The past couple of days have been nothing but get ready to leave the boat days. Ali’s always been the type to leave everything behind immaculately cleaned, straightened out, and ready for our eventual return. So she’s shouldered most of the work of prepping the boat for a couple of months off.

Yesterday we were at a refrigerator shop picking up some special refrigerant to fix the fridge yet again when we noticed a nice dehumidifier in the box next to the register. Before I knew it we’d dropped two hundred bucks on that thing as well. I’ve been told these go a long way towards keeping the boat in nice shape during these hot humid summer months down here. We’ll see.

We made a family trip to the dentist. Ouest got an x-ray taken of her front tooth to make sure there is no infection or anything wrong with it other than being dead. The dentist showed us that there was very little root to the tooth and said it will most certainly fall out sooner than the others. Oh well.

And today we made the move downtown. Same place as last year right next to the cathedral just a couple blocks up the hill from the ocean. What a difference. The boat has been stifling the past week even with a little air conditioner blowing in Lowe’s room all day and night. I remember having a lot of people e-mail us during our catamaran days whether or not we wished we had air conditioning and we’d just laugh. In all those years I think we spent two nights hot enough to warrant turning on an air conditioner. But here in Mexico it is a whole different ball game, both at anchor and in the marina. It’s stinking hot here, no doubt about it.

Election day here in Mexico. Time to pick a new president. What does this mean to the average Joe? No liquor sales all weekend long. They aren’t stupid, they know how to improve voter turnout.

So earlier today I had both the kids at the mall while Ali finished up some stuff around the boat. There is a seven story play area at the mall. Seven kid stories, two, maybe three adult stories. It’s a monstrosity that couldn’t possibly be built in the United States of punitive damages.

Anyway, it was about time to leave so I gave Ouest a two-minute warning. She’d been calm and playing nice up to this point, but the two-minute warning set her off. She flew up the slides and through the tunnels until I couldn’t see her any more.

Figuring she’d come down eventually I walked over to the Chinese restaurant to get Ali some spring rolls. I was standing there when I looked up and saw Ouest four stories up taking off her dress. God Dammit.

I stormed over and yelled up at her, but hell, she was fifteen feet over my head, she just laughed at me and disappeared into some tunnel bubble.

Spring rolls came out and so did Ouest. Remember I’m holding Lowe during all of this. I tell Ouest it’s time to go so she needs to go get her dress. She spins on her bare feet and runs like Bambi through the woods, disappearing a hundred yards down the other side of the mall.

I catch up with her three minutes later only because she sat down in front of the doors. Now I give her hell.

Okay, so she’s back under my control. I’ve explained why she can’t take off her dress and leave it at the top of Ronald McDonald land; because, of course, some other kid will take it and run off with it. “Why?” Because it’s orange and cute. “Why?” Dammit.

So we all march back across the mall and Ouest sets off to retrieve her dress. She’s up there a couple of minutes, spring rolls are getting cold, and she finally yells down that it’s gone.

“What? Some kid seriously took your dress? I only said that to scare you.”

I looked around for an older tourist kid, but there were no gringos around, so I stopped a seven-year-old Mexican girl and mumbled something about my naked daughters naranja vestido. She nodded that she’d seen it and disappeared up a tube. Her mother immediately appeared five feet behind me. Freak.

The dress came back down, we got some shoes on, and suddenly Ouest was back to calm land. Like absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had just transpired. I of course wanted to bitch at her some more, but remembered she’s two, she honestly didn’t remember what had happened five minutes earlier. She’s in the moment. That’s the problem, you can’t hold a grudge and be angry at kids all day long like you can a spouse, because they would have no idea what you were doing. There’s no satisfaction in that. Dammit, dammit, dammit.