Scratching my Chichen Itza

I may have to stop watching the 11am COVID-19 updates on the NSW Health Facebook page. Geez they’re depressing.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’ll be glued to my computer screen this morning, when Gladys is apparently announcing another month of lockdown for Sydney.

Sad face.

I was watching yesterday’s grim report when someone rang me about a job. I frantically tried to mute the sound on my achingly unresponsive computer, but the bloke got quite an earful of it before I finally silenced it. We spent the next few minutes bemoaning the sad state of Sydney affairs before getting down to business.

Aside from that minor stress-out, yesterday was a total snooze fest. I cooked lots and lots of food, agreed with lots and lots of people that being paid $600 for 14 stories and 2 newsletters a week was OUTRAGEOUS, wrote a story speculating that the fizz has gone out of the hard seltzer category, wrote another one about the major risk factors for diabetes and spent far too much time staring disconsolately at the four walls of my living room.

Oh, and I ate lots and lots of chocolate while researching another story I’m writing about weight loss. I came across this horrifying invention developed by medical professionals from the University of Otago in New Zealand and scientists from Leeds in the UK:

It’s called the DentalSlim Diet Control and uses magnetic components with locking bolts, which only allow users to open their mouths only 2mm wide, restricting them to a liquid diet.

It’s been widely criticised online, with people likening it to a medieval torture device. Uh, yeah, I’m with them.

That said, I really need to stop comfort eating. I think it’s because I have far too much time on my hands. I really prefer to be very, very busy.

DD knows this, which is why he thinks my daydreams about retiring if I win the RSL lottery are unrealistic. He reckons I’d find it very dull.

Hmmmm, nah, not if a beachfront mansion and an end to lockdowns were involved. Those chairs alone make me feel giddy with delight. There would be so much entertaining and swanning about to do. Plus, I’d still keep doing Drinks Digest for love and not have to worry about the money part.

I really, really like my drinks website and the level of knowledge I have about the industry these days. Yesterday I made a new LinkedIn mate, Rodrigo, the distiller at Tromba Tequila in Mexico. He shared a story I wrote about how to make the perfect margarita at home, thanked me for my kind words and said he hoped to see me in Jalisco soon for a tequila or two.

How freaking awesome would that be? Although it seems very pie in the sky right now.

Have I told you the story of my family holiday to Mexico? We were living in New York and it was so hard to convince a travel agent on the Upper West Side that we preferred to freestyle it, as most people just flew into all-inclusive resorts and lazed by the pool. We wanted to land in the Yucatan and explore.

The idea of us hiring a car made the travel agent go slightly pale with fear about the dangers involved. But it worked out just fine. We had an absolute ball.

The youngest was three, while the eldest had just turned five. My ex’s parents joined us and we spent a few days at one of the infamous all-inclusives at Cancun, which the kids and I loved – the lazy river and endless ice-cream cones were a big hit.

Then we went cross country, visiting the yellow city of Izamal and an atmospheric town called Merida, before ducking down to the seaside city of Campeche.

We also explored two Mayan cities along the way to satisfy my fascination with ancient ruins (as a teenager I wanted to time travel so I could go to ancient Crete, in more recent times it’s been because I wanted to shag various incarnations of Doctor Who).

We explored the incredible Uxmal and Chichen Itza sites. The eldest called it “Chicken itchy” and loved how our voices echoed when we yelled at the El Castillo pyramid.

Fabulous holiday. And nothing scary happened, although the teenage soldiers driving around with machine guns were a little off-putting. Sadly the youngest doesn’t remember any of it, which is a pity during these locked down times. But the kids were very well travelled in their early years.

We went through the old photo albums together last night, which was lovely. It’s been years since we flicked the pages. So many adventures! One day we’ll get out of Sydney again …

Song of the day: Split Enz “Years go by”