Here we are, my husband and I, just having got word that the first part of our uphill immigration application is complete.  Some day I will write more on this subject.  Right now it’s too raw.  All I have to say is this: if any relationship can withstand the extraordinary and unwelcome pressure of a government entity prying into your life, finances, and the “bona fide nature” of your intimacies– well.  We all deserve more than visas, Social Security numbers, passports. We deserve a monetary bonus.  Our own TV show. New computers.  I will accept my bonus in the form of a down payment on a Brooklyn brownstone, thankyouverymuch.  Government: email me, baby - lindsey AT reverseparanoia DOT com.  Thanks.  We’ll be talking soon.  Right? Anyway. I’m happy. There is happiness in this. We’ll be going back to New York. Soon enough that I can taste it.

Right now, we live in Mexico.  I often complain about this. Not the country but the town. (Don’t we all, wherever we are?)  Some things are downright wonderful about Mexico, however, and I will miss them dearly, insanely.  We live in Los Cabos, which has unfortunately been pirated by tourism (thanks in no small part to the Mexican government, which funded the municipality’s rapid and uneven development). Much of our discontent stems from this fact. The city where my husband was born is so markedly different, as are the nearby coastal areas, that you can hardly compare one with the other; known alternately as the “Other Mexico” and an island, Baja California and Baja Sur are, in particular, strangely removed from the rest of their motherland. But if you know where to look…

A  good example of what can be remarkable about Mexico, still, is eating like this. Huzzah. The two men at the left are selling fresh, from-the-ocean seafood.  You can buy a shrimp or fish ceviche, which they’ll serve you in a cup with a plastic spoon for about 3 dollars, or you can order a tostada with either ceviche– to0 enormous to eat.  Do you see the clamshells on the table?  The third choice is clams, which they shuck, clean and chop and serve to you back in the shell, with lime.  There are about 10 varieties of hot sauce on the “counter.”  Salt, pepper, Saladitas (like Saltines) and bagged flat tostadas (Milpa brand) to accompany whatever you choose.

I know it seems insane to eat raw fish, especially near San Jose del Cabo, a town with a major sewage treatment problem.  But the dirt road out to a (formerly) quiet community known locally as La Playita is full of treasures.  An organic market has bloomed out in one of the huertas.  Farmers sell strawberries by the crate on the side of the road.  And the clam man screams, “Almejas almejas ALME-JAAAAS!” to everyone who walks by.  Those on foot in this area are usually wearing cowboy hats.  The rest are tourists or workers, going out toward the new marina, which will change La Playita forever.  Until that happens, the Clam Man makes very, very good money.  And everyone eats the clams.  I chickened out and had a luscious, almost absurdly fresh shrimp ceviche, loaded with lime juice, fresh chopped white onion and tomato, and cilantro, with salty hunks of prawn in a bright, toothsome broth.  Still. What about those clams?

As a courtesy his (overweight) partner– second from left in the picture, also known as He Who Prepares Ceviche– rips open bags of Milpa tostadas, grocery store napkins or delivers 6-packs of crackers when he sees that you are running out.  ”Ladies first” is a restaurant policy.  ”Chilangos last” (chilango being a slang term for someone hailing from Mexico City) is another policy.  When my husband and I stepped out of the car the clam man, busily working an enormous clam on wood block with an impressive, machete-like instrument, regarded us warily.

“Habla español?” he asked my husband, frowning.  Another couple stood nearby, the wife sipping the copious liquid of her ceviche from a plastic cup.  Her husband’s eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.  They were Mexican but not the usual clientele: middle class, slightly out of their element, willing to side against us.  In my bathing suit and beach pullover I felt conspicuous.

My husband (who is Mexican, but not chilango) let go a stream of easygoing Spanish, and Clam Man relaxed, chopping away with his knife, splashing water on the live clams so they would snap shut, salty water sluicing off the edge of the table, telling us he had suspected we were chilangos, a possibility he now considered quite amusing.  In between banter (displaying a whitish wound bisecting his palm– a rogue clam “bit” him) he chanted to passersby and those entering an adjacent corner store (a humble square concrete block structure named “Sacrifice,” according to the handpainted sign).

Next time I will ask for a clam, which Clam Man will shuck live, clean, and shove to me in its shell, with a plastic utensil and every hot sauce, lime and condiment I could ever imagine.

Anyone know what kind of clams those are?  I read that they are chewier because their (awesome) size is related to age.  But these were dug up near the Sea of Cortez, not on the Atlantic. Clues?  Ideas? Having only ever enjoyed raw clam on the half shell (with quarter-sized littlenecks doused in bloodred cocktail sauce) I have no idea what to expect. But the freshness of that ceviche– and the fact that I was the only dummy not digging in to a fresh clam– has my mind in a tangle.