December 2, 2007- post Thanksgiving and Cancun

Ahhhh what a great feeling to have spent a week of leisure in paradise with friends. After having to abort most of our Thanksgiving festivities due to illness (see earlier posting about typhoid), we were able to squeeze in one lovely evening with Judy and Jim Goar over turkey -- something to keep us feeling thankful all year long. They had relatives (Carolyn and Terry Sullivan) and friends (John, Luis, Belisa, and Beatriz) over for the holiday meal and we all bonded over cranberry mojitos and an award-winning pumpkin pecan (yes both in one pie and it was scrumptious) pie as just one of our desserts that night.

Then we headed over to the timeshare in Cancun for a week. First Tom and Jerry joined us and kept us giggling, as we shopped and ate and swam and participated in the welcome party by trying to follow the dancers, but bowing out before the game in which we would have thrown water balloons at each other. Spent some time at the luxury avenue stores just browsing and ogling all the lovely things, but mostly beach and pool time (in the shade of course!!) with the accompaniment of mango daiquiries just to make us feel more relaxed. Tom even found that he kind of enjoys drinking -- when it involves mangoes and rum!!

Then Tom and Jerry headed back to Merida and Judy joined us with her daughter Jennifer and husband Brian and Matt Lange, a friend of theirs from Denver (all of whom are now property owners in Merida). These four came over to keep us merry. They played tennis and we watched, but we did manage to squeeze in one wonderful Italian dinner at La Dolce Vida and one downtown at a sushi restaurant that doubled as a Japanese Benihana-style place and drinks and dessert at La Madonna, one of the most visually amazing restaurants ever. And again, lots of shade and mango daiquiries and swimming in the pools and the sea and mainly lots of relaxing. I managed to read all of Eat, Pray, Love (by Elizabeth Gilbert - thanks for the recommendation, Angela, and for the book, Jen and Paola!) and enjoyed it immensely. I also am editing the manuscript for a friend's book about Yoga and life, so it was quite an interesting balance of reading materials. I couldn't help it one day when I found myself meditating on a tiled area of the pool with water pouring down around me!!

Fortunately, we found some time to spend with Patti McCormick, a long-time friend from the Chicago area (and her son, daughter in law, and beautiful granddaughters briefly), and Gary and Dale Bader, hunter-gatherers with terrific senses of humor from the great state of Alaska (with their son Chris and a very quiet friend Lewis or Luis, we are not sure). We always look forward to our time in Cancun with these folks!

We were sad to see the beach erosion despite tons and tons of sand that the Mexican government brought in to correct the ravages of Hurricane Wilma from several years ago. The town and hotel zone have been completely rebuilt and enhanced and it's just an amazing place once again -- feels like being in the US since everyone speaks English, but that water is just so divine that we don't mind being treated like gringas for a few days. It also stands in stark contrast to New Orleans since it is better than new in such a short time, while poor New Orleans still suffers after Katrina which happened the same year as Wilma.

In case you missed our holiday card, here is a link -- we wish everyone the world over a blessed and joyous holiday season, filled with peace and lots of love -- enjoy! (http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1133156230).

November 18, 2007 - Adventures

Well, true to form, Eva has continued her travels through the medical world of Mexico, an adventurer through and through. Unfortunately this time, she contracted salmonella typhi aka typhoid fever. She felt really awful for several days with high fevers, chills, nausea, diaharea, and then a rash on her chest (that would turn cranberry red when the fever spiked). We saw a doctor who took blood that determined the diagnosis, and who then prescribed antibiotics, antinausea drugs, and fever medication. The illness began a week ago Friday. Treatment began on Sunday night when the doctor met her in the emergency room and took blood, followed by an appointment Monday. The drugs worked their magic and she began to feel much better, so that by Thursday she really was feeling much improved, just weak from not eating much for days and with soreness and redness around the edges of her feet and between the fingers of her hands. Then tonight as we headed out for dinner, she took a turn for the worse again, so we will do plan to do some more doctoring next week.
Unfortunately for Cledith, this was the week she visited us from Indiana. So, we didn't get to do many of the activities we'd hoped to do with her, but had plenty of R&R time to just chill. She was really looking forward to a change of scenery from frozen weather and caregiving for her 94 year old mother and is a good sport, so this worked out OK, but we hope she returns another time for a more action-packed vacation. We loved spending time just hanging out with her, seeing some flamingos at the beach, taking the house tour, meeting some new friends, playing some 3-handed bridge, and catching up on our lives.
Marilla and Rhodri have just left for a vacation in South America (Rio and Buenos Aires), which sounds so exciting. Talk about adventure!!
Update on Eva -- doctor gave her a shot of penicillin and more drugs including a different antibiotic, more antinausea stuff, and something to begin to regrow flora in her intestinal tract. She is MUCH improved now and thinks she has licked this thing for good. A perfect gift for our Thanksgiving Day celebration -- she can eat some turkey and stuffing!!
As it turned out, she had a high fever and no turkey or stuffing but finally as of Dec. 1, Eva is all well and feeling like her old self again. This helps Sandy feel like herself again, too!!

November 9, 2007

Today, I was in my office at my computer chatting online with Marilla when the US telephone rang and it was James from New Mexico calling to say hello. Moments later, the Merida house phone rang and was answered by the machine in my office. As a message was recording and I was still on the US cell phone and eyeing the computer for a response from Marilla, someone rang the doorbell. Then Eva and our iron worker, Alex, decided to stop outside my office, open the door, and talk while the buses drove by. And Jose decided now was the time to wash the floor in my office. It was a wild few minutes, which NEVER usually happens here. There is often one or more of those things happening at once, but rarely all of them together.
So, after the pandemonium died down, Eva and I headed off to shop. We went to a benefit for Save the Children Mexico. One of the committee members goes to India every year and shops and brings back lovely things to sell to benefit this charity. This year the “store” was held at Margarita Molina de Patron’s home. She has built an exquisite house (that has been in Architectural Digest) on the grounds of an old hacienda that has been turned into a privada or gated community just at the north end of the city. The beauty of the area is partly all the ancient plantings that have been preserved around the homes; however, this particular house is also a beauty all by itself. Combining the best of modern with the tried and true, Margarita’s home has niches in her dining room filled with Chinese export porcelains in blue and white, fabulous art and fresh flowers everywhere, painted murals on the mamposteria walls, a huge loggia with comfortable furniture in which to spend the day happily looking out at her long cobalt-blue tile lined pool guarded by sculptural columns of the orange Dzitya stone native to this region (we have insets of it in our floors but nothing like these monolithic columns). Giant beams hold the ceiling up to the sky while her living room and dining room have glass doors to keep the air in the air conditioned spaces. Of course, we managed to find a few things we could not live without… and helped out the children (we hope some of them in Tabasco where they are under water at the moment!!), too.
Tonight is an art opening by a friend who is a photographer at the house of another friend, who is an architect and has designed this home where the gathering will be held to sell. First, we have friends coming here for a drink and then we four will go to the house of other friends (who live near the house of the opening) for another drink and then we six will go to the opening. We have found that bad wine and horrid canapés tend to be served at these openings, so we drink ahead of time!! Tomorrow night, more cocktails with friends, then Sunday a brunch, and then the work week begins.
And it actually is a working week these days. Eva has opened her heart again and has drawn in folks who need some help. She is helping our friends, Paul and Michael, remodel the house they bought here. She is working with Patricia who got screwed by her architect and spent lots of money with little results to finish that project. She is managing projects for Jim and Judy like adding skylights and refinishing their pasta tile floors. And she just fixed up Jen and Brian with Monique who will rent their Merida home for a year and bake her fabulous breads there. Eva is also working with massage clients in her spare time. And so what is Sandy doing while Eva is busy? Helping out, keeping the home fires burning, a little writing on the side, and making it possible for Eva to do all these things.
We have been doing some little fixing – seems to be never-ending. We had a door to the guest rooms repaired, some clips added to the iron doors so they stay closed without being latched (and therefore hard to open), and one more rod added to the terrace so we can completely close it off against the sun. These curtains were really helpful during the hot months of summer, but now that it has been positively perfect weather for several weeks, we are closing the curtains less often. I don’t know if this is the Gulf Stream or some other natural phenomenon, but our weather would make San Diego blush, it’s been so divine. NO A/C needed at all, even by Eva. We, especially she, pray that this will last and last.
There seem to be two types of people who are moving to Merida, and we mean extranjeros as opposed to the Mexicans who are coming here in droves, too. One is like us-- adventurers who want to buy a wreck and make it into a palace and then sell it at a huge profit only to do it over and over again (yeah, we got off that train before the over and over again part!! well, actually before the sell it at a huge profit part, too, hmmm). And the other is those folks seeking a small place for an inexpensive retirement. It is possible here still to find property and remodel it (new electrical, plumbing, and upgrades) for under $200,000 and sometimes even for less than that. (If anyone saw the LA Times article about Merida (and we know everyone that was interviewed), Joan Farrell says she only spent $110,000 and has a nice, cozy home for one.) On the other end, is the new golf club that is being constructed where lots (and smaller ones than we had in Glenview) start at $100,000 and then you need to put a house on it, but the club house is really fabulous!!
We expatriates (ex-patriots?) love the relaxed atmosphere, the charming customs, the gracious people, and the cheap prices for labor while tolerating the frustrating mañana syndrome. When we first got here, our workers would answer any inquiry about “can you do…” with “yo puedo” or I can. And I just loved this, until I found out there were not necessarily any skills to back up that affirmation. So when the pedal was to the metal, things could not be done as promised and then you have to punt. Or trades people in response to “when will this be ready?” would (and still will) say tomorrow at 4pm when they have no intention of any such thing. This we never found charming!! But we came to accept it as part of the culture so it gets done when it gets done and that is that. No tantrums or yelling or threats or pleading gets things done any faster than whenever they get done. Oddly, we learned that there is NOTHING that has to be done at a specific time. When you are scheduling construction things, this is really a big pain, but ultimately, you just go with whatever it is and sigh a lot.
We spent a long weekend recently at Hacienda Chichen, which is not only next to one of the new seven wonders of the ancient world Chichen Itza, but also the owners of the hacienda actually own the land that the ruins are on. And there is a dispute about what Belissa should do with her inherited land. [see Ownership fight erupts over Maya ruins A dramatic rise in tourism ignites a debate in Mexico: Should a private family own an archaeological treasure? By Sara Miller Llana Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the October 17, 2007 edition http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1017/p20s01-woam.html?s=backdaily ] We had a wonderful time indulging in chocolate (cacao) massages and Mayan full moon ceremonies and chaya omelettes for breakfast and walking around the ruins (thankfully without so many people as were there when we went during the spring equinox -- that caused Marilla to swear she never would return). And we made it to Balankanche and the cenote that village woman made into a destination called Yokdzdnot.

Our beautiful lirio has finally stopped blooming. We had four absolutely gorgeous trunks on which countless lillies erupted, smelling divine, and delighting us every single day. Now we will know what to expect next year!!

Recommended reading

We have been reading quite a bit down here and both of us have listed some favorites on www.GoodReads.com. This is mostly books we have liked, some from a long time ago, but more are recent entries. Hope you enjoy this and will sign up and add your books to the list. We have lots of time to read down here, with our feet up, lounging around the pool with a shade umbrella and sometimes, a drink, just enjoying the good life. AAAAhhhhhhh!

Potage class September 10, 2007

Mid-September when our northerner thoughts naturally turn to root vegetables and hearty soups, some of us were lucky enough to indulge those thoughts during a cooking lesson with Josefina Ponce, darling mother of 7 children, one of whom is our friend, the architect Henry. We had had dinner with Henry a few days earlier and he sang the praises of this dish of his mother’s, so we asked for a lesson. Fortunately, Josefina was able to oblige. Terrence, Paul, Michael, Eva, and Sandy gathered in our kitchen to put together ingredients that cost about 200 pesos but could feed 12 or more happily under Josefina’s instruction. The recipe for potage (which those of us who learned French in the dark ages will recognize as the word for soup, however, in Mexico, it is pronounced po ta (accent on the ta) hay) follows. Josefina really liked having 5 sous-chefs because she broke into song, especially when we played some Vicente Fernandez mariachi music -- she could not resist. And we could not resist her!!!

POTAGE á la Josefina

INGREDIENTS:

2 habanero peppers
1 Xcatic (a cubanele chile)
1 small red pepper
2 chayote
1 large flat calabasa (squash—could substitute 2 zucchini)
3 tomatoes
5 medium white potatoes
8 carrots
1 onion, can be yellow or white
¼ cabbage
2 kilos pork – shoulder or leg
½ kilo tocinetta (with as little fat as possible, could substitute smoked ham)
2 packages, each with one long, sausage – longaniza valladolida (may try substituting other sausage but probably not chorizo)
450 grams lenteja chica (Preve brand of lentils) – can substitute white, red, or pinto beans, but should not substitute garbanzo or black beans; as the larger beans will take longer to soak and cook
achiote (we used a cube from La Estra condimento de achiote, but could substitute powdered chile if you can find it. This is a smoky flavored and not spicy chile and is necessary for the proper flavor, so check a Mexican grocery store if you’re not already IN Mexico.)
3 large platano (type of banana)


PREPARATION:

There is prep time of washing (all vegetables, chiles, and meat), cutting, and sorting that can be done in any order.

Trim pork. Cut both pork and bacon into 1 inch chunks
Peel carrots, but leave whole, cutting off only the tips
Clean beans/lentils, removing those pieces that are too green, then rinse, and put into a large pot of boiling water
Cut calabasa into 8 pieces, remove seeds
Cut onion and tomato into chunky pieces
Seed red pepper and cut into chunky pieces
Cut chayote into 4 pieces from each and peel
Make a salsa of the tomatoes, the onion, and the red pepper, using Cuisinart is easiest

COOKING:

Brown all meat together, adding only salt
Sear all three peppers in the flames of the meat but don’t burn
Add to the lentils in the giant pot the potatoes and carrots, still whole
Once meats are browned, add to the lentil pot
Use that same fry pan to cook the salsa for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes seem cooked, then add it to the lentil pot
Add other ingredients (chayote, calabasa, and cabbage) to pot, stirring while the heat is on high. Once the soup boils, can reduce heat and cover for about another hour-1½ hours

SERVING:

Prepare a separate sauce to spice this up, to be served separately so each person can use it to taste. Remove the stems of the chiles. With a spoon, work with the soft chiles, smashing them, and removing burned skins. When softened, add juice of one lime squeezed and salt to taste. Mix together and put into a small bowl.

Remove meat and vegetables from the giant lentil pot and put on a platter. Serve bowls of lentils and soup and allow each person to help himself or herself from the platter of ingredients and from the spicy sauce. For this version, fry plantains in oil and serve as a garnish on each individual plate served with the soup. Could also use other garnishes like avacado, onions, cilantro, etc. as this is the cook's signature.

Humor to 100 %

how can you NOT love this kid??

LIRIO more pictures, September 14, 2007

Here are some more pictures of the lirio lilly plant which is still so exquisite looking and smelling. A true jungle plant!!! We had to have Jose make a bamboo support for this first stalk it was so heavy with all the blossoms.

Spiders On Drugs

September 6, 2007 - police, litigation, and flowers

Today as I was driving somewhere thinking how lucky we are to have dodged yet another hurricane (Felix this time), I noticed that there were four policemen out directing traffic where a light was being repaired by the electric company. It made me realize that we have plenty of police protection and services. We have federal police, state police, city police, and tourist police. There are also plenty of private security police for businesses, some gated communities, and fancy people. We feel very well protected here in Merida.
We have called police when our neighbors behind us burn things. This is an old custom and everyone used to burn their trash in their back yards, but now it is illegal. We can see why it is illegal and are sorry to have to call the police for such a silly matter, but have now called them twice, so if our neighbors (and this neighbor is a business which manufactures small things) are stupid enough to burn when we are home and we call once more, they will be facing a really serious fine of something like 1,000 pesos, and here that is BIG money.
The police are omnipresent. They drive around in cars and in trucks and on motorcycles and on bicycles. They are stationed at corners and crossings during things like the Sunday biciruta – a long bike route uses cordoned off streets every Sunday morning and it is patrolled with extra police so when folks ride bikes or walk strollers along this 2 mile or so stretch through the center of town, they do not have to worry about people driving at the same time. The federal police (the federales that we are all familiar with from movies) tote big guns, machine guns in fact, although we understand that they do not carry any bullets on a normal basis. However, when W came to Merida, they were armed and we had overhead surveillance in helicopters and snipers on buildings!!!
And yet, there is almost no crime of any sort. Oh there are the usual Saturday-night-drunk-who (pick one)- falls-into-a-well-and-gets-stuck, gets-mad-at-his-wife-and-beats-her-up, falls-across-the-street-and-is-hit-by-a-car, picks-a-fight-with-his-friends, etc., but normally not violent crimes as we are accustomed to living in the US (drive-by shootings, for example, are unheard of here, especially since one cannot buy bullets in this state!!). There is the occasional theft of tools or TVs or whatever, but rarely, if ever, is that accompanied by violence. So, like Michael Moore, we ask, which came first, the benign police presence or the lack of crime? Of course, it may be just too hot here to plot something like stealing someone’s TV!! Or the people here are really as good as they seem to be!!!!
There is also another aspect to this – people here are responsible for what they do, including to themselves. Now a novel concept in the USA, here where we are not part of a litigious society, it’s like going back in time. If you drive you scooter and fall off, it’s your responsibility. It is not the scooter manufacturer’s fault. It is not the fault of the hot coffee or the store that sold you the hot coffee which you are drinking while driving the scooter. It is not the fault of the mirror on your scooter that you didn’t use to see the car behind you when you swerved and fell off the scooter and almost got run over, not to mention burned by the hot coffee. It is not the fault of the jeans you are wearing which didn’t protect you from being scalded by hot coffee. It is not anyone’s fault but your own for driving while attempting to drink hot coffee.
And no one is going to be sued over an accident. Normally, this even applies to an injury that occurs in one’s home. If a worker in your home is injured, you take him to see a doctor and pay for the treatment (at least most people do, some are really hard-hearted and just let the workers fend for themselves and that usually means that they do not seek treatment at all). We’ve talked before about doctors’ costs and even hospital costs, so you know it’s cheaper and easier to pay the fees and get the worker back on the job quickly.

And because I am still completely in awe of my garden, I want to share the latest of the amazing plants that is growing back there. This is a type of lily, but not any type I’ve ever seen before. The stalk which began about a year ago as not much of anything is now about 9 inches in diameter. It supports multiple leaves that are each about 5 inches wide and maybe four or five feet long if unfurled. Then recently, a stalk started growing out of the side of this plant. The stalk is about as big around as some women’s (not mine!!) arms and is now about 6 feet long. It curls around and has a giant flower coming out of the end of it. This opens a bit more each day and is so pretty. Here it is partially opened. The smell is also divine, sweet but with a touch of tang. From the photo, you cannot tell how huge this is, but notice a part of a hand in the lower right hand corner and that will help you realize that this thing is truly a giant flower. Our friend, Ana Rosa, says it is called LIRIO (sounds like Lydia when pronounced however), so it even has a nice-sounding name! Now, seven days later, we have cut off the stalk as it was done blooming and have another giant bud forming-- wonder how long this will last!! There are some more pictures of this in a post called LIRIO.
Today is our Jose's birthday. He is 26. So we invited over some of the other folks he works for and made chocolate cake and had a small celebration with ice cream and milk. There had been some talk of getting a pinata and filling it with coins, but we determined that this was more dignified.

Hurricane Dean 2007

So far, so good, she writes at 8:45am. It is a beautiful, cloudy but warm, day here in Merida so far. We have taken in our outdoor furniture and battened down all hatches we can. We understand the best bet it to open doors and windows rather than close them. This lets the air/wind/torrential downpours flow right through a home rather than trying to block it, which is mostly unsuccessful. We've made a chocolate cake and bought PB&J. We hard boiled eggs and are watching the path on the internet. At some point, the town will turn off the power if the hurricane is going to seriously be a problem for us.
Last year, a hurricane called Emily was supposed to hit Merida but never did. This taught us something. Go and buy your provisions early or there won't be any. As of yesterday, the shelves were emptied of bread, tortillas, and powdered beans. And they won't be restocked before tonight when we are due to get hit. Looks like landfall on the peninsula is expected late tonight well south of Cancun on the east coast. We are closer to the west coast and well north of where it is due to hit. Also we are about 300km inland from Cancun. The beaches have been evacuated from Holbox Island close to Cancun all the way across the north part of the peninsula and down the Riveria Maya to Tulum and points south.
It's an odd feeling to have done what you feel you can, but to have no real control. For some reason, I felt it necessary to be sure all the laundry was done including the sheets on the beds and so have been taking care of that.
Eva made a delicious meatloaf yesterday that we enjoyed hot and know we can enjoy cold for a day or so. We have a supply of towels in order to keep any groundwater at bay, at least for awhile!! The back of our home is up about 8 inches off the ground, but the front is closer to the street level, so we worry about flooding through the front door. We have picked up electrical cords and unplugged unnecessary electronics (answering machine, toaster oven, etc.) that won't be working soon any way.
Marilla and my dear friend, Angela, have called to be sure we know what we are doing. Our best friend Marlene has sent YouTube videos of stoned spiders (see Stoned Spiders link on blog, but not in this message) and preppie rappers to entertain us. While we don't necessarily know what we are doing, we are praying that what we think makes sense is close enough to what we should have done to be sensible. Our cell phones won't work, we have heard, but our hard line telephone should so we will be back in contact as soon as we can.

NOON, still blue skies, more clouds than usual, but after a nice swim and some lunch, all seems well. The projections are that the eye of the storm is still far enough south of us that we should only feel wind and rain but not be too affected by Dean. Just in case, I took some plates off the walls and put away a few other things that seemed at risk and are valuable to us inside the house. We are watching Moulin Rouge (the show must go on) to bear up, but really are not too scared at the moment. Seeing that large orange and purple mass headed our way is not comforting, by any means, but apparently, we won't begin to feel this for almost another day.

10pm Monday -- more clouds and the winds have picked up, but still relatively calm and we are heading to bed, perchance to sleep. Still predicting landfall for the eye significantly south of us, near Mahahual and Belize and Chetumal and a path across to Campeche (which the Weather Channel announcers insist on pronouncing incorrectly as Campeechee). And Dean's a category 5 storm now which means winds of 160+++ yikes.There is kind of an odd calm here in Merida. Little traffic or noise, but still electricity is on and there's only wind on and off. Although most of the albanile types did not leave their villages today to come to work, our Jose did come here for a half day to finish up putting away some pots and heavier things that were out front and outside and to give the kitchen a quick cleaning. He may or may not show up tomorrow, depending on what is actually happening here.

There has been an orangey sky beginning around 7pm amidst the clouds, looking almost like the orangey color of the graphic above, but far less virulent and kinda pretty (see left photo taken from the roof terrace of our home).

And music was playing loudly today from the PRI headquarters, the current political party that holds all the major political offices here in Yucatan, and is nearby our house. For decades, the PRI party controlled ALL of Mexico's politics until the PAN party broke through on a federal level with Vicente Fox and then Calderon (by a nose hair). The Yucatan had been one of the first states to elect local PAN officials from governors to mayors and on down, even before Fox was elected. Then this last election, the PRI got back in because of a spoiler candidate whose party did not nominate her, but who ran anyway as an independent thinking that because she'd been mayor of Merida, she'd have name recognition and popularity. Unfortunately, the folks here have a long enough memory to know that Ana Rosa had made promises she didn't keep (something the voting public here is rather sensitive about) and so didn't vote for her in droves enough to elect, but just enough to ruin the chances for the other PAN candidate (whom we called Dr. Phil because of his resemblance to the man). However, in the small world of stories category, the current governor of Yucatan, named Ivonne, has purchased the couch that I'd had made and could not use because it was not comfortable to sit on -- apparently, she didn't sit on it before buying it, because it was a beautiful piece of furniture to look at, just not to use for sitting!!

Am reading the novel, Mayflower, at the moment which surely puts an interesting perspective on all of this. As we whine about maybe losing our AC and power for several days, I read about those Pilgrims losing half their population and slogging through icy water up to their hips to get into a small boat to explore and hopefully not get killed by Indians along the way. Of course, they could wade into the bay in summer and just pick up lobsters, so it was not ALL bad!!

tuesday

2am A gentle rain has begun but not enough to disturb the frogs in our pond who continue to sing/court (shout??) loudly.

8am Still raining gently, cloud cover of gray, but nothing untoward.

10am The winds have started up now. There’s almost NO traffic down the street so we’ve opened up the front and back and kitchen doors and windows to let the breezes flow right through the house. The bamboo is being pushed around pretty strongly but so far no rain and a sun behind all the grey clouds. The sun peeks in and out through the greyness and is radiant when it does come out. NOT a big deal ... this time. And we are very very greatful!!! The chocolate cake made the time go much faster as we waited, in vain. We worry about our neighbors to the south and worry even more about that next hunk of orange on the satellite -- what IS that???

1pm Hurricanes are funny things. Here this giant category 5 storm hits this peninsula with a bang south and east of us maybe 150 miles and we are actually enjoying one of the nicest days in a long time. The temperature has cooled to low 80s and there is quite a breeze, well maybe not breeze but more like wind, so we’ve opened our front and back doors, turned off the AC (yes, Eva has sanctioned this), and are reading in our giant purple chairs enjoying the day. We even have a dinner date tonight to go to the house of some friends!!
The big deal on our street however is that just recently, there have been 5 police cars filled with two persons each in front of our house. They spotted a tree on the land across the street from us that was problematic. It had caused some damage in all this "hurricane wind" by hitting the wall in front of it and causing some of the wall to actually fall into the street. And so they took fast action. (A note about scale, that window is about a meter wide and about a meter off the sidewalk. The debris has fallen maybe as much as 6 feet into the street but it's concrete dust, no big deal even if someone drove right over it!!!) Within 10 minutes, a crew of 8 men arrived to take the offending tree branches down. The damage caused? see photo >>>>>>>>>>
And by 1:25, all police, tree folks, and tree are gone. They cut down the tree instead of dealing with each pesky branch that might be hitting the wall, left it in the yard, and apparently, now it’s the owner’s problem. Did they clean up the street from all this debris? No, but while they were cutting the tree and worrying about people who might drive or walk down calle 56, we had plenty of police protection.

Ah Mexico!! We hope that all our hurricanes this season are as easy and breezy (for us!!) as Dean has been, even while we are so sorry for those south of us who were hit hard. And we are so greatful to the media and mother nature for letting everyone know just where the Yucatan peninsula actually is!!

Update four days later -- more of the wall fell, having nothing whatsoever to do with the hurricane, but now we have yellow tape and cement blocks holding it up in the street. And boy do we have rain, every day a downpour, but nothing like the problems the Midwest is having at this very moment, so again, we feel blessed.

August 6, 2007 our TV is fixed

Now most people would not be so excited over news like our TV is fixed because most people would have called the TV repairman one day and maybe waited one or two days for the person to appear and maybe another one to two days for the parts to be ordered and the box fixed. We apparently are not most people. In fact, we may be the most patient people on the planet when it comes to our TV getting repaired.
The TV in question is the big one that we've had about 4 years now -- 61 inches, high definition, an amazingly focused and clear picture, and the one that made us the former envy of everyone we knew (TV envy!!). It has not worked at all since the end of December.
Our first thought was to call a repairman here. We did and that person, the local Samsung repair company, had no idea what was going on with the TV. He and we believed that the light was broken, but he wanted to take it to the repair shop to be sure. We hated the idea of surrendering our beloved TV and thought we'd be able to call Abt and have them send us the part overnight and we could install it ourselves. We called Abt (on Skype where it's free to call anywhere in the world from our computer) and they had the light but could not ship it out of the country. Hmmmmm. So we knew our friends, Paul and Michael, were coming to visit us here at the end of January so we ordered the lamp from Abt and had it shipped to them and they brought it down for us. If only it had been that easy!!
The lamp was not the correct part number and did not fit correctly, so back it went to Abt via Paul and Michael and we tried again to order it online from another Samsung part store. This time we got the correct lamp, shipped to us in about 15 days' time, but that still didn't fix the problem. The TV would go on once but would not turn on a second time. By this time, Marilla was coming to visit in March and so we had Abt send another model of the lamp to her to bring down. This was the correct model, but it still didn't solve the issue. These lamps, by the way, are about $130 US plus shipping.
So, finally, in early April, we again called the Samsung folks here to diagnose and solve the problem. They took our TV on April 4 and called us two days later saying it was not the light, it was another part and they'd order it for about another $400US. We bit the bullet and said OK and waited. And waited. And waited. Meanwhile, Sandy was making plans to turn the thing into an aquarium since she was not going to sink another penny into fixing this once-beloved television.
We called in June to be told they were still testing. The part that they had gotten from Samsung had failed and so they had to order it again. In July, they said that Samsung sent the wrong part and they had to re-order. Finally, anxious and angry and aggressive, we called the local Samsung reapair shop one last time this morning threatening that we wanted the piece of shit back along with our money. We were done.
Wonder of wonders, they said the TV was ready to be delivered and would be delivered today between 12 and 1. We waited. Around 2, they called again to say they were on their way and to save them a parking place nearby. We moved our car out of the garage to the street so they could drive into the garage and unload the TV. The TV finally arrived. They hauled it in and set it up. It works. We turned it on and off 4-5 times, since we were not going to be lulled into thinking it was OK again, only to have it cut out.
We asked about a guarantee. They said this work would be guaranteed for one month. We howled saying that they had taken 4 months to repair it, why only a one month guarantee. They said Samsung allows them to fix their products and advertise this capability, but they are not allowed to apply a Samsung guarantee and so they will only promise one month.
Ah, Mexico. Now we wonder if the TV isn't just too large....

July 26, 2007 -- Doctors and Pitaya

We had our first doctoring experience when Eva ended up in the hospital about 18 months ago. It was a good experience, and a very reasonable one in terms of expense and care. We have just had another experience, again Miss Eva leading the way. It was also good, but just gives a new slant to the administration of medicine in the US by way of comparison.

Eva has had migraine headaches before but had not had one for several years. What began, she thought, as a sinus headache four days ago did become a migraine, with all the sensitivity to light and sound, difficulty seeing, and incredible pain. So finally, yesterday, she called her doctor. Turns out her doctor is on vacation, but he had a replacement, someone she'd never heard of or met, but who would be taking her doctor's calls for the 3 weeks he is out of town. This doctor, name of Gomez, didn't speak to Eva, but through what Eva said via telephone to his receptionist, who is not a nurse, prescribed some anti-migraine medicine for Eva to take.

I went and bought the medicine at a pharmacy and asked the clerk who waited on me about Imitrex (a medicine I knew of from friends who use it in the US and from Eva's use of it there as well), which was not what was prescribed by this doctor we'd never seen. There is a European version of Imitrex called Imigran, and the pharmacy had that. Although this medicine normally requires a prescription (and is godawful expensive like $25 US for two pills), the clerk sold it to me in addition to the other medication, apparently assuming that there was a problem with migraines and one of these meds would solve the problem.

A day and 2 Imigran tablets later, no improvement, so I insisted that Eva make an appointment to actually see the doctor to be sure there was not something else going on besides a killer migraine. The receptionist, who mistakenly called her Maria Carmen Carnitas (a type of well cooked pork), told her to come in and she'd find a slot for Eva to meet with the doctor. We sat in the reception area for what seemed like hours, but was in fact about one hour, while Eva practically killed herself trying to deal with the light and the noise of a TV, piped-in muzak, and others sitting around talking. The last straw was an unusually bratty and whiny child (whom we all wanted to smack and wondered why her parents didn't and expected that her incredibly patient and kind older sister someday would smack her but good) coupled with a newborn who was crying and could not be comforted, both in the same small waiting room. Eva, frustrated and in pain and at the end of her emotional rope of tolerance, burst into tears and the receptionist realized she had better take one of the crying individuals out of that room and so got us in to see the doctor pronto!

The very kindly doctor examined Eva and talked to her for about 15 minutes. He asked us to go get some blood tests, but said there was no rush. Go home and feel better first and then come back to have the blood drawn, he advised. The problem is indeed migraines and this one had just gone on too long. He prescribed some strong pain pills (narcotics he said so be careful), to be taken with an anti-nausea pill, to finally knock this out and a preventative pill to be taken on a regular basis, as well as something specific for this migraine. So we go down to the pharmacy and fill these prescriptions (without any additions based on hearsay), head home, and put her back to bed. And she is feeling better already knowing it is not something more serious and that there is hope the pain will subside.

Now, in the US, I have been able to self-diagnose with a severe cold or flu and call my doctor who would prescribe Zithromax by phone; however, I've known this doctor probably 20 years and been treated by him or his colleagues for closer to 30 years. And if our wonderful friend, John Ziebell who bought all the generic drugs for Walgreens, were still with us, we'd have called him to see what his suggestions were for the latest thing in drugs for this problem.

But being on our own in a foreign land, we are appreciative that doctors will first let you try to solve your own problems and even prescribe your own pills, but are still willing to see you and help you if YOUR efforts don't work!!


On a garden note, our pitaya (which has been blooming for some time now with magnificently scented flowers that bloom only for one night -- see image at left) has finally set some fruit that is turning shocking pink, meaning it is ripe for the picking (the part that becomes fruit is above the flower here and will bulge out round and turn hot pink). And when it turns shocking pink and is ready to pick and to eat, it is white inside with tiny black seeds. Resembles a kiwi fruit most but about 6 times the size and just astounding looking and sweet tasting, but not so gooey sweet as a kiwi.
We grew this by sticking some stalks in the ground and waiting for a year!! We've probably had 30 blossoms that are still in stages of blooming and fruiting and ripening. See ripened version below.

Our long, tall cactus, which also has 8 large blooms on it (that rather resemble the look of the pitaya blossom and should be opening as flowers) has been overwatered by the amount of rain we've been getting lately and so the tips have turned black. We don't think this is a good sign!

July 11, 2007 Merida

We are back in Merida after a lovely 10-day trip north to Illinois, where my brother David and his wife Tricia had a baby boy, their third child, and named him Ford. He weighed in at 9 pounds and was 21 inches long and seemed as sweet as he could be (pun intended). He joins his big Sister Hannah and big brother David.

This would have been excitement enough, but we also saw lots of Marilla and my folks and many wonderful friends up north whom we don't get to see often enough. Saw fireworks twice, got to Ravinia one night for a wonderful concert, saw several movies (Evening not all we expected despite a fabulous cast of wonderful actresses), and ate all those things that Merida does not have yet (like Korean food!!), so we thouroughly enjoyed ourselves. My other brother, Kirk, had a BBQ for us one night, too (this means that his wife Carol cooked and organized and Kirk welcomed us to his home graciously). Stayed at the Home one week and are glad they have nice guest rooms, but are not yet ready to move in there!!!!

We also had a very sad thing happen while in the Chicago area -- our dear friend John Ziebell died suddenly. He was healthy, hearty, and only 62, so we were all shocked and remain disbelieving, as does his wife Patti. We keep hoping it was a bad dream instead of reality. And surely, we think he'll have found his way home by the time we go to Cancun for his beloved Veal Chef Amilcar at La Dolce Vida.

We LOVED the Sopranos finale -- after getting over the fact that the TV reception was not just bad at a bad moment.

Our bowling "team" has decided not to play on a regular weekly basis, and we agree, but probably will try to keep playing fairly often or will completely lose our skills. It is a much faster game with 2 or 4 instead of 6, or 10 as we had last night.

When we got home, we noted that our garden had sprouted yet again. The citrus trees grew about 2 feet taller, more pitaya flowers adorned the vines, our stalk of a tree outside now had giant leaves and sprouts (psuedo bombar or ), and our wonderful Jose had done the moving of plants that we'd asked. Now the flamboyanes bush is away from the terrace so we and he are not constantly cleaning up small flowers and leaves from our outdoor bench sofa.

june 11, 2007

After over a week flat on my back (thankfully the French Open was on TV and Marilla introduced me to a website called GoodReads.com to keep me from total insanity), I am up and around and feeling about 90%, soon to be 100%. This from almost tripping several times and apparently wrenching my back and gluts in the process of saving myself from falling and really doing damage!!


However, I didn't want to wait to add the link to ONE on this blog for any who have not heard about its launch today. http://www.one.org This is our opportunity to give solidarity to the fight against the many injustices in our world, beginning with action and policy against hunger and disease and including influencing the next presidential election results. For those of you who remember our college days spent protesting and trying to make the world a better place, I urge you to participate or at least to listen and read.


Merida is filled with trees blooming this month and last. The flamboyanes (royal poncianas in English) are awesome in orange and what we call lluvia de oro (golden rain or genus cassia) is resplendant with yellow petals dripping on the trees. The orchid trees (bauhinia) are blooming purple and the tamarind fluffs are all over the place. But the most amazing tree we've seen so far (we were told is called Pseudobombar, but think it is really Calliandra) has a flower looks like this:

We bought what so far looks like a stalk of this tree, but hopefully by next year, we too will boast about it blooming in our yard. Our petrea vine (aka sandpaper vine which most closely resembles wisteria in color and feel) is also abloom up and down our outdoor stairway which goes to our upstairs terrace:

May 27, 2007

Finally, tonight we had some rain. We have been hoping for rain most of this month and so were really glad to get some, that is until the ceiling in our dining room started leaking like a sieve!! Always something!!

Last week, we had plumbers here revising our water supply. Here, we store water, although it does come in from the street/city. We have two LARGE tanks on the roof called tenacos which store many liters of water and we thought we had stored enough so we'd never go without. However, we had some trouble getting the water pumped from street level up there and so had to re-route and add yet another tenaco which will act as a cistern and sits in our garage. Now, we really should never ever again be out of water (and with the threats about this upcoming season of hurricanes, we want to have plenty of water in case our city turns it of as they do when a storm is supposed to be headed our way). And speaking of water, in a nod to the environment, we have a solar-powered hot water system that looks very much like a space ship which is also up on our roof. (Why would we need hot water down here near the equator, my mother asks -- well, we are not THAT near the equator and it does get coolish here in the winter not to mention the need for hot water when washing clothes and dishes!!)

Despite the water emergency earlier in the week, on Friday night, our friend from Winfield IL, Paul Lindemuth, cooked a magnificent dinner for us and 8 of our friends which we actually ate in our dining room, instead of our more normal outdoor terrace setting. This is by way of introducing Paul to folks in Merida who will want to use his talents and services once he is down here more. (Eva and I were guests and had almost nothing to do with the preparations except setting the table and julienning the beets.) We began with cold cream of cucumber soup (with what I'd thought was dill growing in our kitchen garden but was not). Then a salad of julienned beets and goat cheese followed by the main course of chicken in a lemon cream and basil (again from our garden) sauce and rice timbales. A cheese and fresh fig course followed, The meal ended with a dessert of individual cheese cakes smothered in local honey and caramel and some unbelievably fresh and ripe diced mangoes plus a chocolate shortbread cookie. So, we can eat well in Merida (and apparently Rick Bayless thinks so too since he's devoted an entire season of his shows on PBS to cooking in the Yucatan) and we plan to eat even better once Paul and Michael actually do move down here. While chef Paul was prepping our meal, Michael thought Eva and I could use some sprucing up and so took out his hairdresser shears and went to work on us as we sat under an umbrella by the pool. We look much improved now!!

One other thing that happened recently and goes under the six degrees of separation heading is we had invited over to the house a lovely woman we'd met whe we purchased two of her oil paintings. Her name is Ana Rosa Aguilar and she was born and raised here in Merida and can trace her family back here for several hundred years and before that to Spain. She told us wonderful stories about Merida when she was a girl (she is around my age). And finally I asked her where she had learned such good English. She said that she had studied one year in the US in a small town no one had ever heard of. The school was a Catholic school north of Chicago in a place called Lake Forest!! We just roared -- turns out it was Woodlands Academy about 2 minutes from the house I grew up in.

I have not shared previously our amazing tree that we have growing inside the house. This climate allows us to experiment with so many types of plants that we'd never before heard of and this tree is one of those. Called Amorphophallus, it is really a bulb. As such, it spends half the year resting in its pot and sitting in our garage not doing much. But the other half of the year, it emerges from the dirt, grows visibly each day for about two weeks, and finally is a delicate tree about 6 feet tall. Eventually, the tree kinda slumps and we know it is time to cut it off and put the pot back in the garage to wait until a shoot emerges. We had more fun watching it grow and would wake up thinking about what changes might have taken place over night! Here it is above after about 4 days of growing and then as its leaves appear within the tube. Below are some more pictures of its progress. Ultimately, the branches drop open to be parallel to the top of the trunk and the frothy leaves hang down. It is a wonder!!

Isla Holbox and Ek Balam, May 12-16, 2007

After nine years together, Eva and I decided to celebrate with a trip for two to an island not too far away. As the crow flies, Isla Holbox (pronounced "whole bosch") would be about a half hour by plane, but we were driving and Quintana Roo (our neighboring state in the Yucatan peninsula) does not make that easy. We took the cuota (toll road) for a little over an hour to Valladolid and then had to get on the libre (free) road filled with topes (speed bumps) and small towns, then onto smaller routes, and finally onto unpaved road. Apparently, the contracts for three main routes in Quintana Roo were bid out before Wilma came to the area and all contracts were awarded, no surprise here, to a friend of a politician in charge of the roads. His crews had begun to dismantle the roads down to the rock, but before they could repave them, the hurricane hit and all bets were off. Now, a year and a half after Wilma left the area, there are few signs of road work, so you literally drive on pitted rock roads at a snail’s pace for much of the trip north of Valladolid-- not so hairy as our drive to San Cristobal in Chiapis (see earlier posts and pictures), but eerily familiar in terms of road hazards.
However, after about 4½ hours on the road, we made it to the ferry at Chiquila. Almost hourly, a ferry leaves for the island and costs 40 pesos or about 40 cents per person. Not being overly thrifty ourselves and feeling we deserved a break after our harrowing drive, we chose not to wait and hired a private launch to take us across the Yalahua lagoon for 200 pesos or about $18US. Much faster and easier, we thought.
We were met by a taxi which took us to the hotel we had booked online named Xaloc (shay-lock with the accent on the second syllable). This is a collection of thatched-roof huts with king beds and baths inside situated around a small swimming pool and right on the beach. Very quiet and comfy, we thought.
The water is shallow for meters heading away from land and then there’s a sandbar and then the Gulf begins. The water is stunning – like the Caribbean but greener, clear, and pristine over that lovely sandy bottom. There is a perfect, white, soft-sanded beach there for walking or swimming, but the thrill seemed to be kite-surfing, which we loved watching but could not imagine trying. Just what you might think -- putting your feet into stirrups hooked onto a boogie-board sized thin sheet of wood and hanging on for dear life to a kite suspended high above that you control with your arms should you choose to change directions. This shallow coast line with windy afternoons is perfect for this sport!
There is a picture in the web album that shows an aerial view of the island, and kite surfing, too, but really only a small portion at the right side of the picture is inhabited. The point at the bottom is called Mosquito Point which is a great spot for gathering shells, but only accessible by boat. At the top side is the lagoon that we traveled across to reach the island.
Activities? Beyond swimming, laying on a chaise and reading, walking the beach, taking side trips, eating, there is nothing. A lovely getaway for relaxing and enjoying is Holbox. We did take one sightseeing trip in hopes of spotting some of the whale sharks who migrate here this time of year, but we were days too early. We also missed seeing any schools of dolphins, who are also regular visitors around this island. We did see pelicans, herons, and flamingoes, beautiful sunsets, and lots of butterflies (lemon yellow, mango orange, and black ones with electric blue on the wing were the most prevalent). Our trip took us to a spit of land above sea level called Isla Pasion (yes, it’s what you think), then to Isla Pajaros where birds nest and live—no humans allowed on the island--, and finally across Laguna Yalahau to a spot on the mainland known also as Ojo de Agua because this is where there is a spring of fresh, cool, sweet water bubbles up from somewhere down below and forms a small pond. The boat trip was mainly in the lagoon portion of the island.
On Holbox, the streets are made of sand, packed down by the golf carts that are the only vehicles allowed on the island. One day, we rented a golf cart and drove all over the navigable part of the island within our allotted hour. We could easily walk into town (about 1500 inhabitants they say, but we think this is an exaggeration of about 1000) for dinners, which we did. One night, a German chef served us weinerschnitzel and the other night, we had fresh lobster. We also found a wonderful bar under a palapa (thatched roof with open sides) that had swings instead of bar stools and was the ideal spot to watch the sun sets while sipping something and talking with the darling French owner, Charles (aka Carlos on the island). We would happily have done some shopping, but there really as nothing (besides a straw hat to cover Sandy's head and face) which we could not live without.
On the way back to civilization or the mainland at any rate (and we took a different route, from Kantunilkin by way of Tizimin and then south, and still found LOTS of road "construction"), we stopped at an archeological site called Ek Balam. Everyone said we’d have the place to ourselves, but that is no longer the case now that the tour buses have discovered it. So, we came and saw and climbed quickly and skipped the cenote there since two busloads of tourists preceded us. There is a picture of the carved Mayan at the top of the large pyramid, the view from the top, and the view looking back down the stairs toward Eva waiting below.
There are pictures of the island, the taxis, the resort, the water, the sunsets, the boat trip, the water, the bar, the water, the ruins and us enjoying it all at http://picasaweb.google.com/necshs1/Holbox

Palm Beach in May 2007

As you may have noticed, it's been HOT here in Merida lately -- and I mean temperatures over 100 by late afternoon. NOT pleasant. So Sandy headed off to visit her parents in south Florida, figuring it would be about the same, but fortunately, it was cooler there.
They live in a darling townhome, perfectly located and decorated, great size, and a pool of their own for dunking. We did the Flagler and Norton museums (there is a fabulous Iris Apfel exhibit at the Norton -- her style and choices are just amazing), the Four Arts gardens, the Breakers (seeing it again after 35+ years away), Worth Ave., every club Palm Beach has to offer (Bath and Tennis, Everglades, and Old Guard at any rate), and a few forays to West Palm, too. One night during something called SunFest, there was a fireworks display to rival any I have ever seen. Lots of time for chatting with the folks, too.
And finally, I found the secret to perfect communication with my parents. It is based on what they really care about (and I tend to think they are right in this), but it's taken me all these years to figure it out. Just needed to answer two questions (and hopefully in the affirmative!!) -- are you healthy? are you happy? That's it. I should probably write a child's guide to pleasing your parents based on this novel approach.

christening for Jose's sons, april 2007

Sunday, today, was the baptism of the two youngest sons of our mozo (house man), Jose', and his wife, Wendy. He has three sons, all of whom are darling -- Jose Manuel will be 4 in November, Jonathan just turned 2 on Friday, and Juan Carlos was born last November. They are really happy kids.
We spent the day with them last Sunday in anticipation of this christening. Jose' had asked Eva to be one of the godparents for the baby Juan Carlos, however, the Catholic church here requires that godparents be a married couple, so she could not officially participate in the church service. However, unofficially, she has taken on the role and is having so much fun with it. We took the family shopping for outfits for the boys to wear today, had lunch, and played a little. On Jonathan’s birthday, we shopped again for outfits, toys, books, and cake – the favorite thing in the world for Jonathan and Jose Manuel – for the birthday boy and his big brother, so there would be no hurt feelings.
Then, this morning, the family insisted we have breakfast with them before the ceremony. We joined the extended family (Wendy is one of 11 children ((and so we think they ran out of Spanish-sounding names by the time they got to her)) and Jose' is one of 5) to eat relleno negro in Uman before proceeding to the large cathedral in Merida where the ceremony took place. The ceremony was a never-ending two-hour production during which about 60 children were baptized, blessed, and cajoled by the priest in a side chapel where we were packed in like sardines and grateful for the fans which would hit you dead-on every now and then, just often enough to make life worth living. By the end, every overdressed child was in tears and many of the adults felt like joining in just because it was soooooo hot and, although he tried valiantly, the priest’s jokes were not that funny.
Jose' works very hard for us – he cleans, he gardens, he takes care of the pool, he makes sure mechanical things work properly, he does the dishes, and he, even gladly, does the windows. He was working for us 5 days a week (which even with the floor cleaning we thought was overkill) and said he’d like to make a little more money, so now we share him 2 days out of the 6 he is now working with friends. The biggest job, or the most unrelenting at any rate, is the floors. Since we live in a city to begin with and in a place where the words “emission controls” have yet to be uttered, our floors get dirty -- dirty enough to blacken your bare feet when they (the floors not the feet) are not washed daily. And we have about 5000 square feet of floor that needs sweeping and mopping daily. Thursday morning, he and Sandy were out in the garden trimming and pruning. They worked for about 4 hours in the increasingly hot sun and made the garden look cleaner and lighter than ever before – in part by trimming up the bamboo which began as a stalk with some leaves at the top last June and is now quite a lush clump – and then Jose' went on to do the floors, clean up the kitchen, and wash the car, while Sandy dove into the pool and then slumped in the shade.
And so we were thrilled to be part of this important day for him and his family.
See the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/necshs1/Baptism

Cooking despite the heat

Still too hot here - -our May HEAT has come a month early, thanks no doubt to global warming!!—but our nights remain breezy and cool. Last night we had friends come to dinner and went up on our roof terrace for drinks where we were quite comfortable. By the time we came downstairs to eat, it had cooled off enough to be quite pleasant. Our definition of “pleasant” has changed somewhat over time so that even Eva is comfortable at night when the AC is at 25 (77 F). She complains that it is not cool enough but by morning she is also snuggled under a flannel sheet that we use as a blanket.
For dinner, we served a fish soup as the first course. We had been to the big market a few days ago with a friend who had never been and wanted to serve fish as the main course for a dinner party we went to, so we acted as tour guides. Tom bought 3 beautiful huachinango (red snapper) and we took home the heads and spines. First, we made a fish stock and then created a clean-tasting soup with more fish, lime, ginger, carrots, bean sprouts, lemon grass (picked fresh from our kitchen garden) and cilantro at the end as a garnish. Bern was here to swim as we were concocting this so he chopped and helped, too.
The big market (Mercado) is a bit daunting. This is a new building opened within the last two years that some government official thought would be an improvement over the collection of dilapidated and run-down buildings which previously constituted the public market. It is grey industrial concrete, two stories of shopping with parking below, and finally is being used. For months, the locals boycotted this place since “their” mercado had been destroyed, but finally decided it was better to sell inside it and make a living than not to. Now, the whole area is so crowded with people who assume it is still a local market without traffic, that it is difficult to drive or park. There is a fish area with multiple vendors and a meat area and a poultry area (these last ones are just too much for Sandy whose sense of smell could not tolerate all of this) and many flower vendors and of course, vegetables, tortillas, bread, and eggs. In addition, you can buy pretty much ANY thing you think you might need from one of many small shops – clothing, shoes, cooking utensils, machetes, rope, and more plastic crap of every size than you ever knew existed.
We don’t normally go down there except for fish, since it is SO amazingly fresh – from the sea to the market in minutes and hours. We normally do most of our grocery shopping at Costco (our club) and Mega, which is a big grocery store that actually has co-ownership of Costco. Mega is a new market here, with a snazzy new building again with parking underneath (which is actually really nice when it is hot and sunny outside to be under a building where it’s shady). They have everything you’d expect a store to have in the way of items to buy, but are also a super-WalMart type of place with a smattering of TVs, furniture, towels, and gardening things.
There are things that we just cannot get down here – the locals are not asking for them and they are the main consumers. For example, we cannot find Chex cereals, except occasionally one with honey and sugar. There is no chunky peanut butter. Certain spices are hard to find or not here at all. None of this is earth-shattering or problematic, except that it seems when you cannot find it, you want it all the more. When I go north, I usually return with Costco-sized chunky peanut butter in tow, and it is often still in the pantry by the time my next trip comes along, but at least I know it’s there should I happen to crave some! However, there are so many things that we can get here that are unheard of in the states that we do not feel deprived.
Bern and Aidar, our friends from Seattle, were in our kitchen cooking recently – a wonderful Asian-inspired meal of Thai curry over rice with spring rolls first and a lemon, lime, orange curd over shortbread for dessert. Bern has been on sabbatical this term and is living in a small apartment without much of a kitchen in anticipation of their beautiful home here in Merida being completed. Since both Bern and Aidar are such good cooks and love to cook, they was happy to have a chance to be in a kitchen with windows == and plenty of helping hands!

See the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/necshs1/CookingWithbernandaidar

garden on calle 56, april 2007

We love to garden, so it's been tough to accept that everything we knew about gardening from our experience and classes and tutoring in Illinois was no longer useful. Gardening here in Merida is amazingly simple. You buy it, stick it in the ground, give it some water (but not too much because here things grow with water but bloom when dry), and presto a garden emerges before your eyes and before you know it.
The advice we heard most often, and have repeated now that we know it's true, is don't overplant. We thought our little garden was going to be so meager when we first put it in last June, but now not even a year later, we are pruning and chopping and finding uses for that machete. And still it is lush with all manner of flowers and colors.
We have daily visits from hummingbirds, see a huge variety of butterflies in and around the space, and most recently, have taken to prayer to keep the swarms of locusts away -- literally, Biblical swarms of black locusts that cover the sky. We don't know where they are landing but thankfully, it's not in our yard to munch away at things.
And all of this on a shelf of limestone that seems to suck the dirt down some place unless you buy the local tierra (sold off of horse-drawn carts) which is reddish and hard as cement when it dries so it cannot be absorbed (we didn't buy this stuff but brought in dirt created with the help of pig shit so it is black not red). Tropical things seem to grow without dirt and certainly without mulch (does not exist down here, cannot be purchased, and there is no translation to Spanish) and despite hot temperatures, sun beating down, and cloudbursts when they occur.
So here, are some current pictures of flowers that we have in our back yard, the new and improved look of the front of the house, and some amazing things that have happened, like cactus blooming. We are enthralled every day. http://picasaweb.google.com/necshs1/Flowers

If you want to go back to see what the garden looked like before, click here-- http://picasaweb.google.com/necshs1/HouseBefore

June 2005 thru July 2006 in Merida

Here are all the old emails I could find, the mass-mailings called Merida Monthly Report, which sum up the days of our lives down here from June 2005 through July 2006, when we first arrived and lounged around at the beach to buying and building and moving into our home on calle 56. The before and after pictures of this may be found with some of the other older blog entries.


Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 5:18 PM
Subject: mass emails from Mexico are NOT junk mail!

Hello all --The Merida adventurers are hot (and we mean heat hot because this is the HOTTEST season for temperatures all year) since it's been in the 90s consistently and we have been in town most every day for various errands and enjoying the people down here. Eva is at this moment stretched out on a chaise under a palm tree with a bandana over her eyes, having just emerged from soaking her legs in the pool. We are resting up before we have dinner tonight with Vikki Frank and her business partner at Hacienda Xcanatun, and after we crash their event tonight at some fancy quinta on Paseo Montejo that is for sale, so of course, they expect we can purchase it and have a wonderful spa on the main beautiful street of town.This morning we walked and floated and shelled, showered, ate pitaya with our yogurt (pitaya is a hot pink colored fruit with lime green in the leaves and has a white inside with small black seeds like the seeds in a kiwi), and headed into town in search of WIFI. What we take for granted (the Starbucks on almost every corner which has WIFI access) is definitely NOT part of this world, but we found that a lovely hotel we'd stayed in last March had it, so we hopped over, perched on a chair in the breezy courtyard, ordered a cool drink, and plugged in the computer. AAAhhhhh access!
We took a tour of the newly renovated market which has underground parking (a real plus for those of us who don't much care for hauling bags of groceries on the bus or walking the hot streets) and we saw all manner of fruit, flowers, meats, fish of course, and things (and we mean any thing you could conceive of from jewelry to shoes to household appliances to well, any thing) and even pets. They had some baby parrots with lime green heads and gangly bodies that were pretty cute. Apparently, that is the age to get them so they bond to you but we are not quite ready for a dependent yet!We are gradually finding our way around town and have a pretty good command of the main streets and byways and are gaining ground on the many one-way side streets. This may be helpful since we learned last night that there has been an offer on the beach house we are camping out in and so we may need to move sooner than we'd planned to. This after we just had a cement block pathway put down so that we track in much less sand! The family has gotten all its documents to the notary and he apparently has gotten them to the bank and now we are awaiting our interview with the bank -- they met with us to tell us about fees for the bank trust and decided that they likes us well enough to take our money so now they have to find out more details about who we actually are. That should happen next week. Have talked to the architect and to a second builder and seem to be narrowing in on a plan for remodeling the house we almost own. We decided we do need to blow out the ceilings from 11 to about 18 feet in height. This is of course, expensive, but it will keep it so much cooler and be so much nicer. Means all of you heading to the guest rooms on the second floor will have quite a climb however!!!

Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 3:23 PM Subject: too darn hot


We have been sending some of our weather north so that those of you in Chicago could really understand what it is like to be in Merida during the summer. Marilla had a point when she said she would not consider visiting us here in the summer having spent a long, hot summer in Costa Rica a few years back. We have been busy this week. Left last Saturday for parts further south and east -- Mahahual and Baccalar -- since they are being talked about quite a bit for investment property. Mahahual is on the Carribbean and I do mean right on it -- the street, such as it is, is about 10 feet from the water at mid-day -- and of course, the reef that goes from Cozumel south is just off the coast 300 yards or so. It is barely north of Belize, biggest city in the area is Chetumal. This means that the water is shallow and clear and it is an easy walk to the reef! Baccalar is a fishing town right on a huge lagoon of fresh water that many fishermen from Texas have long enjoyed visiting. Both are primitive as far as resorts or even homes since the electric grid has only recently made it that far, but lots right on the beach are selling for around $100,000 for a 60 ‘(20 meters) piece of frontage and about 120 feet (40 meters) in depth. We wound our way through the mid-section of the Yucatan going down there (about 4-5 hours of driving and once was pretty much enough) and came back through Valladolid -- had a tough time getting Eva to leave there since we found a rather nice hotel with air conditioning and she hunkered down-- and Izamal (known as the yellow city since the huge monastery and church and much of the rest of the town in painted ochre). Once back, we checked our email to find that the bank was ready for our interview (which means all the paper documentation is in order but we are still about 3 weeks away from ownership). We are dealing with HSBC one of the biggest banks in the world and this was like going back to the dark ages. They needed payment from us to go to their attorney in Mexico City that would then go to pay the government for allowing us to open a trust to own property here of about $1300. This is more than I can get in one day from my cash station, so I called my bank in Glenview (the Northern Trust what else?) to have the funds wire transferred. The two bankers there who know me were both out of the bank and the woman I did speak with said she needed a signature so please fax her something with instructions. I wrote this out for the HSBC bank officer who said they could not fax to the US. I offered to open a new checking account in Merida but apparently I can not do this without additional immigration documents. I then offered to go online and open an HSBC account in the states and just get the money from one HSBC account to another, but Mexico is not yet connected to the worldwide HSBC network. So I was stumped -- smart Eva thought of calling my dad to ask him to get it done and that worked. We also found a small furnished apartment to rent downtown and will continue to use the beach house until the end of July (our friends sold it and that is the closing date). We are imagining that our house will be done around the end of this year, perhaps sooner, since we are hearing 4 months to do the work and expect that really means six! We had one architect whom we like very much but now have spoken with two others whose ideas are fabulous, so will probably switch if it does not slow us down at all. We have continued to meet some nice people both locals and Americans who live down here and are amazed at how many of us there are in the area. This morning we had the beach to ourselves and just floated on our rafts tethered to a concrete block so we did not float too far and it was just heavenly. Miss you all and think of and talk about you often.

6/20/05

Guess what comes after all this heat?? The rainy season!!!! We have had some rain almost every day but lots of rain yesterday. As you can imagine, this causes some problems as it would any place -- like flooding in the streets since it has been dry for months and the ground cannot absorb all this water that quickly AND hatching of mosquitoes who are pretty much rampant -- but as my mother pointed out, what did we expect when we moved almost to the Equator. The sky gets black and it rains, usually only for about 15 minutes, and then the skies are blue again as if it had never happened. Our friends with the beach house had never gotten a water bill in the time they have owned the property, so it was finally turned off after over a year of nonpayment -- and nonbilling I might add. Apparently, here people are expected to be proactive about paying their utilities BEFORE they are billed for them. We paid the bill (and the electric bill while we were at it) but it takes several days for the cistern to fill up to be able to get water into the house, so we moved to a hotel for the past several days and will begin today moving our things to our downtown apartment which will be our new base of operations. Since the apartment has AC we are not concerned about the heat and since it is on the second floor we are not concerned about the flooding!!Eva has become one of the natives now -- last week she found a shirt she liked at a market and was asking the price, but felt it was too much, so said no, and kept negotiating until the price had dropped by about one-third, but then the seller asked her where she was from. When Eva said Merida, the lady dropped the price even further!! She was thinking Eva was American and was not willing to lower the price for an American. We find the same is true with real estate or many other purchases -- when the people see me, the price goes UP.Nothing new about the house purchase to report -- manana!! Had a wonderful dinner on Saturday night with some new friends-- six of us were sitting upstairs on a terrace under the stars enjoying a wonderful meal and there was a jazz combo playing below and the breezes were blowing to keep us refreshed. AAAHHH. So it all balances out.


Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 5:53 PM
Subject: still too darn hot

Hello all --Despite our 100 degree temperatures on a quite regular basis, I have to admit that I am adjusting to it -- of course there is sweat pouring from me at almost all times, but I am not laid low by the HEAT. Cannot say the same for Eva who cannot wait to retreat back to her AC -- which thankfully has worked and kept us cool, as has our wonderful car which has performed so beautifully in some very tough situations.Bern and Aidar are here this week visiting from Seattle. We picked them up in Cancun (only a 2.5 hour drive after all), stopped in Valladolid and Izamal along the way, and got back to Merida on Saturday in time to have a cocktail party for them to introduce them to 20 or so folks we met here. We had heard about Mexicans and how once they are at your house, they don´t leave, and thought it was a joke, but apparently, these Americans and Mexicans whom we´d invited to our party took it seriously. We had the party at the Villa and didn´t get home until 3am having had a wonderful time. Since then, we have been to Uxmal (pyramids -- fabulous), the market, Paseo Montejo, and other local sights here, and dragged them to see lots of houses we are considering. Still have not found THE ONE, but have found one we may move to in the not too distant future if all goes well. Of course, there was a problem with the paperwork and measurements, but we are told that it should be solved fairly quickly, so we remain optimistic. Once we have it, will send all relevant details and even photos. Will head back to Cancun for the weekend and send off Bern and Aidar, then to the beach here to help out some American friends of our friends who bought a house by checking on some repair work they had done. They also kindly offered us the use of their beach house should we want it, so that was wonderful. Will help them out too to have people there since unoccupied homes can sometimes be the target of squatters-- and they are VERY hard to remove once they have moved in apparently. Just like we found out about the beautiful haciendas which look so appealing to buy down here. There is something called patrimonio which basically means that if people lived on the land or used the water rights or grazed animals there, they are ALWAYS entitled to do so, even if you now own the land. Land outside of the cities is considered to belong to the people.Went to hear the Yucatan symphony for its final performance of the season and it made us homesick for Ravinia evenings and the Chicago Symphony, but it was not too bad. Every woman had a fan with her to keep cool during the performance-- which sounds like some of the performances at Ravinia now that I think of it. The concert hall is quite beautiful with balconies all around and a gorgeous round fresco painted on the ceiling.We have tried a new fruit -- guanabana. It is green and about the size of a huge avocado with sorta spiky things outside. The fruit inside is sweet and tangy but tastes a bit like it is packaged in cotton balls or underwear. We also found a wonderful ice cream place where they have sorbets of fresh mango, fresh coconut, or other wonderful flavors and fruits. And we are loving the cocina economicas -- basically, cheap eats but often these are in the front several rooms of people´s homes and the mama cooks. It has offered us a great opportunity to sample lots of cooking styles and dishes very cheaply. The meals tend to cost about 25 pesos (around $2) and include rice, beans, salad, sometimes soup, and a main hot meal like baked chicken or pork chops or fish or meatballs. Usually only open in the afternoons, we find we are eating the Yucatecan way and having a big meal at lunch and then something very light at night, if at all. Breakfast is not a big deal here either. Tends to be yogurt and fruit and maybe some kind of pastry (pan dulce) or bread, which is just fine by us.

7/16/2005
hot, heck, what about a hurricane!!

We are hunkering down for yet another new experience here in Merida -- hurricane Emily, and no this is not my long-time friend Emily, but a storm heading supposedly right for us. The reports say it is due to hit tomorrow night, but today is as fine a day as one could hope for. Sunny, not too hot so far, and a nice breeze. Since we are on the second floor, we assume all will be well, but they cautioned us that it is not unusual to lose electricity so Eva would be without AC (and we all know what happens then...). So wish us well, please. We went to Ticul for the day on Thursday. This is only about an hour SE from Merida by car and is the home to many of the clay pots and clay chachkis that abound. You can order a pot made of any size and color. Friends of ours had a specific need for tall thin pots for a balcony and found exactly what they needed -- and at about 1/10 of what Chalet would charge! By way of thanks for our driving, our friends bought us a wrought iron swing with two painted frogs sitting on it, each about a foot tall. To keep it from getting broken, we put it inside the apartment where I knocked into it on a late night visit to the bathroom and now the lady frogs have no feet, but still have the flowers in their hair! We have almost great news about our housing situation, hate to mention it for fear of jinxing the deals, but we are about to own not one but two houses. We decided about a month ago not to buy the original house (and that was a good decision despite all the time we had invested) and have been looking. Found one which we thought would work, but was not ideal mainly since it didn't have a large yard, and have been pursuing it, but of course, the measurements were not correct so now we are just waiting for one signature from one neighbor and then we can get the trust going. We will put minimal work into this house (bathrooms and electrical and paint perhaps) and hope to sell it at a huge markup to some silly American who doesn't know any better. Then down the block from this, we found an absolutely perfect and wonderful house. It is in pretty good condition (here they say it has good bones meaning that the ceilings are high, the walls are not crumbling, and the room sizes are fine) but of course needs work (things like bathrooms and new electical service to start) and has a huge back yard AND 16' ceiings. The house was built around 1900-1910 (although the contractors here will tell you that construction really has not changed much from the 1500s to about 20 years ago when they started using cement block instead of rocks to build the walls). There is a 40' avocado tree right off the back of the house and a 30' mamey tree in the back corner (mamey pronounced mahmay, is a beautiful fruit, deep orangey with a pit, and the size of an avocado on steroids, however, it tastes quite a bit like papaya, so you either like it or hate it). For this house, the owners are three sisters however one runs the show and she claims all the paperwork is in order, so we will see what the attorney has to say once he gets a chance to look at it. When I say bathrooms and electric always need work, perhaps I should explain that it is not unusual here in the older homes to have 3-4-5 bedrooms and one bathroom for the house. It is also normal here to have the electrical wires attached to the outside of the walls, stapled down and painted to match the color of the room, but visible. A few other things that we gringos are used to like water softeners and some water pressure are not part of the deal and must be added. Some of us even require hot water!! Here in Merida, hot water is more a function of the time of day than anything else. There is a water tank (tinaco) usually located on top of the house where the water is stored after having been pumped from the city water or a well. Early morning the water is coolish but by late afternoon, no one would need a hot water heater to take a shower or bath since the sun heats it so well. And another interesting fact while I am on the subject of water - when people fill their swimming pools (which some do twice a week since they normally don't heat the pools or treat them with chemicals) they do so from a deep water source and the water comes in so clear and clean that it is amazing. They use the water from the pool then to water plants or lawns-- especially true at the haciendas. So, keep a good thought for us that these houses will soon be ours and work can begin and we can actually settle down in OUR OWN home in the not too distant future. And then, we can welcome guests!! Miss everyone but not everything about home.

7/22/05
we are hurricane-free!!

If you've been watching CNN (as we now can but were unable to last week) you know that Hurricane Emily missed us -- by only about 30 miles, but it was enough to leave us all ready for a big blow and thrilled not to have had to live through one. The traffic lights are now almost all back in place, the tape on the windows is pretty much all gone, and things are back to normal here, but because of past experience with hurricanes EVERYONE took Monday off since we were expected to be in the eye of the storm. Phew!!! We had gone over last Friday to help friends of ours from Canada and Australia who have a boutique hotel (where we were among the first guests last March) tie up their antique glass and wrought iron lamps and move some furniture around out of harms' way, but once we got the all clear, they invited us back for dinner with an interesting couple, both doctors who were originally from Rome but have been living in Boston for 15 years. We felt quite cosmopolitan! And tonight we picked up some loose-fitting but bright colored shifts we'd had made down here that we expect to wear constantly (they are cheery and fun prints and light weight) -- for 75 pesos apiece or about $7. Tomorrow we meet with our attorney to get the contracts to buy the two houses all ready. He has told us that we need one signature about the measurements for the smaller property which should be ready on Saturday and 5 signatures from all the 5 sellers for the larger property and then we are all set for both properties. What a relief and so much easier and quicker than before. Think we will start on the smaller one and get it ready and move into it hopefully by November, and then figure out the larger one since we have more at stake in a place we really intend to live and so need some time to get the design right. We went with some friends yesterday to the house of a man who is selling off his family furniture and art and objects, especially religious objets d'art, and is even selling the house. He had some interesting things and we bought a set of 6 coffee cups with coffee pot, creamer, and sugar that are clay pottery but also carved and painted and about 50 years old for $20. We also bought something which every house down here has -- a portrait of the virgin of Guadalupe. This one is quite lovely, done in oil and old and the other seemed to be just thrown in to make a set but upon closer examination is quite a wonderful head shot of a madonna and child. Also bought a dressing table which has been cleaned up and now houses our computer that FINALLY has its very own internet connection. We signed up for cable TV and internet service on Tuesday (mainly because we had felt so out of it with all the hurricane stuff and no easy access to CNN or up to the minute information) and waited all day on Wednesday and most of Thursday for them to come and install it. And once they came, you have to picture one man standing on a wall at the front of this 2-story building and one up on the roof hauling up the cable from an electric pole on the street while it is absolutely pouring rain and lightning. Then they didn't understand how to work with a Mac since they are used to windows so we had to pay for a computer guru to come and help them install the modem for the internet. It took him 40 minutes to get here and he spent about 30 minutes here and he charged us 100 pesos or about $10. Gotta love this country! So now we should be able to answer email more quickly and know what is going on in the world, although with yet another bomb scare in Britain today, I think perhaps ignorance IS bliss. Thanks for the emails, keep em coming and all the concern for us in what turned out to be no big deal -- Eva didn't lose power and kept the AC on for those of you who were worried about her comfort!


7/22/05
merida weekly report

No hurricanes or exciting travel or new fruit this week, but we are down to only pursuing one house (stop cheering Mom). We have had quite a bit of back-and-forth with the agent of the owners of the large house and things got all screwed up. First, the deal was set, a price agreed on, and a process accepted. They would deliver documents to our attorney and once he reviewed everything and said it was OK, we'd sign a contract to buy the house and give them 10%. After we'd gotten the OK from our attorney, they asked us to pay their inheritance taxes. We said no. A day later they said fine, they'd pay their own taxes. (By they way, this is a huge amount for taxes here in Mexico, about $4000 US.) Then two days later, when we had the appointment to sign the papers, they said they changed their mind and would not pay the taxes and we'd need to pay them in order to buy the house. We again said no. A day later, they said OK they pay the taxes but we could not use wire transfer because they just wanted cash and wanted no deposits to show up in their accounts since the IRS of Mexico would then be able to trace the transaction. We imagined ourselves on an airplane carrying valises filled with cash (since without an address or actually without an electric bill, we cannot get a checking account here) and realized that they would keep throwing up roadblocks to this transaction and it was not all THAT wonderful a house even with a 40' avocado tree to put up with all this stuff. So we said we would not buy the house after all. Now, we are down to one house and just as we were hoping all of that would go smoothly, our banker let us know that he'd be out of the bank for the last two weeks of August (which is just when we were hoping to close on this last house) and so, it is never easy.
We did swim at a friend's house this week, in a lovely round pool, and saw our first pigmy banana tree in bloom. This was a twig about 18" tall six months ago and now is a tree about 6' tall and had the most amazing blossom on it -- think of Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors and you have some idea. We were back a day later and several of the maroon and green leaves of the foot-long blossom had opened to reveal stacks of 3" long bananas each with a small white flower growing at its end. Once this stalk blossoms once, it will never again flower, so you cut it off, and crack the stem at the base, so that a new stalk will emerge for flowering next year.
Our other activity this past week has been waiting for the cable guy -- no shit! We ordered cable and internet a week ago. Spent two days waiting for the installation (we'll be there sometime between 8am and 8pm on Tuesday or Wednesday, lady) and once they came and wired, we had not gotten our HBO or CNN in English, so started calling them again as of last Thursday. Here it is now a week later and we are still waiting for our HBO! We have high hopes that today someone will come since now they have actually started to apologize for their bad service. We take this as a good sign that this week of waiting has significantly exceeded their normal levels of pretty-bad service.
Got so tired of waiting that yesterday we broke out and went to the Gulf beaches. It was indeed significantly more crowded than we were used to, but what we noticed most was that the water was actually too warm to feel good until it was deep enough to be over your head (too hot even for Miss Betty).
We also wanted to have some fish. We'd had whole fish here before, but found a place when our friends from Seattle were here, so we headed to Chicxulub (pronounced chick shoe lube) to have pesco frito. They take a whole boquinette and cook it quickly so it is crispy outside and so delicate inside. This fish has bones in the center but few bones, if any, in the meat so it is great eating. And since it is whole, you can eat whatever part of the fish you'd like -- tail, head, cheeks, eyeballs-- or just the filet parts. This week, we went to a Spanish restaurant and had another new delicacy called leche frito (literally fried milk). I have no idea how they get this to be this consistency, but it is like a custard with a skin and looks like a fat pancake. Tastes rich and creamy and is served warm with some cinnamon on it.


8/14/2005
house countdown

Well, the good news is that the bank "found" our money which they'd had since June and we are proceeding along the path to buying the house once again. The banker (and get this, no one takes your place while you are on vacation) will be away from the office for two weeks beginning on Monday so nothing will happen until the end of this month or early next. This works out for the sellers who wanted to clean out their house and have time to pack and it's OK for us, too. However, in the interest of not just sitting on our hands here and waiting, Eva decided to head to Texas to see her newest niece (Monica Eva and the Eva part is not just coincidence) who lives with her two-year old niece whose nickname is Jaxsie and who reminds everyone of Eva and of course, their parents, Eva's brother and sister-in-law.
Her absence has given me the opportunity to do some things I've been meaning to do but had not gotten around to like seeing the Anthropoligical History Museum here. Not as snazzy as the one in Mexico City, but a gorgeous building on Paseo Montejo with a two-toothed guide who had lots of interesting stories to tell. We learned what we think is the obvious secret of what happened to the Mayans who had left their fabulous cities and temples long before the Spaniards came to conquer. The Mayan rulers were increasingly born with things like harelips, crossed eyes, Down's syndrome, and heart defects. In order to continue to appear royal, the rulers made these things seem like good attributes, and the populace apparently accepted this. However, the rulers could only marry relatives of the other Mayan rulers who often were cousins or even closer relatives and we assume that so much inbreeding has to take its toll and you have to get beyond the smaller issues to the really big problems that would topple even a god-like ruler! The historians still seem to think it's a big mystery however.
We have started house remodeling plans and have a floor plan that we think will work pretty well without too much knocking down or building up. It will allow for a nice long lap pool and that is really what we are looking forward to having. We miss the beach and being in the water every day and although we've been swimming at the pools of friends, most of them are more like dunking pools than exercising pools.
We had the car washed. Now this may sound like no big deal, but the three times we have done so, we have found that it is a BIG deal. It takes about 90 minutes first of all and involves 3 or more people. Now some may call this full employment, but as many things are, this is done pretty much backwards so that even if one person had dried one part of our car, because another is using the hose on another car next door to us, it means that our guy has to completely dry our car all over again. And I won't even go into the vacuuming process -- it's a little like picking the individual grains of sand off the carpet one at a time!!


8/26/05
YAY!! We finally got our permission from Mexico City to purchase the house -- this is needed since we are purchasing in an historic district and are not Mexicans. This means the bank trust is all but done -- just a few more legal documents (of what type we don't know) are required, but we are definitely getting closer to finalizing this house purchase!! And best of all, the exchange rate has gone up just a little bit lately, too!! The notary says we could do this as early as this Wednesday depending on the wire transfer process -- an international wire transfer can take four days to show up in the other person's bank account and just as we don't want to transfer the funds without signing the papers, the sellers don't want to sign the papers without having the money in hand.
Went to a large cocktail party last night and met lots of new people. We have heard estimates that there are about 85,000 - 100,000 expatriates living here in Merida and we've barely scratched the surface. We met the head and manager of the Merida English Library which has been a wonderful resource for us -- we had Amazon send several books here but then caught a look at the cost of shipping and won't do that again -- and it's nice to know the people who started and have kept this library running and growing for over 10 years now. And met a man who says he is not a pianist but plays a mean "living room piano" and is having a Yamaha shipped in so he can have monthly salons/concerts in the home he is renovating. Met a woman who has been here 5 or so years from Vancouver BC and who is doing guided tours to all the typical spots and some not so typical -- like to a sweat lodge with a shaman who puts mud on you and chants and heals you.
I've been researching the Mayan calendar, the count of which ends in 2012 (after going back 5000+years and is based on astrological events that only occur every 5125 years) which means that the world will "end" on Dec. 21, 2012. We assume this is not an actual end but perhaps an end to the ways some things have been done (no more Bushes in the White House!! for example), but it is obviously a big deal in this part of the world.
And am now hooked (thanks to Marilla) on sudoku, a number puzzle that is in the Chicago Sun Times every day. Got some books with more puzzles -- it's Tetris all over again.
We look forward to getting to the Chicago area this month and are just debating whether to wait here to experience our first anniversary of the revolution which occurs on the 16th of September (Eva's birthday, too) or avoiding it altogether. The party apparently goes on for much of the month and we already have seen signs of it -- flags in the stores, lighted Viva Mexico signs on every street, and little chachkis in red, green, and white at all the vendors-- so we may have had our fill long before the 16th. We understand the "ceremony" involves thousands of people thronging in the plaza principal waiting for the Governor to come out on the balcony and say "viva Mexico" to which everyone responds "viva Mexico". Takes less than a minute and we imagine that participating once will be enough for us.


10/15/2005
balmy in Merida

Hello friends,
As you know, I am back in Merida and Eva remains in the cool north, but the joke is on her since it is quite pleasant here now -- 80s by day and 70s at night, and it will only get better so that the nights cool off even more. She lived through the brunt of the HOT and believe me, it was difficult, but fall is fall everywhere I guess.
Our friends here have taken pity on me and are including me in lots of things, so have been to two art openings, two benefits, and some meals out. I bought a painting at one of the openings, but won't actually get to hang it until December when the exhibit is over.
In between my social life (hahaha), I am watching the house construction. We have been stalled for a week due to bureaucratic interference but will start on Monday with a crew hard at work again. And they do work hard-- 9-10 hour days with little stopping except for a lunch/siesta in the middle of the afternoon when it is the hottest. I like my nap as well as the next person so I surely think this is a good schedule! The walls here are 16-20 inches thick and constructed not of wood or metal as ours in the states would be, but of rock and concrete, so tearing them down requires more effort and planning. There is lots of what is called escombro (some of which is resellable as fill like the rocks and some of which is garbage like the used rebar or hunks of concrete). Large trucks come by and pick it up during specified hours only. To pick it up, someone has scooped it into bags, carried it from the house to the truck on their back, and hoisted it up to the truck where someone else hoists it to a free space on the truck and goes through it to find rock and non-rock. The workers at the house put it into bags, but the escombro dealer lugs it out and takes it away at a cost of about $60-80 per 6 ton truckload!!!
Ate last week at a beautiful restaurant which was a home that has been restored for commercial use but kept some nice gardens at the back. It is Mediterranean food, which seems to be the craze everywhere, so had lamb cooked with apples and couscous. Hardly seemed like Mexico except for the margarita accompaniment.
We had a big rain yesterday mid-day and I got to see the Yucatecan ingenuity at its best. When there is lots of rain suddenly and there has not been any for awhile, things are dry and the water does not absorb as well as it might. Also, it runs down the side of the roads as it does everywhere, but here the sewers hardly contain it so it pools. Some Yucatecans love to splash in these puddles at the side of the roads as they drive by or are forced to drive through the puddles because of traffic, so I noticed one wily shopkeeper had found a way to keep people from driving through the puddle in front of her store and splashing the water into her establishment. She took two plastic chairs and put them in the road in front of her store so cars could not pass close enough to the puddle to splash her. When the water had dried, she took in the chairs.
I should say a word about the drivers here in the Yucatan. Most places in Mexico have driver education and require people to know how to drive before the cities give them licenses. Not so here. If you can afford a car, and more and more can, then you can get a license. So, the drivers here are pretty bad AND rather aggressive. A bad combination! We Americans drive VERY defensively and try to avoid the others driving wherever, however, and whenever they want.

10/23/05
Wilma Wanes

Wilma has left our peninsula and is heading for Florida and then maybe for the east coast with Alpha to drop some snow on places that didn't think they'd be seeing any so early in the year. However, in Merida, we had some rain showers, lots of overcast skies, an unusual amount of wind, but really no big deal. We had worse summer storms than this. And for that, I am most thankful. The hint of a hurricane however, does close down most things, so although I found WalMart open yesterday, it was among the few stores or places of business that has been open since Friday. The storm eye was hundreds of miles east of us in Cancun, where much of the hotel construction is designed to withstand hurricanes. Flooding is a problem because there are not storm drains or sewers. From what we've seen on Merida TV, an area south of Cancun called Playa del Carmen looks pretty much flattened.
This has been a quiet week. I began my Spanish lessons—I’ve depended on Eva's perfect Spanish and now must learn it myself. Have a tutor named Susi (hardly sound Yucatecan but she is) who plays games with me and I feel I am about three years old again, but it is helping. I am beginning to feel more confident in my pigeon Spanish and as my vocabulary grows, I am hoping my high school French will help instead of hinder my learning. In any event, I should be able to ask for things more clearly. Last week when I needed a new phone card, I went to a small store to get it and managed to make myself clear even though I asked for a ‘carte’ instead of a ‘tarjete’. Thanks to my imperfect Spanish, however, the salesgirl input the phone card information for me, thinking I'd never figure it out myself!
I purchased two new things this week for the house-to-be. One is a 3 foot plank of wood carved with the Virgin of Guadalupe or Virgin Mary or some saintly female, virgin or not. The other is a large limestone sink basin called a pila. This particular one is from the 17th century and it's very unusual to have something so large and not repaired or broken. It will take 4-5 men to lift it to move it to my house. I am considering using it as a kitchen sink, however, it is just not quite deep enough so it will probably be full of water plants somewhere in the yard.
Had dinner and our second meeting of a small group of us who are trying to create an eating club or possibly a restaurant down here. None of the three of us is planning to cook (there is a lovely woman from Canada who would do the honors) but we want to structure it so that we could get a table whenever any of us wanted it. Thus, one order of business was to vote that as the reward for being founding members.
Thanks to all of you who called and emailed with concern about Wilma, but once again the hurricane decided to go elsewhere. It is cool enough today that I put on a polo shirt (instead of my usual Old Navy wife-beater Tshirts) so fall is in the air.

Nov. 1, 2005

Another fun-filled week here in Merida of shopping and partying and learning more Spanish and such. The weather continues to be wonderful, much cooler than the summer, but not exactly what we think of as fall around Chicago -- highs in the 80s by day and low 70s at night. Still no need for air conditioning which must mean by blood is thinner, even if the rest of me is not!!
Starting yesterday is not Halloween here, but days of the dead. This is I am finding a wonderful custom during which members of one's family who have died are remembered. Houses set up altars (and the crosses that they use are now representing the Catholic faith whereas they formerly were symbols of the cieba tree, but using the same shape) with "inviting" cloths on the tables under the altars, usually white with embroidery, and then set out foods and drinks that the relatives would like (including always chocolate!!), and use incense and candles and the smell of food to "attract" the spirits back to celebrate with them. The food here is called a pib (peeb) which is really a giant tamal made with layers of corn and chicken, wrapped in banana leaves, soaked with bitter oranges, and cooked in an oven (one of the typical Yucatecan dishes is called pibil and this is a similar dish only baked under the ground in a pit whereas pib is cooked in an oven). Some pibs have beans also, but not our typical black beans, instead the beans from a large green bean that I don't know the name of. There is also a special bread made that is round, and has decorations on it with a sugar coating (gringos call it dead bread). The first day is for children, the second day is for adults, and the third day is for everyone who has died. There is a service on this third day at the cathedral and many churches. There tend to be more colors and sweet desserts used for the children. The pibs are cooked because since the banana leaves are tied around the pibs with a string, it offers the dead a way to "carry" their meal home. Last night a friend here had a party with pibs and altars and fruit salads (cut pieces of grapefruit, orange, and jicima with chile sprinkled on it for 'dressing') and helped all of us gringos understand the ceremony and purpose. The American consul for the peninsula was at the party and talked about Cancun and what a disaster zone it is. No trees anywhere, she said, and a new Marriott hotel called Aqua was almost completely destroyed since it was all glass.
Merida is hitting the mainstream this week for something besides a hurricane -- a TV crew is here shooting several different houses (not mine) for HGTV. This is exciting but many of us are wondering about the selection of the homes, since one in particular is a complete dump. Will be really tough to redeem that particular one!! Someone please look for the show and tape it whenever it's on.
As for new purchases, this week I found some lovely bronze sconces with crystals for the guest powder room and an armoire for one of the guest rooms. They were to be delivered this morning about an hour ago, but still have not seen the whites of the delivery truck drivers' eyes, so will wait just a bit longer and then head off for a haircut ($7) and pedicure ($5).
Am watching Rome here (both on our local cable station with subtitles and with friends who have US TV via satellite) and cannot believe HBO will make us wait until 2007 for the next season!!
Also, I made it into the society pages of the newspaper, the Diario de Yucatan, which is a pretty respectable newspaper!! Was visiting the bazaar that Roberto Guzman has twice a year (he is the one who sold me the pila above) with a friend, the newspaper photographer was there, and he asked to snap our pictures, and then actually ran the pictures. Since George and I had just been shopping at Costco and Mega, we were not really ready for a photo-op, but oh well.

December 5, 2005

Eva and I are back from an idyllic week in Cancun. It was bittersweet since, although the sun and surf are unchanged, the sand and most everything else were very badly affected by Wilma who stayed on the Cancun coast for almost 3 days. Our resort/timeshare was up and running very quickly with only landscaping and some glass to be repaired and replaced. Outside of our 5 resorts, however, only two hotels have opened up again. Some hope to reopen by Dec. 15, but most are shooting for the spring break crowd in March. The lush greenery and flowers are pretty decimated. No leaves on trees and many trees teetering at a significant slant. Most palms were topped. But this being a jungle, it will regenerate quickly and be just as lush as ever before we know it. We were happy to find many of our favorite restaurants were able to open. Unfortunately for Marilla, Zara was not open yet, even downtown, so she went home with money in her pockets instead of new clothes for her closet!The house has made progress in the week we were gone and is moving quickly now. The supports for the living room will all be done this week, so they can begin to build the roof on it. The roof is about 16 feet above the floor and is supported by three strong concrete headers from which will hang the steel beams on which will run the concrete block. All this concrete and rock is covered by a plaster coating so in about two months, no one will know how any of it was constructed. The roofs are all built at a slight slant so that water drains from the front to the back of the property. Hence, the height of the ceiling is lower at the back of the house than at the front. Seems so odd to us, not to have a pitched roof, but this slant allows the rainwater to run off effectively and since we don't have snow to worry about.... Looks like we will be moving into the house around middle of February, which gives me time to figure out the kitchen cabinets and furniture and other things without too much rush.I am sending photos of the plaza principal of Merida. This is the heart of the city, a nice square park filled with trees surrounded by some of the oldest buildings around. One is the cathedral which is built of rock from the Mayan temple that was originally on this site and is the oldest building of its kind in the Americas. Another photo is of the front of the current Banamex (owned by Citibank) which also dates to the 16th century. This area is where the noche Mexicana are held each weekend with performances and dancing in this square. I am also sending photos of some ads I've seen around that I found entertaining.

January 6, 2006 O ye of little faith

Well, thanks to amazing driving and maneuvering on both our parts (and in large part due to the Audi's dexterity), we made it back to Merida in five days. We drove hard to Monterrey and made the first 1500 miles in two days, including crossing a border where they make it almost impossible to find the place to get permission to bring in a car from the US. You feel as though you have crossed the border, but know you didn't do it right, when you spy a postage-stamp sized paper fastened to a street lamp on an alley heading apparently nowhere that indicates follow it for car info. The second time around, we spotted it and got to the end of the side street where again, there was no clear indication of which direction to take to comply with the rules. Fortunately, a car behind us honked so we had to make a decision and went straight into a large gate that had NO sign on it of any kind, Bingo, the promised land. We were VERY fortunate to have an old permission still glued until further notice to the front of our car, which indicated we'd done this before. It had of course, expired, but still meant we were not rookies. The red cheeked man who helped us with this removal of the old sticker also assisted us once we'd gone inside to pay and that meant we avoided a LONG line of cars who had also managed to find this forgotten place. We skated through and didn't have to be inspected -- or pay duty on anything we had in the car which was extremely lucky since we had a large computer tucked inside the back of the car and no paperwork to show it had been purchased a year before.We enjoyed our evening in Monterrey in a nice hotel and started off early the next day planning on getting past Mexico City, but then after an hour or so of driving, thought better of it and headed about 50 miles off the road to San Miguel de Allende. This town, as many know, is charming. Cobble-stoned streets, stunning carved wooden doors to impeccably-kept houses, and many galleries and restaurants for all the visiting gringos. We spent lots of Christmas money here however, realized we'd never be able to walk around this lovely city because between the rocks in the streets and the odd-shaped and sized stones on the sidewalk, we were practically lame by the time lunch was over. I did find a store that sold the coconut masks I've been collecting and we managed to squeeze in a few more to the car. Drove around Mexico City, dreading this part of the trip since there are 3-6 lanes of traffic, depending on how many cars think they can fit beside each other, and everyone is in a hurry and going too fast. Another Christmas miracle -- they had completed 2/3 of a road AROUND Mexico and we barely saw another driver on it since there was money involved (a toll road). We sped around the town and made it to Puebla. Sandy had visions of sugarplums or rather Talavera pottery dancing in her head for this town, but once it took us 3 hours of driving IN the town to find a no-tell-motel or a hotel of any kind, she knew she'd be buying her pottery elsewhere. Made it to Merida last night, tired, but glad to be home.Our friend from Seattle Bern is here and staying in the apartment next to us, so we've already had a wonderful visit. Went to see the house today and made some revisions to the plans for the second house, met with our garden designer, and now are heading out for an early dinner with some friends from here. All in a days' work. Happy New Year to all and to all a good night!!!

Feb. 4, 2006

We can now report firsthand on the medical care here in Merida. We'd heard it was good, with an excellent facility that exists and one more amazing one being built, but had not experienced it. Now, we have. After fighting for almost two weeks, Eva went to a doctor who put her in the hospital with a severe bronchial infection, raw trachia, and difficulty breathing. We went to a doctor, courtesy of a friend of ours who called to get Eva in on Friday without an appointment. We got to the waiting room at 9:15, saw the doctor at 10:15, and were in a hospital room having gone through an admissions process by 11:30 (they asked if we wanted a private room for Eva who could not speak at that point and barely breathe and I said yes, and they asked if I would mind paying so much for a room and I asked how much and it is around $90, so I said sure, go for broke). A swarm of little nurses appeared with ice, bottled water, an extra pillow, and a thermometer (taken under the arm). By noon, Eva had been wheeled to and returned from XRay ($25) and within a half hour, her oxygen treatments had begun. Her doctor came with a pulmonary specialist at 10pm to check on her and the specialist was back this morning around 9. She is breathing better, but will be in the hospital at least until Monday at which point, she needs to avoid all construction dust and paint fumes which means she won't be over at our house/construction site until she can move in. Eva had been running the crew to get the work finished since we parted company with our contractor -- a long and ugly story that is still not over but does not bear repeating-- and as a result compromised her lungs. However, she is on the mend and can talk above a whisper now even when hooked up to oxygen or humid oxygen through face masks.Other than that excitement, we are at a fun stage with construction and are picking out things like granite insets for the floors and paint colors and furniture. Some is being made like a desk and TV armoire, and some we will purchase at some point, like couches and beds.It is still cool enough at night to sleep with open windows (although it was easier for Eva to breathe with the AC on) and still gets up to about 85 during the heat of the day.I am headed over now to pay the crew and check on progress and appear as though I understand the Spanish that the guys rattle off at me about what is happening. We are in the final stretch for the first house with a week or two at most to go and then some additional painting time in all likelihood, but then the pool and phase 2 begins, so... Having this part in good shape will allow us to head north to organize transport for our goods, however, so let us know when it's warm enough up there to come back!! Take care, everyone.PS, got our first mail the other day from my newly married niece, so know it is working.

March 2, 2006

We have just finished with a week of Mardi Gras -- not just a day or a parade, but a whole week of celebrations. Parades, crowning kings and queens, concerts, and more parades and concerts. Something every day for a week. There was a darling children's parade last Thursday with 4 and 5 year old kindergarteners all dressed up and Sunday a fun parade of local "things" like women dressed in huipals (the native dress) and carrying embroidery or the men in their white guyaberas and white pants with hammacas (hammocks). And of course plenty of revelry but we didn't do much of that since we're working women.We have been running the construction crew for over a month now and seem to be making some progress with the house. Fortunately, we have friends and associates who are assisting us and whom we are paying for advice and counsel, but mainly, our workers have been loyal and very sweet. They call us "Dona Eva" which is a term of respect and "Patrona" also respectful, but with tongue in cheek too. These men work incredibly hard for incredibly little money, however, since there is a huge housing boom in Merida, they are making more than they were a year ago. Now the lowest paid person gets about $120 US for a 6 day workweek, up from $80 last year. We have also seen materials skyrocket in price -- got some 40 vigas (small wood pieces for our ceiling) in January and in February paid twice as much for 50 more. We are at the stage of painting inside but are also finishing redoing the roof (here normally roofs tend to be flat but each room going to the back of the house has a lower roof than the previous room, so the water can drain-- unfortunately our contractor didn't follow this rule of thumb and so we are putting Styrofoam ((here called nieve secca or dried snow)) on the roof to create a slant that is not there), digging out the construction muck (escombro which is lots of dust and rock and debris), and finalizing plans for a new facade and pool in back. It is exhausting just to watch these guys work so we come home each day tired and have not been socializing too much. Eva got anxious to move and so spent a night in a hammock at the house, but realized the value of indoor plumbing and came back to our little apartment. We have hopes to be in the new house in April.Since I realize it's March, I know up in IL you are paying the first installment of your property taxes. Wanted to share that I've just paid ours for the two properties for the whole year and it was slightly less than $120 US. We are paying this much because we put the actual price of our purchase on our documents. Most people, Americans included, say that they purchased the home for far less than the actual price to avoid paying these "high" taxes. We said "are you kidding??" when we heard about the tax rates and so elected to put down the actual purchase price so we paid more than most of our friends. And amazingly enough, if you don't pay your taxes as a Mexican citizen, nothing happens for at least 10 years, at which point, the government does make an attempt to collect the back taxes. For Americans who purchase through bank trusts, this leniency does not apply!We have had wonderful weather since January with balmy temperatures and lovely cool evenings, so there has been no need for AC -- imagine that!! Take care and hugs to all of you. Apologies for mass mailings, but.... Sandy and Eva

April 26, 2006

Not quite in the house yet..

As much as we'd like to be living in our home, we are not quite there yet. We do however, have a working swimming pool, filled and not leaking, and feels absolutely wonderful at the end of the work day. We have fans and air conditioners that keep us reasonably cool despite the HEAT (it's been over 100 degrees for as long as I can remember). We have appliances sitting in my office and now have internet there as well. We have a giant satellite dish which gets 5-6 porn channels all day every day but is hazy on reception for other things we'd like to actually watch and so are waiting for that repairman as well. We have granite in our kitchen and just need some windows which will be here within a week (so they keep saying). We have beautiful wrought iron doors across the back of the living room, however, the man could not install the mosquitero (screens) so we had to get someone else to do that and it will occur we hope this weekend since Monday is yet another holiday. They brought the sink for the powder room the other day. It is gorgeous and will be divine once they remake it to actually be centered under the faucets instead of slightly to the left of them. Yes, there is good news and bad news. The good news is we are making progress -- the bad news is that it is just not fast enough to suit me!!Will send along a couple of the before photos so you all can discuss what we were thinking when we took this on. However, you should know that what the "after" pictures will show is a dramatic resuscitation of a home.... one of these days!!We also had an amazing natural event here the other day-- a corona around the sun. Apparently it is caused by frost and clouds at a certain atmospheric level, but it was awesome. A giant perfect circle around the sun, with the sun at its center, and light from the sun at it's edges and miles upon miles of darkish clouds in between the center and the edges. It lasted about an hour, normally these last a matter of minutes. We saw a film that some friends took of this phenomenon and the center sun light was pouring down like a laser beam, straight down. A little scary at first and then absolutely awe-inspiring!! Don't know what it means but I am thrilled to have seen it.

May 4, 2006 We are IN!!

I would not say the house is finished, but we could not take the teeny apartment for even one more day and so here we are. Having 9 workmen around to move stuff and carry and lift and pack made the location change a breeze. Now, we are slowly unpacking -- slowly because the boys are still digging up the back yard. Seems we had several floors under there and what we thought was yard used to be house so we need them to dig down through concrete and old floors to try to find dirt and so there is LOTS of dust. When I say that none of you can imagine how much dust there is, trust me, you cannot. Actually had some friends over for dinner last night since even before we have our automatic chlorinator for the pool or the screens on our doors or doors in some cases, Eva has her giant grill hooked up (they had grill envy, believe me!!). We are beginning to work on the second property which is primarily the garage but also will have an apartment and mozo room above. A mozo is someone who works 6 days a week for you doing whatever you ask of him or her. Many people here prefer men to women since they can do more heavy work and don't mind climbing on roofs or cleaning pools. There is no particular pay scale since the minimum wage here puts weekly earnings at around $42 but an average price for this is $150 per week. You can find someone to live in or come and go for the same rate. I mention these prices but they still amaze us, even after almost a year living down here. On the first floor, in addition to the garage, there will be a closet connected to the master bedroom and a laundry room of gargantuan proportions. We were going to take out the floor to the second floor and have a high-ceiling room left which would have been an exercise room, but now will do a giant laundry/utility room instead.The heat continues to be HOT. Yesterday was overcast and so was much cooler -- 88 degrees according to the thermostat in our car. And the days just go by with things moving along and lots to do. We find the time goes quickly even though some days we cannot account for what we've accomplished.Tomorrow is cinqo de Mayo, a big holiday here, so we are looking forward to experiencing it for the first time. We arrived here in Mexico on May 20 a year ago and it feels like yesterday == and some days, like a million years!! Take care.

June 16, 2006 garden at long last

Hello all!Well, we are beginning our rainy season, so it will rain once a day normally for a few minutes each day which will make watering the newly planted garden much easier. We put in 2 Washingtonia palms, 3 date palms, 5 heliconia of various sorts and colors (SOOO tropical and stunning), 3 gingers of various colors, a bird of paradise, some jasmine to grow up and around the terrace and make it smell great, 4 bouganvillia which everyone tells us will take over the place in about a month (2 fuschia in one area and 2 coral in another), 5 gardenia bushes (which are not native here and so may not work out), one lime tree, one stalk of bamboo so we can hear it rustle in the wind, some native vines (one called yoch ob dzimin with blue flowers and another called copa de oro or cup of gold with wonderful yellow blooms), a de rigeur tequila cactus, and 2 galen de noche (a bush that flowers and smells so sweet and wonderful but only at night). This is the backbone of the garden and we can add to it daily if we choose to, and as many of you know, we probably will do just that!! We also constructed a large kitchen garden which is like a very large cement planter up on legs that will be surrounded by water so that the ants don't eat everything we plant, especially the tender new herbs and vegetables. And we have a fountain to be finished up and will hopefully have a water garden of some sort since I am longing to grow different types of papyrus.The construction is almost complete. We are done with plumbers and electricians, hopefully for a long time, but do have our washer, dryer, stove, and all bathrooms operational. We're doing the details now like patching holes in the walls, having the floors polished, and making the outdoor pool and outdoor grill terraces. We have screen windows and doors and have the "real" ones on order which we don't expect to really use except during severe weather but need them for that very purpose. We will paint again -- need to change the color in the kitchen because as much as we like using bright colors here, orange is too much with our granite. So it is coming to a close at long long last, just a few more weeks. Because labor is so cheap probably, they still prefer to do things the old way which usually involves building something only to break it later and then patch it up. We have objected to that and tried to explain the idea of thinking ahead to do it only once and not waste effort, but it seems to be lost on most of the guys. However, some of the old ways are pretty damned clever -- for example, we built a terrace and small house for pool equipment near the pool. During the process, we needed to find a level for the floor of the house before the terrace had been constructed, however, there was a place about 15 feet away from the house where the future level of the floor was clear. So they took a long but narrow piece of hose, filled it with water, and held the ends of the hose in the two places, and then measured using the water. When the water didn't spill out one end or other of the hose, it was level and they could measure down or up from that point. Pretty smart and really accurate!!We are beginning to repeat our fruits so we have had lychee and rhambutan again and the pitaya should be ready any time. Fortunately, the mangoes are back in season and we are really enjoying those.Just got our first garbage bill. They pick up every day and anything you happen to have. There is no limit apparently to what or what shape or size or weight or anything. Of course, this is good and bad since there is nothing like recycling here. For three months, we paid 51 pesos or under $5!!! Also had a pool technician here to check out our pump and clean the pool -- he was here about 3 hours and the bill was under $15. I love telling these tales of spending no money on things. We got our electric bills a few weeks ago, too, and they were not such a bargain, but still pretty reasonable -- $100-150 per month.Greetings to all of you.

July 23, 2006 so close we can taste it!!

Hola all --
Well we really ARE so close we can taste it now -- FINALLY -- and to be honest, we have felt so close for about a month now, but really we are just days from finishing.
The painters have touchups on the facade and inside to do and that's it. The workers have some small tasks to do which should not be more than one day and that's it. The electricians have to rewire the main electrical box in the guest rooms and that's it. The carpenters need to bring glass for the doors and windows, some kitchen cabinetry, and some bathroom shelves and that's it. We have a sofa ordered and well, that's not it, but then we can come north to get some of our stuff that's been stored for over a year now and truly settle in. And for anyone who has ever done construction or lived through any of it, you know what we mean when we say it is long past time to reclaim our space and just live here for now. We'd planned a fountain but are settling for a small pond because we just cannot suffer more construction for now. And we'd like to be talking about something else besides how we are almost done with this!!!! Can't imagine what that will be, but different.
We do have a flock of wild parrots who fly over most mornings around 6:30 and jabber. We have hummingbirds who come and click as they try to get nectar from our orange flowers called pico de gallo. We have many different moths and butterflies who swoop in and out and are just a joy to behold. We have dragonflies who partol the pool for any mosquitoes and who are welcome to any they find. Our plants have visibly grown in a month's time (our friend Bern was here from Seattle and could not believe the growth in the basil in the two-week timeframe of his visit. He was sure it was on steroids.) so the bamboo has lots of green around it and everything has settled in.
We had some dirt brought in last week. This may not seem like a big event, but it is very tough to find black dirt or anything of the sort here. There are men who ride around on horse-drawn carts selling "tierra" or earth but it is the red, clay variety that dries hard like rock. So through a friend, we found a source for good composted dirt and had 150 bags, each weighing about 50 pounds, brought in, spread on the ground where we wanted it, and raked out. This took 4 men about 4 hours to accomplish and cost 18 pesos (or under $2) per bag. We were talking to the foreman and learned that here it's not just a nice thing to offer someone (who is breaking their back for you) a refreshment, but that's it's quite an insult if you do not offer them something. Of course, we always provide refreshments and most times, the people are very surprised when we offer them not just a hose to quench their thirst but rather a cold Coke or icy purified water in a glass.
We finally hung up the mask collection in the kitchen. I've been finding these wonderful smallish masks made from coconut shells, rope, seeds, leaves, and other materials that are dried, decorated, and painted. They are made in another state here (Michoacan) and I have grown to love them. Some are animals, some mythological, and some just wild.