Its the Thought that Counts

Thursday February 28th 2010 9:00am

The mob protestors carried on, and eventually dispersed without any violence or show of force, which came as a great relief to me. I spent the rest of the morning exercising, reading, and trying to ignore the firecrackers and yelling, echoing from the highway nearby.

In the afternoon, I had to go out to get some eggs for my banana bread project, so I headed up towards Plaza. On my way, I noticed that one of the little shops that I pass by sells eggs. I never thought to check if the "Casa del Queso" or "House of Cheese" would sell eggs, but a sign out front caught my eye. These eggs were bigger, cheaper, and didn´t come from a big store.

I find that more and more frequently, I am buying from smaller vendors, and feeling better about the decision. I get my bread from a small local bakery, I get my eggs from the House of Cheese...I might now get my cheese from the House of Cheese. It just feels good helping out small businesses.

Between the recipes given to me by various friends and relatives between the holidays and now, I feel like I should be able to keep myself pretty busy in the evenings, which is great. A lot of times it is really hard to do much of anything in the nights, because I can´t really go out after dark. There is only so much reading, exercising, and tv watching that one can do before it becomes all too boring. So, trying my hand at cooking has been both depriving me from my boredom, and providing me with fun and...I would say delicious foods, but we all know thats not the case. I would say it has provided me with fun, and an opportunity to improve my cooking skills.

The best part of that deal is that the cleaning ladies do all the dishes. So I get to have all of the fun of cooking, without the less glamorous work of scrubbing dishes, pans, and utensils. At first I felt bad about this and cleaned up my dishes for a while, until one day I spent at home, and the cleaning lady seemed rather frustrated that I cleaned my own dishes. Apparently that is the favorite part of her job. Who am I to deprive the kind woman of cleaning my dishes?

After cooking some dinner, and watching some TV, I set to work with the banana bread, while the State of the Union address was on. Some of it I agreed with, some of it I scoffed at, but mostly I found it incredibly deflating to watch all of the Democrats stand up and cheer while the Republicans sat and frowned. It didn´t bother me that either side had their opinions, it just uninspiring to see the very clear partisanship, which I feel prevents a lot of things from happening (I gear that comment towards both parties).

When the address was done, my banana bread was too, and I let it cool before taking a taste test. I was surpised at how much it looked like the loafs my mother used to bake, and was not so surprised to find that the taste was not quite the same...more room for improvement.

I thought of the title for this entry on my way to work this morning, in a taxi. Freddy had a meeting somewhere, so I hailed a cab to get to work. I noticed that there were lane lines painted onto the major roads. I also noticed that these lane lines meant absolutely nothing to the drivers of Tegucigalpa. They may as well not have been there. Now, I have always been a big proponant of "Its the thought that counts," but I´m really beginning to question the validity of that statement within the parameters of new lane lines on Tegucigalpa roads. Does the thought of lanes really count? So far, I think not.