Grocery stores in New Jersey occasionally sold sugar cane as a novelty. My mom once bought me a foot-long hunk. It was disappointing: not very sweet compared to the gold standard—a Snickers bar. The outer layer was tough. Eating it was like chewing a corn stalk.

Here in Lagos de Moreno and other Mexican cities, I frequently see vendors selling the stuff. They know how to prepare it for eating out of hand: Peel it and cut it into one-inch chunks.

I ran across this little girl clutching one of those ubiquitous Mexican take-out containers: a plastic bag, full of peeled sugar cane chunks.

Judging from the pile of chewed detritus by her feet, she had been standing there for a while.

She has a red sweater tied around her waist. At that moment, the temperature was in the 80s, but I imagine that when she left the house, it was only in the 70s. Much too cold to be running around in a blouse, so Mamá made sure she wore her sweater. (We northerners have no idea how to manage temperature.)

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Patty, sister Sandy and I strolled around some civic buildings in the city center, Geraldo in tow.

He seems dwarfed by the architecture, even awed by it. But don't let that fool you. He gave the building the one glance before he was off, checking something else out—a four-year-old dynamo.

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Go by any major church on a Saturday, and there's sure to be a wedding. I've been an informal guest at several.

Seems to me that Mexican brides and wedding party members wear more traditional gowns than up north. At my daughter Samantha's wedding, ladies and girls had bright orange and green outfits—a reversal of the Mexican tendency toward more exuberant use of color. The—whatchacallum—train bearer (?) shown here was one of three identically dressed little girls.

[Note to bloggers: When you don't know what to post, you can always fall back on kid pictures.]