Jugo Naturale and Bed Bugs... Love and hate

It started out with Hawaiian Fruit Punch, which as a child I called Fruit pooch. Then came school days and bags of Capri Sun. Later it would be as simple as Tropicana Orange Juice with LOTS OF JUICY BITS. The same juice that marked the end of an 18 month relationship. In London cloudy apple juice with it's extra tang and punch that I couldn't keep my friend Steve from polishing off out of the carton when I wasn't looking. A nanny job introduced to the sparkling and refreshing cranberry and soda and in Valparaiso it's mostly been Kiwi and Raspberry jugo naturale that I will miss when I leave.

You'll find a few varieties here of jugo naturale, the best I think is from el deseyunador. They have delicious Kiwi, tart raspberry and a variety of others (take care to avoid the apple, it's a disappointment). Unlike a lot of other places here they don't froth it with an egg white, which I find disgusting and completely unnecessary, I'm not drinking a beer, my juice doesn't need a head. You'll also find places that dilute the juice with water, which is a bit of a bummer, and places that add too much or no sugar.

But almost across the board, you'll find the price hovers around about 2 dollars for a decent sized glass (never less than a half pint). In New York, you'll often find if your palette wants fresh squeezed orange juice at brunch you'll likely pay about $4 or more for what amounts to a big sip. To get 2 big sips, you'll sometimes pay more for the juice than what your belgian waffle costs.

One of the things I won't miss about Valparaiso are the bug bites I keep getting. I've taken to sleeping with the cortizone we bought for Sylvain's athlete foot under my pillow for emergency application in the middle of the night. So, I've been down the bedbug road before, but I can't decide if these bites have bedbugs to thank. When our pub housing got a disastrous outbreak of bedbugs they pretty much ignored me in favor of my friend Sonja. And in New York, our apartment avoided them for the most part except a few bites Pete got. A tell tale sign of bedbug bites is that they will often eat in a succession of three bites- they start but you move in your sleep and they'll move a few steps and carry on often in a series of three called breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sylvain is also getting bitten although we seem to tag team and he'll get bitten and then three days later I'll get bitten but we never see bites in successions of two or three.

With less than 3 weeks left, I'm not about to go through the hassle of "dealing with the problem". I'll put on a brave face and get up for the bi-weekly nightly feedings, slap on some cortizone and nestle back in. However when it's time to pack, the luggage will be looking at a serious strip search...