digestive.

We sat and talked while the kitchen was being busied into hybernation mode. A crisp January breeze blew in from the ocean and it felt cozy to be inside with friends, enjoying gastronomic delights that seem to be known only to few. Elio has been in Yucatan for decades and speaks excellent Spanish with a mirthful Italian accent. His restaurant is located east of Progreso on the road to Chixchilub and is closed Monday and Tuesday for descanso. You owe it to yourself to try Elio Al Mare. Let me be very clear: this restaurant is not good for Progreso, Mexico; it would be a standout in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, or wherever else fine food is served. But lucky for us, it is here, quietly, modestly, unexpectedly serving fine Southern Italalian cuisine to anyone who dares venture there.

It’s a so delish a ev’rybody come copisha.

She was the most amazing thing to behold and within moments my mood was altered. We three trooped down to the nearest bar to unpack the events that led to this incredible reunion. We took a circle of seats at a place I think was called Squid Roe but not in any way was it a dive; here there are four bars on four corners and each was casually chic, lounge-like and very animated at 12:45. All around us were sexy European types strolling, laughing, and looking super cool. But much more important was our little coterie. I could not get over the fact that in 6 days Malcolm had proposed to her the plan, L.W. had accepted and they covertly made the arrangements for her to fly down and meet us for birthday night’s revelry. Even whilst we spoke on the phone earlier in the week and I lamented my loneliness and torpor she was apparently messaging with M regarding the plan and hardly listening to my lame complaining. I could not believe my luck finally, sipping my mojito, and catching up with one of my best friends from college with my handsome, thoughtful husband.

After a drink we retired to our rooms to rest up for a big day. In Cozumel we waited for my dad, who like Godot never came. We spent the last quarter of an hour of our futile morning watching the cruise ship passengers from a perch in Senor Frog’s, a truly absurd spot during the sun-drenched day. We weren’t in the mood for their shot girl shenanigans and Paradise City hijinks and left quickly and more sober than I was every day of my junior year in college We consoled ourselves with lunch at Guido’s, the island’s Italian kitchen-garden. The food is good and the atmosphere soothing. We had sangria, salad, carpaccio and their signature thin crust garlic bread and pizza. It is unlike any other pie I have tried, tasty, but not life-altering. We returned to Playa on the 3 o’clock ferry to nap and regain our strength. Later we rallied and walked all over Quinta Avenida looking for a good place to refuel and people-watch. We found a great beach bar in Zenzi (?) and a terrible restaurant with an excellent view (Madre Tierra) but managed to feel satisfied enough for a day that was not what it was supposed to be. We slept.

On Saturday we visited the park Xcaret and had 12 hours of unqualified fun. Anyone who says one thing disparaging about this marvelous place has a heart made of stone and constant constipation. Xcaret is a blast from the moment you arrive in the early morning heat until you exit in a sea of misty-eyed Mexicans into the chilly night. It is awesome, bird-filled, cultural, dramatic, earnest, floral, gigantic, hot, interactive, Jillian-endorsed, k rico buffet, lush, Mayan, noisy, ornithological, patriotic, quixotic, riveting, sylvan, tiring, underground, vivid, wet, xcaret-errific, yucateco, zoological. I promise to tell you all more about it later with photos. It is a post in itself. A magical day!

The only other event you must know about now is our last supper, at a wonderful tapas place with an unfortunate location a little off 5th. Even though I swore I would remember the name I don’t. And even though I want every single person to go there I can’t for the life of me describe where it is. This should add to the mystique and all I can say is look for it: it is there. A tall dark and handsome owner with a gray moustache, a jolly, generous and gifted chef and a doll-eyed polka-dotted, slightly silly waitress are all waiting for you. Ask for nothing; let them treat you to their glorious gastro- happening. Our feast included manchego, chorizo, serrano, salami, shrimp in garlic, calamari lightly toasted, tortilla, beef broth, bread and of course wine. This meal was matchless and incendiary; I am thinking about it still. If I can suss out anything I will update this slacker’s report. Update: La Tasca Manolo is located on Constituentes between Avenidas 10 and 15.

At this point I am going to have to quit this post as it is becoming ungainly and I am quite tired, having reached the ripe old age of thirty with some style as well as a few growing pains. Special thanks to Malcolm, my hero, and to L.W., a wonderful friend who made the trip so much fun and even more special. Thanks again to all well-wishers. I am a happy girl.

The Andrews Memorial Town Hall is a marvelous place with government offices, terrible acoustics and a cat who has stalked the halls since I was 3, maybe longer. I spent every summer of my early adolescence practicing choreography in the basement green room, in the baroque foyer, in the grass on the banks of the Indian River. I went with my mom to vote in the rose room and she wouldn’t let me in the booth, because she said it was a private act, like in the bathroom. Needless to say I had odd ideas about both democratic processes for quite some time.

I spent a day as an intern in the office of the First Selectman and filed my marriage license with the women who issued my first passport.

There you will find the greatest golden scalloped water fountain this side of Versailles and a seven foot tall stuffed moose that is still very startling. In summer the ladies of the Shoreline exhibit their best watercolors and the good townspeople gather for wonderfully off pitch productions of Gypsy and The Music Man. I fell in love with Mercutio instead of Romeo when I was 12 and learned every line of A Midsummer Night’s Dream the summer before. I ate caviar and drank champagne after La Traviata and pretended to swoon with consumption on the divan in the anteroom to the bathroom. I watched August meteor showers from the stage right balcony and cried my eyes out in the costume room when the opera had ended, because I felt like everything was over and would never quite happen that way again. Maybe that’s why the blithe old soul still waits behind velvet curtains.

* sorry

Not that my own surname was easy to leave behind. You know, habitual readers, that it has been more than one year since our first wedding and quickly approaching the anniversary of our second. I hesitated to change, but only because the thought of leaving behind who I had been for 29 years was so complicated, and not because I could not embrace my future. I am now ready, committed and secure that I will not lose the person or personality I was. Those facts are irrevocable. Not only do I firmly believe in who I am but in my family; the Raucciness of myself is no longer a question or something to be denied. I have a family of friends who are continuing that good name and who ensure that I never lose the connection to those places, memories, character traits and ideals that I have not only been born into but have grown to love, appreciate and cherish. Maybe I needed to marry that given name more. Because being a Bedell was inevitable since September 1999.

Malcolm and I meant something going forward from the first night we met in a dorm at Albertus Magnus College. I can’t begin to understand what subtle forces brought us together but I know that we have not been much moved in our dedication since that night in September nine years ago. We could not be kept from each other. We did not choose to marry for many tumultuous years but our friendship did not fail to grow.

And the idea that we are building a very solid partnership is one of the few things I do not doubt and never really have. In moments such as these our differences seem negligible. Because we are chosen family we win and lose together. I am not saying this with the naivete of a newlywed nor the sagacity of one who has endured fifty years of marriage but as a soul who has found its mate and feels the security of that ephemeral pairing. We are made to be and what’s more, we revel in our good luck, and what’s more we work to preserve and augment the love that we have found. We set our own good luck, from what my love tells me, and much of me believes him and enjoys that volitionary state. We can make our own new life. We can find new territory and work within it, moving beyond it, daring fate to find fault. I am so confident, bold and proud. I am looking ahead, for the first time, to the next generation that we will create, with no one but us to stop or start us.

There is a new baby in the family today and, as it turns out, new life makes me joyful and weepy and apt to buy elephant-shaped pink pillows. Who would have guessed it? Welcome to the world, Baby Belknap!

It was in those lazy, hazy days I learned that May Day has another meaning. Yeah, get this. It’s isn’t all ribbon wrapped poles and pagans and pageantry. It’s International Workers Day. It was celebrated here this morning with a loose parade and intermittent fireworks. Maybe it’s more militant in other parts of Mexico but in Yucatan it’s another chance to hit the snares and march and feel proud and enjoy the sun. These days I’m swayed more toward Walpurgis Night than Workers Rights but all the same I am a happy witness to the festivities.

The cliche I’ve chosen is more to suit my own taste that for its particular insight or germaneness (germanity?). I could have quite easily written that we are living in a fish bowl like any one of those Real World geniuses who (finally!) and solemnly observed that the Bunim-Murray Interior Design As Metaphor Crew had creatively placed an aquarium as the focal point of every sound stage/loft. Can I get a Whoa!? (Intoned as Blossom’s brother Joey)

I could have compared us to rats in cages a la 90′s philosopher/bedwetter Billy Corgan if I wanted to blow your minds. Despite all my rage…eh, I’m not up for it. We’re going with the Monkey House thing cause, oh you know: 10th grade, grand falloons, Kilgore Trout, etc. Accept it.

Because we’re lacking a fourth wall (Real World references keep on coming, even when you want them to stop) we are literally wide open to a great many environmental factors, e.g., dirt and noise from the passing 18 wheelers, vendors and vagrants who either enterprising or begging want money, and daily foot traffic. Our office is located on a busy-ish corner across from the elementary school and near the square. It’s on the road out of town in every direction and happens to have convenient parking for local errands. For this reason most of the townspeople walk by at least twice a day.

The coke beggar rolls on in uninvited and demands 5 pesos for a Coca. Children zip in and gawk at the young Americans. Would-be customers for Bici-Motos next door wonder when the sullen kid is coming back from lunch. Before our landlord got sick he would toddle in to ask an English language related question and chat about radios and the weather. We are offered sandwiches, used books, and toy airplanes, depending on the day. Ladies in their colored dresses go by, as do burdened delivery men, uniformed school tweens holding hands and the occasional perspiring and ambling tourist. Our window to the world allows us to see out as well as them to see in, unlike the wicked Panopticon.

I understand why people may be curious. It is unclear what kind of business we are running here with no sign, symbol or corporate sponsor. We don’t make copies or offer internet for 7 pesos an hour. How could we be working with nothing being made or sold, no activity really discernible at all? We must look more like automatons or players in an absurd scene to the viewer, most of whom smile and keep walking on their way.

So as to be very clear, I am merely making an observation, as even the observed are allowed to sometimes do. This isn’t a diatribe, diary entry or naval gazing bedtime story. I am not making any profound statements about mechanized work and the human condition couched in simile (a simian simile, ha, I kill me!). This is just, like, how it is here on a workday afternoon, as if you cared.

It’s Friday and that’s all she wrote.
(That’s my new sign off.)
p.s. it’s awesome.