Norm Stories From Everyday Life: Music Appreciation (or Lack Thereof)

One of the reasons I believe that Norm was always so relaxed and happy is that we had a routine and we stuck with it. Morning walk. Breakfast. Leave for work. Come home for lunch and let Norm out for his mid-day sun bath. Come home in the evening. Supper. Evening walk. Wind down.

We also had a weekly routine. Sunday we would go to the park to hang out with his friends, then come home and do laundry. Well, that last item in the routine was for me only. Sunday, being a relaxing day even with the laundry-doing, was also my "music listening" day when I would play my favorite CD's. There were only two CD's that caused Norm to want to get out of the house and into the safety of the backyard, which was the same reaction he had whenever the vacuum cleaner got turned on.

So what were the two CD's that Norm did not like?

The first might surprise you. "Chicago Transit Authority." The debut LP from Chicago, back when they were a brassy jazz rock group. Norm was OK with "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is" and "Questions 67 and 68." But deeper into the CD were a few very dissonant tracks (or discordant) (whichever you prefer), such as "Free Form Guitar" and "South California Purples" that Norm did not find pleasing.

What was the other CD? My "best of" for Yoko Ono. Norm would head for the door within seconds of Yoko being put into the CD player. He was not a fan. No. Please note that this is not one of the posts for the "what an intelligent dog Norm was" file.

Norm Stories From Everyday Life: Wrestling

Playtime for Norm with one of his (many) girlfriends.

As Norm got older -- and this was really clear by the time he was on senior food -- Norm rarely played with male dogs. When he was younger, he loved to wrestle intensely with other males. One of his best friends when he was younger was a 130-pound Anatolian Shepherd named Trigger. Trigger lived a few blocks away and was always extremely happy to see Norm. I think it's because Norm was one of the few dogs who loved playing with a dog as big as Trigger. He outweighed Norm 2:1, but when they wrestled, it was a fair fight! Both were completely exhausted and it was struggle to get Norm home after one of their wrestling sessions. He left it all in Trigger's front yard! He had nothing left in him.

Sadly, Trigger being older, got very stiff in the joints and could no longer wrestle. A year or two after that, Trigger passed away. And then, soon after that, Norm, getting older, focused his wrestling on his girlfriends. Younger girlfriends. Much younger girlfriends. Stella, for example, who also was a pit mix and who was many years younger than Norm.

Norm continued with his wrestling ways right up to the end. In the last few months, he could only do one wrestling move or two before he was worn out. But he still loved wrestling. Especially with the ladies.

Norm Stories From Everyday Life: Timekeeping

Back to the Norm stories.

I was thinking about all the other stories about life with Norm that are worth mentioning. I then realized that some of the most interesting things about Norm involved everyday life. This is an example of something that always made me wonder exactly how much of my everyday conversation he understood. If I got home in the evening before suppertime, and it was not quite suppertime. Or if I was sitting around at home and Norm thought it was time for the evening walk and I thought we should wait a bit for the Las Vegas heat to cool down. Norm would come over to where I was sitting, tail wagging, a big ol' smile and an enthusiastic look. He never would bark when he did this. Sometimes it would be close enough to the scheduled time that I would feed him or harness him up for his walk a little ahead of schedule.

But, sometimes, often, I said "It's too early. 15 minutes." Usually I would flash 10 fingers and another five. To signify "15." Think Norm didn't understand the concept of 15 minutes? Norm then would immediately walk away, tail no longer wagging. Many times -- way too many times to be a coincidence -- in fact, you could even say this happened "usually" -- he would come back, smiling, tail wagging after about 12 or 13 minutes later. Never sooner than that. Never. (Well, maybe there were a couple of times in 13 years he came back after five minutes, but only a couple.) I will concede that his timekeeping was not perfect. I will grant you that. He was off by a minute or three. But considering that he didn't wear a watch or carry a cellphone, I would call his timekeeping was impressive.

Yet another example of what I've said many times before. Norm was scary smart.

The Shrine to Norm

Hopefully this isn't too weird or maudlin for the people who aren't dog-obsessed, but ...

I got Norm's cremains back today. Norm is the first of my animals whose remains I've got, but, given Norm's personality, he deserves to be a category of his own. So, up on the mantle, I've made a little shrine to the Best Dog Ever(TM). From left to right: (1) Norm's collar; (2) the vial of Norm's fur, which I didn't ask for since his bristles are burrowed so deeply into the carpet and upholstery I will be living with Norm fur for the rest of my days; (3) the wooden box that is Norm's final resting place, along with (4) the metal hanging ornament that my neighbor Teresa made in his memory which is in the shape of Norm -- it even has a green collar like the one Norm wore (see #1); (5) the purple flower that the vet's office sent back with the cremains; (6) a card that my friend Stan many years ago that has a great picture of a younger Norm on it; and (7) Norm's favorite nylabone which is the one toy I did not toss.

If it seems like I'm being obsessive, it's because I am.

More Norm pictures and stories coming up.

Norm Stories: The Exciting Conclusion To "Norm The Landscape Architect"

And, now, for the exciting conclusion of our episode of Life With Norm: Norm The Landscape Architect.

So what happens when one of Norm's rawhide chip burial spots is discovered right after Norm has completed his burying and his meticulous landscape work to hide the hiding place? This happened during the year that Daniil the German Student was living here. Norm had been given a rawhide chip that, according to his specifications, then required an immediate burial. He raced out the door into the backyard, ran to the side of the house, and buried it there, under one of the side windows. Unbeknownst to Norm, the window was the window for Daniil's bedroom. And Daniil was in his bedroom. Watching Norm during his burying and landscape work.

When Norm finished smoothing out the rocks so the burial spot would avoid the detection of anyone except those with a hound dog nose, Norm looked up. And with a look of shock and horror, he saw Daniil standing at the window. Looking back at him.

Daniil came out of his room to tell me what just had happened. Norm had come back into the house and I closed the door behind him. But then Norm started pacing around the family room, very nervously. After a few seconds -- which in Norm years probably felt like a 1000 years -- I opened up the back door and Norm ran out, around to the side of the house. I don't know for certain what happened, but Daniil and I could the sound of rocks moving around. I told Daniil: "You are not going outside to see where Norm is re-burying his rawhide." Daniil, no fool, absolutely agreed: "No. Of course not."

I caught a quick glimpse of Norm being active in the back corner of the backyard, but it was a quick glimpse. After hearing Norm root around in the rocks at the back wall, he came back inside. His snout was filthy. But he was relaxed and happy.

Mission accomplished.

Norm Stories: Norm The Landscape Architect

This is the story of a landscape architect. Named Norm. Norm The Dog.

In his younger days, Norm loved those rawhide chips. But he only liked the ones that were thin and crispy. When I would give him one of the noticeably thick ones, he wouldn't chew on it. He would carry it out into the backyard and bury it. Many times, months, even years later, he would dig up one of these extra-thick rawhide chips that had sufficiently fermented under the ground, bring the dirty stinking chip in the house and then, after it had been properly aged, chew on it for awhile.

Norm was meticulous about how he buried his rawhide chips. He did not simply dig up the rocks in the backyard, plop the rawhide in a hole he dig and re-bury it. No. Not Norm. After he re-buried it, he would use his snout to smooth out the rocks completely so that you absolutely could not tell where it was that he buried it. It was as if the rocks had not been disturbed at all. There was no sign that anything was buried underneath. No lump, no careless scattering of rocks. Absolutely perfectly meticulous levelling of the rocks that were concealing his buried treasure.

He even did this with rawhide chips he buried in the cactus garden to the side of the patio. I do not know how he could dig holes next to spiny, needly cacti -- and then smooth the rocks out afterward -- and not get a snoot full of cactus needles. But he did.

So what happened when he was once caught burying a rawhide chip in the backyard? That's the cliffhanger ending for a story that will be continued tomorrow.

Norm Stories: The One Food That Norm Would Not Eat

Norm loved food.

Norm was not a dog who you would call a "picky" eater. He always found something to eat on the streets on our morning and evening walks. (Hipsters love "street food," which I guess makes Norm an original hipster.) Especially during the darker months of the year, when the morning and the evening walks could be in the dark, Norm would be sniffing in the bushes and, all of the sudden, I hear him crunching on something. Chicken bones, especially chicken wing bones, were always welcome (although less prevalent after the KFC on Windmill closed). He found hundreds of chicken wing bones on the sidewalks and road gutters over the years. It's like there were people driving along, eating chicken as they drove, tossing the bones out the windows as they toddled down the road.

Norm would find week-old burritos in the gutter on the roadside. Or week-old French fries. Even greasy Taco Bell wrappers could be within his grasp. He once swallowed a large chunk of deli ham that was in a plastic bag on one walk, swallowing it quickly so I couldn't pull it out of his mouth. (He threw up the plastic bag a couple of days later with the ham still inside. To Norm's credit, he didn't try to eat that ham a second time.)

Up until his last week or so, Norm had only once previously not finished his breakfast before supper time. And there were probably only a few times before that that breakfast was not gobbled immediately. Supper was always devoured immediately.

Norm absolutely loved all food. Except one thing. There was one food item I gave Norm to eat that he absolutely refused to eat it. Brie cheese.

And Norm loved cheese. He even loved moldy cheese. When I had cheese in refrigerator and got that white dusty mold on it, I would cut that section off and feed it to Norm. Yum. Yum. So brie, being a moldy cheese, should have right in his culinary wheelhouse. If you thought that, you would've been wrong.

I once bought a small segment of Brie that was on sale cheap at the grocery store. Norm, as he would do, begged for some of it. So I cut off a bit and gave it to him to eat. I paid no attention, but a minute or so later, I saw the piece of Brie on the family room floor, a few feet from Norm. So I picked it up and gave it to him.

It would not be accurate to say he spit it out. That's not quite what happened. He had his snout up a bit. It looked like the brie, once it was touching his "lips" -- the outer skin around his mouth -- I know dogs do not "technically" have lips -- but once the brie was touching Norm's lip-equivalents, it's as if the brie cheese itself jumped off Norm's lips, leaping several feet away. All with no apparent effort from Norm to propel the unwanted cheese away from his mouth.

So, yes, there was one food that Norm would not eat.

Norm Stories: Norm's One Escape Attempt From His Own Backyard

In his younger years, Norm used to love to lay out in the rocks in the backyard for his afternoon sunbath. As he got older, he shifted to the flat concrete of the patio.

And speaking of Norm in the backyard, today's story is the story of the one time that Norm escaped from his own backyard. You would think given Norm's history, he would have had far more escape attempts here. He was constantly getting out of the backyard (by shimmying up the gate and jumping down) in the four months he was with his prior owner. And he was constantly jumping fences at Camp Bow Wow and, after he was kicked out of there, he would climb chain link fences at other boarding/doggie daycare facilities. Except for the part of A-VIP where they had nine-foot tall chain link fences in one enclosure. Nine feet was high enough that he didn't even attempt a climb when exiled to that section for the motivated and committed escapers.

How he managed his escape from his own backyard was ingenious. It was a Sunday morning. Spring time. Warm but pleasant. I was comfortable leaving the back door from the house open into the backyard since it was cool enough that the a/c was not running continually. Norm was quiet so the fact that I heard nothing meant nothing. Or so I thought. After he was out there for 20 minutes or so, I went out to check on him. No Norm. But the side gate was open. I was going to get some shoes on to go searching for him when the front door bell rang. A neighbor found him a few blocks away, on the other side of the busy street behind my house. She was able to lure him into their car by doing something Norm always found irresistible. She showed him an open car door. In he jumped -- she confirmed it was him by his name on the collar -- and off they went to bring him home.

So how did he escape? Apparently, the last time the bug man was here, he did not close the side gate fully. The gate is old so it can appear to be latched, but the latch is not fully closed. Norm stuck his snout between the vertical rails (or slats, not sure what to call them) on the gate, angled his snout, and pulled backwards. You cannot open this gate by pushing forward. You have to pull backwards. Which Norm did.

How do I know this when I didn't even see him escape? Later that day, he was back at the side gate and I caught him sticking his snout between the rails, angling his snout 45 degrees, and backing up with his snout still between the rails. Only this time I had made sure that the latch on the gate was fully closed and fully locked.

First escape attempt: successful.

Second escape attempt (same day): foiled.

Norm Stories: All Those Times People Would Stop Their Cars Just to Meet Norm

Here's another thing that I thought was unique about Norm. On our walks, people who I never met before would stop us and ask me, "Is that Norm?"

Maybe this happens with other dogs, but I've never seen it happen with anyone but Norm. People would come up to me on our walks -- long walks -- and tell me they had heard about Norm from a neighbor or a friend and when they saw this white dog walking his long walks, they just had to stop and meet Norm for themselves. This even happened on more than one occasion with people driving past us. They would turn their cars around and stop just to ask if it was Norm and, once confirmed, fuss on him while he, in turn, fussed back on them. Sometimes people would stop their cars not because they knew it was Norm, but because they would always see this happy white dog walking all over the area, in places a mile or so from the last place they would have seen Norm, and they just wanted to meet this happy, well-exercised dog.

Norm, of course, was always happy to meet people under either of those sort of circumstances. Actually, I don't need that last part. He was always happy to meet people and the people he met were almost always happy to meet him. (There would be the occasional non-dog person that Norm would try to convert to being a dog person. He was occasionally successful.)

And this doesn't even count the dozens of times that people who were also walking stopped to introduce themselves to Norm. Not to me. Norm. I was just his personal assistant.

Norm Stories: Who's the White Pit Bull Mix Who's the Sex Machine to All the Chicks?

Who's the white pit bull mix

Who's the sex machine to all the chicks

Norm!

Right on.

As Norm got older, he lost interest in playing with the boy dogs. And, once getting senior status, he really didn't want much to do with male dogs his size or bigger. But the ladies? Norm never lost his interest in fooling around with the lady-dogs.

Here he is with one of his many girlfriends. This is Stella, who was his best girl during the early COVID years of 2020 and 2021.

This is the reference at the top of the post, for those too young to remember.

They say Norm is a bad mutha -- shut your mouth -- I'm talking about Norm.

Norm Stories: The Day Norm Was 86-ed from Camp Bow Wow

Today's story is why Norm was 86-ed from Camp Bow Wow.

In the first few years of Norm living here, I would take him to Camp Bow Wow on occasion. Sometimes it was for "doggie day care," sometimes it was for boarding. He loved it there and they loved him. Norm had an interesting habit there. At some point in the afternoon, he would get bored with playing with the other dogs and he just wanted to be left alone. So he would hop over a few walls and go to the warehouse area in the back (where they stored the dog food) and just go back there and sleep. At first the staff of Camp Bow Wow were a bit surprised that he would hang out there, but after a few times of catching him doing this, they came to the conclusion that he was not getting into anything back there and it was just "Norm being Norm."

But, eventually, at some point, the folks at Camp Bow Wow began to get nervous not about Norm hanging out by himself in the warehouse, but the jumping walls part of the equation. They were afraid he would hurt himself on the landing (not likely) or land on a smaller dog on the other side of the wall (definitely more of a possibility). So it was suggested to me that Norm should, perhaps, try a different facility. They were not mean or rude about it. They were in tears in fact. So I don't know where this directive came from. A manager? The franchise owner? Maybe he actually did land on a small dog one day. I don't know. But that was that. Norm had been 86-ed from his beloved Camp Bow Wow.

The first place I tried as a "doggie day care" facility for him was Doggie District, the one at Silverado Ranch and Bermuda. You know how these doggie day care places have you do a three-hour trial-run to see if your dog mixes well with the other dogs? I dropped Norm off for his three-hour visit and started to run some errands. Not even 20 minutes later I got a phone call from Doggie District. "Come get your dog. We just found him six feet up on a seven-foot fence." Norm apparently was climbing a seven-foot chain link fence and he was discovered right before he reached the summit.

That was the last time he stepped inside a Doggie District location.

Norm Stories: The Beginning of the Norm Story

This photo is from Norm's first day in my house. He would have been about one year and four months (or so) old.

So today will be the story of how Norm ended up living in my house. One nice, sunny and warm morning on December 16, 2011, I opened up the garage door to go to work. And there, in my driveway, was this ecstatically happy white dog I've never seen before, greeting me like I'm his favorite human ever. This dog was not showing any signs of being stressed out or nervous or scared. Just really really happy.

I had something I needed to do at work that morning, and I wasn't really sure what to do, but I knew letting him run around the neighborhood (with a very busy street on the back side of my house) was not an option. So I got him to go into my backyard, which is walled off with a side gate like just about every backyard in Las Vegas. He went to the backyard with absolutely no difficulty. I went in the house and filled a big bowl of water and left him with that while I went to work.

When I got to the office, a very short drive away, I got my assistant Carole to come with me to take this very happy white dog to the vet to see if he was chipped. We get back to my house. I'm not sure if he had a collar or if he was nude -- I think I had a leftover collar to put on him from when I had my greyhound -- but I had a leash and with absolutely no difficulty or struggle, this white dog jumped into the car for an adventure ride to the vet.

He was chipped. And the vet's office was able to call the owner and let them know the dog was at the vet's office. The owners lived a block and a half from me, but I had not known them or the dog at this time. We Las Vegans don's socialize much with our neighbors. Apparently, I learned later, the neighbor that the vet's office called absolutely sunk when she got call from a vet. She was immediately assuming the dog had gotten out (which he had) (and, which, apparently, he was doing with frequency), and onto the busy nearby street and had been hit by car, which would explain why a vet was calling. Nope. The dog was happy and healthy and had been on the loose.

The then-owners worked long hours, at jobs not really close by, so it was difficult for them when this dog got loose. Like mine, their backyard was enclosed by a cinderblock wall and had a gate. Their gate had grating on it. The dog either was shimmying up the gate using the holes in the grating for climbing. Or he was jumping high enough to grab the top of the gate and work his way over top of it. He then would fall about six feet or so to the concrete. What a shock then that, later in life, this dog would develop degenerative hip disease after months of jumping/falling down several feet onto concrete.

Regardless, he was serially getting out of the backyard. Which was both dangerous for the dog and frustrating for the humans. He had worn them out and so we agreed that I would take this dog in. On the cellphone connection, I misheard them telling me what his name was. The owner said "Norton." I heard "Norman." And the rest is history.

Norm had absolutely no hard feelings toward his prior owners. When he would see them on our walks -- which happened regularly until they moved to the other side of the country -- at which point we stopped running into them because, even though Norm's walks were very long, we didn't make it to Arkansas on even our longest walk -- but when Norm saw them he was ecstatically happy to see his old friends. So Norm clearly had a great life when he lived with them. He just wanted to go out and explore the neighborhood some when they were not home.

Norm Stories: The Only Time He Grabbed Food Off the Counter (and It Was Meant For Him Anyway)

More Norm The Dog stories.

This is an example of how Norm came to my house knowing the rules, never having to be taught them, and just following them. Norm loved food and loved to eat. But I could leave food out on the counter and he would not disturb it. Not even show interest in it. I could thaw meat on the counter worry-free. I could leave a plate of food on the end table in the family room (which was snout high), get up and leave the room, and the food would not be disturbed. Only one time in all the years he lived here did he ever grab food off a counter. And that was a big steak bone that I had taken out of the freezer to thaw a bit before giving it to him. So the one time he grabbed food off the counter, in all of his years, was his own food.

I only heard him grab the bone off the kitchen counter because I heard, all of the sudden, the dishwasher suddenly turned on. That was because the steak bone was on the counter right above where the dishwasher was, and in jumping up to grab the bone -- his bone -- he accidentally turned on the dishwasher. Otherwise he would have gotten away with this crime undetected.

PS: Those strong pit jaws meant that the steak bone did not need to thaw out before it was complete deliciousness.

Norm Stories: The Dog-Park Gate-Opening Incident

Cross-posted from Facebook, September 9, 2024:

If you will indulge me, I will be posting Norm pictures and telling Norm stories for awhile on here. If you've heard (or read) me tell any of these stories before, the algorithm will find other things for you.

This is a favorite picture of mine taken at the Silverado Ranch park. This park was the site of the notorious gate-opening incident, but that's on the other side of the park. Norm just climbed up onto the slide like that and was ready for photography.

The gate-opening incident is one of my favorite Norm stories. We were in the dog park area of the park. Norm liked to go in there and make his rounds saying hello generally to the people in there and, occasionally, to some of the other dogs. And the problem with Norm was when he was done with his social rounds, he would sometimes let himself out. I was at the far end of the dog run, picking up doggie waste, and I saw Norm trotting toward the entrance gates. I knew trouble was, literally, afoot. There was a woman with two dogs struggling to get into the park because one of her dogs was super-anxious to get in and the other was super-reluctant. She was in what I call the "vapor lock" area between the two entry gates.

A bunch of other dogs are in front of the interior gate barking their fool heads off at these two dogs. Norm calmly trots over. With no hesitation, he lifts up the U-shaped latch with his snout, opening the gate. Suddenly there are about 10 dogs in that little vapor lock barking up storms. I rushed over as fast as I could and grabbed the back gate latch so that Norm could not open that one, too. Because 10 dogs in the vapor lock is comedy; 10 dogs in the parking lot would not have been funny at all.

Norm The Dog (2010-2024)

 I am cross posting these stories about Norm The Dog from my Facebook account to here for easier storage and, more importantly, so that I can find them more easily when I want to read some of my memories.  This was posted on Facebook on Sunday, September 8, 2024, about events from the previous evening:

Norm The Dog has passed away. I am crying my eyes out as I post this. He was a "once in a lifetime" dog, truly the smartest, handsomest, and friendliest dog ever. And that's not just my bias speaking.

He was at home yesterday evening when he passed. We had just returned from a long walk in the park (which he absolutely loved every single time). Just know that he went quickly and without pain.

Here is a short video from his younger days, lounging in his pool, from the days before he went on senior food. He was only seven when this video was shot, halfway through his life's journey.

A Visit to the Divine, Followed by a Traditional Salvadorean Supper (Finally)

The Divine Savior of the World, the namesake both to this country and this city, can be found in a traffic circle
halfway between the Centro Historico and the upscale neighborhood in which I am staying.

Last day in El Salvador. Last day of the mini-vacation. First day of the vacation when I delayed the start of my daily tourism to do some work that was piling up.

And it was hot and muggy-humid by the time I started my tourism day. So I opted for a one-hour walk (two-hour round trip) to El Monumento al Divino Salvador del Mundo, the Monument to the Divine Savior of the World.

And here it is.

There was not much sightseeing to be done along the way. Here's the thing about San Salvador, at least this time of year. Mornings are very pleasant. Then, around noon, it gets horribly hot and humid with an intense sun. Then, around 3:00 p.m., it is typically time for the afternoon thunderstorms to roll in. Just like South Florida. Then, in the evening, the humidity is down, as are the temperatures, and the weather is absolutely beautiful. You might have more thunderstorms overnight, but who cares? I'm asleep by that time.

Here's the view with a row of fountains shooting up their water on the west side of the monument:

And here's a closer-up view of the monument. The country is named "The Savior," with the preceding article not optional. The city is named "Holy Savior." So, of course, in a visit to the City of the Holy Savior, in the Republic of the Savior, I had to visit the monument to the namesake of the city and country.

This is the view from the back:

And if you look really close, you will see this is the view from front:

And here is the view that the Divine Savior of the World has of the City of San Salvador from high atop the globe perched high atop his pedestal:

You can't really tell from the photo, but the Divine Savior has an excellent view of every American fast food known to man, all of which have a home in San Salvador (and usually at a bigger than any location of said fast food joints in the USA): McDonald's. Wendy's (lots and lots of Wendy's). Burger King. KFC (and the Central American answer to KFC: Pollo Campero). Panda Express. Every single one of the mediocre American pizza chains: Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John. They're all here. And they're all ultra-popular.

On the way back I ran into an old friend from my last two trips: Bernardo O'Higgins.

O'Higgins was the liberator of Chile and his bust can be found everywhere in Chile, the destination of my two vacations prior to this.

At this point, the heat and the sun and (most of all) the humidity were getting to me. So I rested. But after a refreshing rest, I went out to eat Salvadorean food.

I chose Relajo because (a) it was half a block from my hotel, and (b) it was highly recommended by yesterday's tour guide. Either one would have been reason enough, but both? No. Brainer.

Finally I was going to eat some Salvadorean cuisine.

On the last night of the last day. Hope I don't love it too much then!

The restaurant was right along Avenida Las Magnolias, which translates to: Magnolia Avenue. Hey, even with my pobre espanol, I can translate that one.

This is not a busy street after business hours are over, so it did not detract from the restaurant's atmosphere.

So what traditional Salvadorean food did I order at this Salvadorean restaurant in San Salvador, El Salvador? A limonada.

It came with a gratis helping of fried plantain chips. The chips were topped with a vinegary slaw that may or may not have contained the theme food of this trip: picked red onions. The limonada was good, but it was not nearly as good as yesterday's restaurant by the lake. Why is that, you may ask? Tonight's limonada was a balance of sour and sweet. I much prefer yesterday's limonada which was totally unbalanced and slanted heavily toward an intense, lip-puckering sour. Still, if not for yesterday's beverage, I would have thought this limeade was excellent.

I ordered a pupusa because ... I am in frickin' El Salvador and if you don't eat at least one pupusa on a trip here THEY WILL NOT LET YOU LEAVE THE COUNTRY. It's the law. Not only that: It's divine law.

I had the camarones, which is shrimp. This pupusa was much more like a quesadilla (the kind we get in the United States which is the kind they serve in Mexico) than the quesadilla that was a rice cake that I had yesterday. Cheesy and shrimpy, referring to the flavor and not the size. The size most definitely was not "shrimpy."

The main course was a chile relleno.

Much to my surprise, it looked like ... a chile relleno. Only heat-free. Salvadorean food is not spicy-hot like Mexican food. It was good, but it got much better when I doused it with the local hot sauce. My chile relleno was stuffed with chicken. Chicken adds protein but it does not add flavor, and that's true the world over. So my chicken chile relleno tasted just like a chile relleno I could order at Tres Amigos or any of a dozen slightly-Americanized Mexican restaurants in Las Vegas.

But the best is yet to come.

Horchata! But real Salvadorean horchata. Horchata de morro. Served traditionally with a little bit of cinnamon on top. Mexican horchata is made with rice milk. Spanish horchata from Valencia (the birthplace of that delicious beverage) is made with almond milk. Real Salvadorean horchata is made with a local fruit, the morro. This should not be confused with the fruit "mora," which is the Spanish name for the best berry of them all: the blackberry. This is morro. The flavor tasted like a more intense version of the almond-based horchata, much stronger than Mexican rice milk horchata. 

So now that I've finally had a delicious meal of traditional Salvadorean food, it's time to head back home. Flight leaves early tomorrow. Buenas noches, El Salvador.

Three Pyramid Complexes, a Colonial Town, and Lunch by the Lake

And through the jungle mists, I spy the Great Lost Pyramid of Tazumal. Located in an outer suburb of San Salvador.

What's on today's agenda? Pyramids, pyramids, and pyramids. These are the pre-Mayan and Mayan-era pyramids in the environs of San Salvador. Admittedly, these pyramids are not as spectacular as Copan. These pyramids are smaller and have suffered greatly from earthquakes and volcanos. And that means that the archaeology is a lot more in the early stages and what can be seen is more re-creation than restoration.

First stop: Joya de Cerén.

More specifically: Parque Arqueológico Joya de Cerén. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which, when it comes to international tourism sites, does mean something,

Let's have a look-see.

This is called the "Pompeii of the Americas." And that's legitimate. It is a very well-preserved small Mayan village from the early classical period. Which got buried for several centuries under a huge amount of volcanic ash. This meant much of the village is well-preserved.

Below is the functional equivalent of City Hall.

The buildings do not have roofs because the roofs were made of thatch and (Thatch) + (Volcanic Explosion) = (No More Thatch), in simple mathematical terms.

Unlike Pompeii, there were no dead bodies. This is because, apparently, the residents of Joya de Cerén had the foresight to bug out at the signs of the volcanic activity. They were not taken by surprise like the villagers in ancient Pompeii.

They did not climb that ladder when they were getting the h*ll out of Dodge, or, in this case, Joya de Cerén. Two reasons. First of all, they didn't have metal ladders. This is from the archaeologist. But, more importantly, until their city was buried in a few dozen feet of volcanic ash, they would not have had to climb out of the hole to get away.

The roof over all this means that this is very much an active archaeological site.

There is a Mayan sauna in this picture. From the description, it seems less like a Finnish sauna than the sweat lodges used by the indigenous people of the Southwestern United States.

I guess I lied when I said I visited thee pyramid complexes. I guess this was all a pyramid scheme. Joya de Cerén was too small and too unimportant to have a pyramid. How small and unimportant? It was rules by a chamana -- a woman -- a woman shaman.

The green line above is the laser pointer being used by the guide to point out various things worth seeing.

This is a block of adobe from an adobe column because why not:

And this is a piece of pottery with a crab design:

Not a lot of crab iconography in Mayan culture. Lots of jaguars and serpents and caiman. But rather light on the crustaceans. I love crab. It's delicious. And the Mayans in this out of the way woman-ruled town we now call Joya de Cerén loved their crabs. Which they got from here:

The river that ran, and still runs, next to the village.

Finally, we end our visit to Joya de Cerén with this:

Again, that's an animal we don't usually see in Mayan iconography. It looks like a camelid. Maybe a llama. Or a guanaco. Apparently people in other Central American countries call Salvadoreans "Guanacos." It's what we would call a friendly insult. Equal parts each. Did those wise Mayans of yesteryear foresee a future when the inhabitants of this land would be called "guanacos"? The wonder of the ancient Maya.

Moving on to the next stop, which actually does feature real pyramids (which are largely still buried under the volcanic soil): Parque Arqueológico San Andrés.

It's very green. Below is a pyramid still completely underneath the green green grass of Parque Arqueológico San Andrés:

But some stone does come through the soil in places.

One sad reality of San Andrés is not just that the pyramids remain buried in soil, but much of what was found has been buried in concrete. The structures are so fragile that the archaeologists had a choice: seal it in cement or let it decay at a rapid rate.

The opening below on this ancient ruin was for the archaeologists, but it's not been sealed shut.

 

And here's an ancient ruin. Standing in front of an ancient ruin.

Damn. Who is the decrepit old guy who keeps jumping in front of me when someone is taking a picture of the young and handsome me? This ancient ruin is so girthy that you cannot even see me with him standing in front of me like that.

And here's a picture from high ground, viewing a pyramid emerging from the soil:

And this is an indigo plant:

The Mayans figured out how to extract indigo dye from this decidedly not-blue plant. It's a complicated three-stage process. Indigo was beloved by the Europeans soon after the Spanish made contact with the New World. And they hadn't even invented Levi's blue jeans yet. The indigenous Mayans worked in slave conditions to produce the huge amount of indigo Europe was demanding which, let's just say, was a whole lot more than the indigo needed to blue-up a small Mayan village. Eventually, African slaves were brought in to work in the indigo mills after the Spaniards -- pretty much literally -- worked the Maya to death in the indigo factories.

And speaking of local plants whose wealth was also not obvious and, yet, the Mayans figured out the complicated to extract something from this plant that became tremendously valuable after the Spanish contact with the New World:

Cacao. The cacao is right behind the indigo plant in the above picture.

Next stop: Tazumal.

Tazumal is located in an outer suburb of El Salvador. The other two sites are about an hour outside of San Salvador, but Tazumal is a loud and busy place.

This is not a historic site for quiet contemplation.

Even if you are sitting on your throne-stone.

And here's the star of the Tazumal show:

Let's climb to get a better look, shall we?

The view from on high:

And looking from a different angle: 

This is the ball court.

All Mayan villages of any import had ball courts. This one was in such a state of decay that it is not known how the ball game was played here. Was it knock it off a statue, like in Copan? Was is knock it through a tiny stone hoop, like in Mexico. Was it shoot through a metal hoop hung ten-feet high, with a net dangling underneath, like in the NBA? The answer is lost to time.

Some archaeology is happening here:

And this big stone is somewhat interesting. On one side, you have to look closely to see this because of the ravages of time -- something with which I am all too familiar -- eroded the man's face, but this is a Mayan ruler who had a mustache. Just like back in the disco era.  

Only it was ancient Mayan times, which went back even farther than the disco era.

And visible next to Tazumal was one of the more colorful cemeteries I have ever seen.

So much blue and turquoise and teal coloring, which are not generally considered funerary colors.

It was sealed off from Tazumal with barbed wire. Someone didn't want me crossing over.

And, just to be clear, by "crossing over" I meant traveling from Tazumal to the cemetery. Nothing more than that.

And that will conclude the pyramid portion of this five-day holiday vacation weekend. It's on to the beautiful colonial era town of Santa Ana.

We didn't stop long in Santa Ana. Just enough time on the way to lunch by the lake to snap a few pictures.

This is the Teatro de Santa Ana.

This is City Hall. This is the newest of the buildings around the main plaza. But, credit where credit is due, they made it in the same style as the older colonial architecture, blending in quite nicely.

This is the former casino, catty-corner from the main plaza. Yes, it's "catty-corner." It's not "kitty-corner" or some other such nonsense. Catty. Corner. Hyphenated.

This is the Cathedral of Santa Ana.

The interior is nice:

But the exterior is what makes this spectacular.

And here is a picture of me in front of the cathedral. The tour guide who snapped the picture thought the picture was ruined because several birds took off and flew in front of me when the picture was snapped.

I really don't like pictures of me much at all. But I think this particular picture is all kinds of awesome. You can tell I'm worried about whether Suzanne Pleshette is going to get all of her schoolchildren to safety before the birds attack. (Obscure Hitchcock reference. The best kind of Hitchcock reference.)

One last look at Santa Ana

Lunch time!

Looks like an ordinary restaurant, roof overhead but open-air sides. But check out the view:

The restaurant overlooks Lago de Coatepeque, a very large lake that is within a very large caldera of a local volcano. There is no known outlet for this lake. They do know that the water in the lake eventually reaches the ocean, but how it leaves the lake is a mystery. They do know it is deep. Very deep. How deep? Deeper than that.

I had a beef dish, with tortillas, carrots, a small bit of corn, avocado, chorizo and a mixture of rice and refried beans called "casamiento," which translates to "marriage," which is a typical Salvadorean style of serving rice and refrieds.

I ordered the beverage "limonada," which I thought was going to be lemonade. But this is Latin America, so it was something much better than lemonade. It was limeade. It's always lime and never lemon in Latin American cuisine. It was extremely tart. Extremely. Which, to my tongue, meant: Most Delicious Glass of Limeade Ever,

Dessert was coffee and a cake made from rice flour and cheese.

In El Salvador, this is called a "quesadilla." Seriously. Not even remotely like a quesadilla in Mexico, You think the food in Central America is the same as it is in Mexico? Order a quesadilla in El Salvador.

And that ends today's excursion. No supper blogging tonight because this was a late lunch and -- more importantly -- did you see how much food was on my lunch plate?