Goldie and I just returned from a week in Mexico where we went to attend a wedding of some of my adopted Mexican family and learn to barf in new and interesting places.

I spent a good chunk of my early twenties sowing an increasingly empty stash of wild oats in Oaxaca, Mexico. Whenever someone asks me where the hell Oaxaca is, or more com.monly, how one could survive in a place with so few consonants, my canned response is that it is 6 hours south of Mexico City and the ability to live in a place (and at time on entire streets) made it easier to hide from old boyfriends. I encourage anyone to try to find me on the corner of xicotical and San Salvador Tzompantapec. Suckers.

Since I returned stateside, Mexico has clearly had a dramatic improvement in the snack arena. No longer are one's only options restricted to fried pork skin or fried grasshoppers (although I have never seen an actual Mexican eating the grasshoppers, only trying to make frightened Americans believe that they do). They now have introduced the most delicious, and entertaining snack of all time. I give you: Hot Nuts!

No matter how bad you feel, just saying that you would like to eat los Hot Nuts! can make any day better. En serio? Hot Nuts! Made you smile. You're welcome.

Traveling with Goldie was amazing. She clearly got the traveling gene from me. The kid barfed in plants, had diarrhea in some really drab bathrooms and vomited into plastic bags whilst riding in a taxi with nary a complaint. Best Goldism of the trip:

"don't worry about that smell, it's just my poop" Sheer comedy gold that kid.

Also: when the Mexicans tell you that you are going to Dance the Turkey, do not assume that they are making some Spanish mistake for the Chicken Dance. You are going to dance with an actual turkey. And the next day? They are going to kill that turkey and drain the blood out of it right next to where you are eating your huevos a la Mexicana.

God I love that country.