“The Biggest Challenge After Success..."

“The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.”
-Unknown

Back in January or February while sitting in El Campo on a rainy Sunday afternoon, Terry went on line to look up the amount and pay our Mexican property taxes. He found the website, struggled through some of the Spanish he hadn't learned yet, and paid the taxes online using pesos in the bank. He boasted about his deftness in working through the online instructions in Spanish, and also bragged about the small price we paid for property taxes, relatively speaking. He also boasted about getting descuenta (discount). He had a lot to be proud of, and, well, he's a man. He brags!
I actually was pretty proud of his accomplishment as well. That was, until our arrival in Merida. Yesterday I checked our mailbox. Amongst the pizza coupons and JW.org pamphlets, there was a bill in the mailbox. It was for property taxes owed to be paid the first part of 2016. Our first thought was that we had paid the bill but the bill in the mailbox was produced prior to that. Just to be sure, Terry went online to check it. He realized that he had paid for one month so instead of 8 pesos, the bill is 91 pesos for the entire year. I'll let you do the math and the conversion. Regardless, we are walking down to the city offices today to pay the eleven months of taxes we owe plus the pesos back in the form of a discount we had taken earlier.
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Yesterday, A. came and brought his copy of the back door key for us. We had cocktails on the mirador last night! We went to the grocery store and bought ingredients for pollo y arroz, including lots of carrots. I decided to make some pico  de gallo - funny thing is, it is the very first time ever I have made it myself while down here. Was it good, you ask? Yes. We bought beer and visited with Gaspar at Cerve Frio. In the middle of the day, we decided to walk into town so I could get some art canvasses at the art store. As we walked down Calle 60 heading north, we heard somebody call out Terry's name. There was Ernesto! We can always count on seeing Ernesto sometime during our time here. The big question is 'when'. On our last visit we didn't see him until our last night in town. This time we saw him on the first day. We chatted for a moment then headed to the art store. When we came out of the art store, there was Ernesto waiting for us. He wanted to "borrow" some money. Terry can't tell him no, so he gave him a small amount and Ernesto gave me his shark tooth necklace as collateral. I took it and it is now around my neck. Such is the way! 

Gotta' go pay those darn taxes. We didn't realize our water was turned off, therefore not filling the tinaca as we have used up the water in it since being here. We drained the tinaca. The water is back on, but it generally won't get filled until night when there is less demand on the water supply to fill it. We just won't smell very good for the tax collector.