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vegan junkfood and the streets of Playa del Carmen
Tuesday, June 19 2018
location: Room 2342, The Reef Coco Beach, Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico
I woke up in the middle of the night in such a bad state of anxiety that I sought Gretchen for comfort. I explained all the paranoias in my head, and she helped me see that they were probably deeply unfounded and that I should do what I could to relax. That helped enormously, and I eventually fell asleep again. Later in the day, I was comforted by having another communication (after a very long hiatus) with my confidante.
I spent all day poolside sending resumes for all the jobs I could find. Indeed.com was a fruitful place to hunt, but so too was good old Craigslist. I could venture into any city and look for remote jobs in them and then apply for them. If a job didn't say whether or not it was remote, I would apply for it and then talk up my expertise building cohesive, effective teams remotely. Periodically I'd get another free drink from the bar, because, hey, this was also vacation.
This evening, Gretchen, her father, her mother, and our nephew all ordered a cab and rode into the heart of Playa del Carmen to check out Comet 984 50's Diner, a self-styled "vegan junk-food restaurant." They didn't seem to have air conditioning, but the sun was going down so we sat outside in front in the cool of the evening. Comet 984 had milkshakes and all the comforting sandwiches of the Eisenhower era, all redone completely vegan. I went with the Spicy Burger, which was excellent (and not just gringo-spicy), though we also had fries and spicy cheese nachos, and other things. Some of the other sandwiches (particularly the Krusty Burgers — the patty of which was breaded, deep-fried "cheese") were a bit rich for the assembled, but for the most part we loved our meal. At some point during the meal, my nephew cracked a very clever (and somewhat risky) joke in which he blamed me for being part of the problem in Trump's America for being an unemployed white guy. We all had a good chuckle.
From the diner, we walked across a square, where Gretchen got to shower her love on a someone's pit bull puppy and then some other random and very friendly dog who was so excited he momentarily lost his pelota. At that point, Gretchen's parents decided to take a taxi back to the resort. Our nephew would've been happy walking back with Gretchen and me, but it was decided he should also ride with his grandparents so as to minimize parental anxieties.
So Gretchen and I had a very nice stroll through the varied streets of Playa del Carmen, passing many bars and then a large athletic field where organized teams of children were competing after dark in several different sports. Supposedly murders and kidnappings are up in the Yucatán of late, but we never felt the slightest bit unsafe.
Comet's menu. I posted a copy of this live to my colleagues back in our alternative chat, and Cameron said he would "eat the shit" out of everything on that menu.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?180619 feedback
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