The year of the potato

For those of you unaware, this year is the worldwide year of the potato. Since Peru is the birthplace of potatoes (over 8,000 years ago), and currently grows about 2,000 different varieties of potatoes, it's a big holiday here. They come in all shapes and sizes, colors and flavors. Some are purple, some are green, and some make your intestines clean. I'm thinking of throwing a potato party, but mainly I've been celebrating by eating a lot of french fries.

The stand below shows the average variety available at the local market. You'd probably guess that Peru produced a lot of potatoes, but you'd be wrong. They mainly produce for local consumption, the world leader of potato production is China, and the leading consumer is... also China. If you have no life, read more on Peru and potatoes here: http://www.potato2008.org/en/potato/origins.html.

As a family we went to the circus the other night and Alexa was mesmerized by for two hours straight, which was like a vacation. She also saw Barney and was in complete shock for about 5 minutes and couldn't take her eyes off him. She is getting into her terrible two's stage where everything is about what she wants, and when she wants it. She's speaking more and more and regularly mixes spanish and english so that I'm sure nobody at her nursery understands her.

Tonight is also a special night as I'm going to shave off my hair. I was planning on letting my hair grow out a little and sport a latino suave look, but because of all of the humidity in the air my hair looks like an afro, and instead of growing down, it keeps growing out. And that just won't do because it makes me look like a poof, so I'm just going to get rid of it all. On the left is a scary picture of the monster I have become. Hopefully Alexa will have no memories of this person.

Please eat a potato in celebration of this glorious year and think what kind of life we'd all live without them...