This is a sculpture made of giant beets. They have this big festival the 23rd of December in Oaxaca, La Noche de los Rábanos (Beet Night) where the local artists make these really elaborate sculptures out of the vegetables. Sorry, it actually sounds more plausible in Spanish.

El Tule, Oaxaca. The Mexicans always say proudly, "This is the biggest tree in the world (pause) well, at least the fattest."

Here's my friend's kid with a piñata (obviously.) But, yo, this girl had a freakish sixth sense for the presence of piñatas. Her mom and I would be walking down the street and she'd start saying, ¿Dále, dále? (Hit it? . . . part of the piñata song) and we'd look around to see a tiny piñata decorating a store window. Girlfriend likes her candy, for sure.

Here we're at the wedding doing the traditional dance-around-with-large-pieces-of-pottery-which-will-soon-be -broken-on-the-floor-much-to-the-surprise-of-the-resident-foreigner-who-didn't-know-this-until-the-woman-came-up-to-her-and-smacked-her-plate-into-the-jar-the-güera-had-on-her-head-while-dancing dance. (I'm the first to admit that tequila makes all this much more understandable.)