New Fans of Lobo

Yesterday we got up, put on our walking clothes and headed out early to do the Sunday Paseo walk. I wore my Texas A&M t-shirt in honor of Johnny Football/Heisman Trophy Winner. We always say just about the time we think we have things figured out around here – they change. It was no different yesterday. None of the streets here in La Ermita were blocked off, no bike rentals set up. We started questioning whether or not it was even Sunday. When we got thru Centro and out to Paseo there were a few policia directing traffic and a few roadblocks to keep traffic off Paseo but "nothing is normal".

Nothing is normal...check out this bike!

Still don’t know why it was all different. We cut our walk a little short and headed back to where Lobo sets up. Lobo is an artist and he, along with other artists, set up their space and sell their paintings every Sunday in Parque de la Maternidad. Lobo has oil on canvas and acrylic on canvas for sale. He is a very interesting person, speaks English fluently and has spent time as an artist in Texas (Dallas) and New Mexico. He talked with us about all the beautiful, precious wood that gets wasted in the Highland Park area of Dallas alone when people come in and buy the old houses, then gut them during renovation. Without asking, I’m guessing he could do very well as an artist in the Highland Park – Dallas area. But, he chose to come back to his roots and live in Kanasin, a small town not far from Merida. The wood was mentioned because he has more recently begun making sculptures of humans using small blocks of scrap wood, of which are hard to come by. There just isn’t a lot of wood around here – everything is mostly masonry and metal.

Also, yes of course we bought from Lobo.

 

 

We ended up with two paintings because we couldn’t decide which one we wanted the most. We talked some more, took some pictures, and headed out with our Lobo signed artwork. A smaller one had already been stretched and mounted. The larger one is going to be another Project by Terry. Again, Lobo had mentioned it is costly and difficult to get the wooden pieces he needs to do the stretching himself, not to mention many people traveling buy his artwork and prefer that it not yet be mounted.  

WE’VE GOT MAIL!

Well, not really - but we do now have a mailbox for our correo. Until now, the water bill and electricity bill have just gotten thrown on the front porch by the motorcycle-riding mailman. We aren’t sure what else may have gotten thrown up on the front porch that we’ve never seen. Finding a mailbox wasn’t easy and it took asking around and a trip to the big Mercado and finding Manrique’s.  Manrique’s is one heck of a hardware/general store with all kinds of interesting things in it….hard to even explain.  But the sales people are helpful and friendly. So Tisha, Joanne, Mom, Alline and others that have asked about our address – Bring on the Mail!

In the meantime, we may have to mail something to ourselves just to be able to say “We’ve Got Mail!”

Damn Good Dinner!

We had bought a couple of packages of pork chunks, potatoes and carrots the other day. Of course I had garlic, adobo, poblano peppers and onions around. They're our staples. Yesterday morning I got up and put everything but the potatoes and carrots in a bowl to marinate along with some lime, mango juice, and a little oil. It is how our version of cochinita shakes out.

After marinading all day, I placed the pork pieces in the electric skillet with a small amount of oil and seared them over. I added the leftover marinade, onion/poblano and water then simmered for a couple of  hours while we had cocktails. The electric skillet had evidently gotten wet where the cord connects to it and we had trouble regulating the temperature and cooking time. I only mention this because we almost cooked all the liquid out, but what it did was make a thickened sauce with just a hint of sweet from the mango juice. We added the carrots, then later the potatoes and cooked just until done. Terry made a couple of quesadillas using fresh tortillas (bought) to round out the meal. The pork was tender and it was all coated in a yummy, somewhat thick red sauce - damn good!
We ate on the patio underneath the new patio light. We had made a city bus trip out north and stopped at the roadside place that has lots of talavera ---- luckily they had one light cover left so we bought it, and Terry the plumber, electrician, chiseler, mover, all-around handsome handyman installed it.

So Proud of Johnny Manziel!

Terry was online and looked up with a super surprised look on his face.

Johnny Football had been awarded the Heisman Trophy!

We all knew if they awarded it on record alone Johnny Manziel should get it, but being a true freshman, and let's face it - being a Texas A&M Aggie - didn't help the matter. This rates up there with watching A&M beat Alabama. Much excitement.
Somewhat humorous to think A&M has the policy of not allowing its freshmen players to talk to the press. It is such the A&M way and I can't help but smile about it.

I wish I would've saved all those negative journalists' articles and the not-so-complimentary FB remarks back when they thought A&M was gonna choke after joining the SEC. I would read again just so I could gloat.
So proud of my Aggies and proud of the fact that my whole family is made up of Aggies! Since it is Sunday we will be doing the Paseo de Montejo walk today. I had bought an A&M t-shirt at Academy on sale for $4.88 just before leaving Texas. I think it's value just went up!!! I'm proudly wearing it on our walk today.
Gig 'em, Aggies!

Keeping Consumerism Alive and Well

Terry Watching the Clothes Wash

We are doing our part to keep consumerism alive and well. With the girls coming in on Tuesday evening we are trying to buy the things on our list to have the house in good order when they arrive. We bought a lavadora! We bought it from the Chedraui…from the same salesman that sold us our refrigerator back in May. They offered free delivery and said they would deliver it the next day between 2pm an 3pm. Would you believe it ---- at exactly 2pm we got an unexpected knock on the front gate. They were here with the lavadora. By 3pm we were trying it out. Now it isn’t a washing machine like we’ve ever seen or used. It’s something in between what our mothers probably used when we were young and what you generally buy this day in time. Reading the instructions required the use of the translator and and learning words beyond our 1,000 word Spanish vocabulary.

 

 I’ll try to explain how we now wash clothes in Mexico. Keep in mind we were previously doing all of our washing by hand with an occasional trip to the lavanderia where you just drop the clothes off, they weigh them, and charge you by the kilogram. OK - The lavadora has two side-by-side compartments….one where you put the clothes into for washing (lavar) , draining (desaguar), and rinsing (enjuagar). Each “cycle” requires you to manually help it along. You use a hose to fill it up, you have a hose for draining, and away it goes. When the clothes have washed and rinsed the fun begins….that would be the cycle for spinning (centrifugado). The spin cycle is the second compartment that is a basket for the clothes and then you set it to spin. The first time we used it we stood and watched and laughed like two kids with a new toy….but we also wondered if it was really going to be able to squeeze the water out of the clothes. When we were washing our clothes by hand this was actually the hardest part – trying to squeeze the water out of the clothes so they would line dry. OMG – the clothes practically feel dry when you take them out of the centrifugal.

Terry did have to do a little Bohemian engineering though. The lavadora wasn’t sitting quite level so he had to take a crushed Sol can and put it under one of the legs of the lavadora to level it out. Nice! And it worked.

The price of the semi-automatic lavadora we bought…$3,299. If we had gone for a washing machine we we would have bought in the US it would have been about twice as much.

We feel so automated now…sort of. I guess it is all relative.

Why it Takes a Week to Buy a Mattress

It is Monday morning and we are taking the day off to hop a bus and head to Progreso for a day of R&R on the beach soaking up some rays. This is our reward for the mattress buying experience we had that ended at 9:30pm on Saturday night. It went something like this -  
It all started when I bought luxurious queen-size sheets back home to accomodate the queen-size bed we didn't have down here. Terry commented in the beginning that it was like designing the control system graphics before the petrochemical plant was constructed. ...a little reference from that 4-letter word "w-o-r-k".
Last Tuesday, the day after we arrived, we started thinking we should go mattress shopping and at least  get the second bedroom furnished with a bed prior to Kate's and Kim's arrival on 12/11. We looked at both the Chedraui and Wal-Mart first but neither had queen-size mattressed at all. Hmmmm. Terry did see a blow-up queen size mattress at Wal-Mart that he said was really nice. I guess as far as "blow-up" mattresses go it probably was nice. We reserved last Thursday for mattress shopping day so we could get this task accomplished and move on. We knew about where the downtown Sears and Chapur locations were so we set out walking to go there first. Of course we couldn't find them and I had to succumb to asking for directions. Terry won't. And of course we had passed up the street and had to backtrack. Our experiences were almost exactly the same in both stores. Like this - We wandered around until we found the furniture and then the mattresses. We asked which mattresses came in queen-size. They each had several. We asked about especiales. Si, they had specials. We were told about the deals that included the boxsprings/frame at no extra cost. Then we inquired about delivery dates. Neither location had the special deals we got so excited about in inventory any longer. Atnd, neither place could order and have delivered by the girls' arrival date. So we moved on. We went to the downtown Hogar location next and had another similar experience. Terry had mentioned the blow-up mattress at least 4 times by now.
I suggested we go out to the Chapur location north of centro. It is bigger and they have more furniture. It is the place where we had bought our sofa back in May. So we headed off the find the bus stop. We had taken the bus out there several times back in May. But all of the  city bus stops are different now because they were all in "temporary" locations before due to the centro sidewalk reconsruction project. I asked for directions again and was told to go to the next esquina. After asking for directions 3-4 different times, and waiting at the spots where we were told the bus came we finally just got on a bus that said "Itzimna" on it as we knew we could get close. We got off the bus when we thought we were close and ended up only walking 3-4 blocks to get there. Again, we went through the same experience with what was available in queen-size, and "no" we no longer have the especial deal in inventory and yada yada yada. Terry mentioned the blow-up mattress again, and started thinking about how easy it would be to use the queen sheets on a matrimonial size mattress. But, we decided to pursue our mission some more on Friday. Friday came and we took the city bus out to the Gran Plaza Mall where there is another Sears, and also the Mexicano Comercial...it reminds me of Target back home. At Sears we met Carlos, or "Charlie" as he called himself to us Gringoes. We now know his life story and even where in La Ermita he lived growing up here in Merida, we also know he has access to the same inventory and computer system that the downtown Sears has. Carlos/Charlie was much more interested in practicing his English with us than sellin us a mattress. We then headed to the Mexicano Comercial. Well, ok, we ended up buying a matrimonial size mattress here - forget the queen-size - and headed to the desk where they handle delivery information. They could deliver the next day and gave us a choice of morning, noon, or afternoon delivery. We chose morning, but it was no longer available. So, we chose media dia. We should have a matrimonial mattress...and a headboard!...by Saturday noon or so. It turned out it was the "or so". We hung around the casa all day Saturday, put a big sign out on the gate with our address prominently displayed and waited. And waited. And waited. One of these days we will learn. Time does not mean the same down here. It just doesn't. Little by little we are not only accepting this fact, but starting to embrace it. You gotta. We had resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be making another trip out to Gran Plaza Mall with our delivery papers (no receipt since they don't give that to you until delivery is made) to figure out what happended to the mattress and bedframe. We went to bed and read about 9. We were lying in bed when we heard a loud voice outside...followed by knocking. I told Terry to go look, but he thought it was neext door. No, I said, it could be the delivery of our bed. At 9:30 at night? You bet!
A very sweet, kind gentleman and a young boy had pulled the truck up in front of the house and we are sure they were prepared to wait until we got home if needed. No doubt we would have seen the asleep in the truck the next morning in front of the house if Terry hadn't gotten up and peeked outside.
So to the Girls and Other Future Houseguests - the good news is you have a mattress/bed to sleep on...the bad news is that is has ill-fitting sheets and it is not a queen-size.

Getting Back in the Groove

Since arriving Monday night we have stayed busy doing such mundane things as:

• Getting to know our water guy....he comes around each Tuesday and right now he thinks Terry speaks absolutely no Spanish and he correctly knows I speak very little. He tried to explain the bottle deposit system and Terry totally lost it with him. The exchange ended with Terry opening his palm where he had a handful of bills and letting the water guy take the money he needed out of his hand.
• Unfortunate iguana kill. Sadly, the iguana that has been residing in the house was very sick when we arrived and Terry had to finish him off with the end of the mop handle....I know, he felt really bad about it. We think he may have gotten into the roach poisoning from the hotels we had set out. Terry was extremely sad about it because he knows a pet iguana can be quite a girl magnet at the beach in Progreso.
• Shopping. We have made several trips to the Chedraui to stock our cabinets and learned Clasico toilet tissue smells up the bathroom like a cheap men's cologne....we bought it yesterday and are currently worried since so many chemicals are bound to affect our butts in some unpleasant way...but they sure will smell good!

• Finding the closest Cerve Frio. We have visited our neighborhood Cerve Frio store.....several times now. The Mayan propiertor makes me feel like a giant and he has a most pleasant smile. Terry likes him because he upsold him on buying a 12-pack for 120 pesos compared to buying the usual 6-pack for 70 pesos.
• We have learned all the city bus routes we got to know so well last trip down mean absolutely nothing now. That's the bad news. The good news is the reason they changed is because all the sidewalk construction taking place in Centro before is now complete and most sidewalks are wider with fewer potholes.
• We've experienced the truth of beer first-hand. It was a relief to learn the end of the world is NOT about to take place as the Mayans have predicted. I now agree with the woman we met in Ohio.....the Mayans just got tired of chiseling and stopped when they got to 2012.

• We have learned a queen-size mattress is something of an anomaly in Merida. Sorry to report we had to settle for a matrimonial that is to be delivered today (Sat.) at medio dia (mas o menos). But Kate and Kim (our first visitors) will hopefully be glad as the alternative was an inflatable we found at the Wal-Mart.
• Most of the neighbors and the city workers next door are the familiar to us....it has been nice to start getting reacquainited.
• I, as usual, have had my bout with turista. As long as I am around the house I am good to go....just let me walk and get 4-5 blocks away and it hits. Nuff said. I'm ok with it becasue I know it will last the first few days and then my system gets used to the foreign bugs and I can eat any street food I desire.

It's the Pioneer Spirit

I am blessed to have grown up a Texas country girl that married a Texas country boy. We have hung on to a certain amount of what I call the pioneering spirit. I'm so glad to have attained and retained that spirit. As I count down the days to our move to Merida for the next 6 months or so, I realize the pioneer spirit exhibited in the Yucatan is one of the things I admire and find so worthy of respect.

This is how I can best explain it and why it has been on my mind - 
Thinking of the storm that hit the NE brings back memories of Hiurricane Ike (Category 3/Galveston, Tx) and what it meant to us. We realized we lived amongst other pioneers. Although we were living on S/V Cool Change and experienced water and power outages, we had no damage to the boat....partly because we were damn lucky and partly because we prepared ahead of time. We used our own self-sufficient water system and our generator and continued living on the boat post-Ike while we, friends, and friends in the making got busy cleaning up and trying to regain a sense of normalcy. Through helping each other emotionally as well as physically, we developed a comraderie that all of us will share forever. There are a group of us that will never forget how we pulled together and got 'er done over dinners served by Sandy and cold beer iced down in damaged coolers. We had groups of people that piled on the Get It On and pulled sunken, unsalvagable boats from underneath the docks, and Terry and I put the Cool Sedan in the water (ie, aka the camel tow) and used the little inflatable dinghy to move boats from one slip to another. We all puIled stuff from the water and retrieved items from the grass then anxiously tried to find the rightful owners. Homeowners were driving around trying to locate lost treasures...some items to be found a year or so later on. I feel blessed that we pulled together rather than criticized. We prayed for people we had never met living in Galveston County and the surrounding area. We slowly re-instilled our world without fanfare. We had a sense of pride and proudness about us. Today, we are blessed that us and our neighbors let Ike die. We refused to let Ike continue getting the attention. Ike gets little mention today...thank goodness. We wanted the national media out of our lives quickly and did nothing to encourage their presence. It was a hurricane and when you make the personal choice to live where you do, you accept the consequences that comes along with it. After the hurricane, we wanted to go on about our business with a certain quietness. We wanted to grieve privately rather than publicly. It's because we have that pioneer spirit.

Shame on the segment of the media that has worked so hard to depict those affected by the recent storm as crying, whining, helpless people. Shame on them for focusing on those that thieve and cut in lines at the gas pumps. Why can't you tell us about the people demonstrating the pioneer spirit? I know not everybody is depending on a handout from some "agency". There are neighbors kindly helping neighbors. There are unsung heroes on every street. 
My heart goes out to all the people affected by the recent storm. I understand how heartbreaking it is to experience the devastation and have the feeling that things will never be the same. It rocks your world in a bad kind of way. But I also know people are tapping into their inner pioneer spirit and pulling together to help one another, and seeing the opportunity to demonstrate independence rather than dependence. Sure, it is frustrating and financially takes it tow.  But in a weird kind of way it humbles you, and makes you feel proud that you weathered the storm. You tap into that pioneer spirit and get busy putting it behind you. You get back on that horse that threw you, and show him who is boss.