1000 Tejas Nuevas

Domingo 23 - Sábado 29 Diciembre 2012.  (Dom 23^rd) Dan thought this would finally be a morning when we could stay in bed late and study spanish. After 15 minutes, Carmen insisted she needed to start the laundry, since it was going to be sunny today. We went to the Fogon & Paila restaurant for a late breakfast. This is but a five block walk from home. We have had many good breakfasts there, however, today the crew seemed all new. Carmen was served ham mixed with her scrambled eggs instead of the requested chorizo and for the first time, they were swimming in oil. Dan's Huevos Rancheros breakfast was excellent. We very much enjoy the beauty of the surroundings of this restaurant.

Carmen spent the rest of the day climbing ladders and scraping, cleaning & painting the outsides of the window woodwork. Dan also climbed ladders and took the waste chute down from the front porch roof and festermicide-treated and sealed the window trim pieces to replace those which were termite chewed. When the paint was dry on them he went up on the roof and nailed them into place. Wonder why people need to use exercising gyms-----------

(Lun 24^th) We left home at 7:30am to get Carmen to the IMSS hospital where she had an appointment with an internist. After waiting half an hour, a receptionist came and told us that the doctor would not be in today (it is the day before Christmas, after all) and we needed to go to another office to get rescheduled. A nurse rescheduled her for Jan 3^rd. Will the doctor decide to come in to work that day? Maybe he was ill, but it our bet that he wanted an extra holiday.

Knowing that we were going to walk on north the few blocks into the main downtown area of Cordoba after the doctor appointment, we had parked our car towards town. Dan ordered a printer at Ofix, and we were low on a certain type of oatmeal cookies that we buy at Waldos dollar store, so on to there. Ania had told us about El Borrego store that carried the best ham in the area. Since we walked but a half block from there, we made a slight detour thru that store. Oh my, what a fantastic smell! There was a really long line of people waiting to buy their Xmas ham, and several meat cutters prepping and sawing whole and half hams. I suppose we would have become part of that line, had we not already purchased a ham at the supermarket.

Next stop – we drove on to Home Depot. Here we purchased a few building supplies, plus a new level for our foreman and tape measures for the other three employees for Xmas gifts. Got home in time to present gifts to crew during their lunch, which they take on our front porch at our little table that used to sit under our apple tree in Anacortes.

We also made a stop at Office Depot, where Dan purchased a calendar. We had almost given up hope of finding one down here. We have discovered that this calendar is formated in Mexican style with monday the first day of the week. We will be confused with this for awhile.

Carmen finished her day with vacuuming the whole house. Though all floors are tile, the vacuum takes the dust up best. Dan spent his afternoon on the porch roof, sweeping dust and mortar chips down into the gutter, and then cleaning out the huge gutter. Lots of debris from the upper roof job ended up on this lower roof. He then put up some Xmas lights on our front door and over the entry.

(Mar 25^th) Took this Christmas day off – sort of. The day was a most perfect sunny, mid-80s by afternoon with a light breeze that had a delightful smell. Being a most holy day, Carmen debated doing laundry, and finally decided that if God did not want her doing so, the day would not have been so perfect. Carmen started a puzzle. Dan measured f/shelves and floor levels for the addition.

We walked into town. Few people about. Sat in the park for awhile to enjoy the Xmas ambiance, close enough to the front door of the church that we were able to enjoy the singing inside. There were four brand new garbage trucks sitting in front of city hall, on display. Wonder if our route will be serviced by them?

Walked home by way of the Maria Guadalupe restaurant which is nine blocks straight north of our house on 11 Sur. Really good food, more exotic than the usual around here. Thought we had seen a sign advertising its reopening. It has been closed for remodeling. It was still closed, so we tottered on home and had a bowl of black bean with ham hock soup. Must say, this is the first time on Xmas without a special meal. The soup was delicious though. Sat on porch for awhile, enjoying the passers by. Dan read a book by Earl Emerson, a Seattle firefighter, that he had put on our reader from the Anacortes library, which we can get online books from, as long as we have an address there.

(Mie 26^th) Drove to Pretensur to pay the balance on the tiles which are supposed to be delivered tomorrow. Needed more cash from the bank. We are allowed only 3000 pesos a day from the Banamex cash machine. Next to the Urbina hardware for plumbing parts, and on to make a pick up at Fester for another bucket of Acriton impermeabilizante. Upon returning home, Dan was told he needed to go to FortiFerre to get some alambre recocido (form-tie wire). Every time we need to go anyplace, we are glad we chose this location where everything is relatively close. We did briefly consider houses that would have been far from all we have here. Rightly, we decided we are too old for such remoteness and appreciate the convenience of being close to town.

Years ago we had some tacos with huitlacoche (corn smut) in Xalapa that were delicious. We found some canned, so tried it. Not the same deliciousness, so we'll be on the lookout for when it's fresh in season.

Carmen spent time with her flowers – replanting, watering, pampering. Dan then pressure cleaned the whole front area. While outside on the porch, Alex and his wife, which we did not before know he had, stopped by and chatted awhile. Amazing how friendly the neighborhood children are since they received money from us this past week, with their nightly singing at our gate.

We discovered one of the tiny dogs from next door, loose across the street. We rang the door bell to notify Valentin our neighbor, but no answer. Carmen searched their front fencing 'til she found where the tiny one had squirmed thru. Then fearing she might get bitten, she had Dan bring her some cat food to lure puppy. Puppy did not want the cat food. Since when does a dog not like cat food? Okay. Dan was called over to hold the fence open while Carmen pushed puppy thru. Whew! Puppy really needs a bath! He went home with no problem, except we fear he will be visiting us next time he breaks loose. He was very happy with the attention he received.

(Jue 27^th) As we put our garbage out for collection, we cleaned up the street around our house. Actually the law says that we are responsible to the middle of the road in front of our house, but since no one cleans up along the banana fields, we do all the way across. Good exercise and looks so much nicer. Never much debris there. We are seeing some banana blossoms developing into - yep - bananas.

Our new concrete roof tiles were delivered by 11:30am. Our guys unloaded the 1000 tiles by hand, stacking them in the backyard on three sheets of plywood laid on the ground, two rows high. As they are needed, they will then have to climb a ladder with them to the roof top, three tiles at a time. Each tile weighs about 11¼ pounds. This morning before the delivery they worked on building the base for the mirador we are having put up there, using blocks, bricks and some foam-steel wire panels. When vacationing down here two years ago, we stayed at a hotel in San Marcos that had a roof top sitting area overlooking town. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to build one on top of our house while all the roofing is happening. Quite a view from up there. A welded metal stairway we'll have to have made will go up from the terraza on top of the new bathroom up to the lookout. One must reach the terraza from the master bedroom. Very private. Plan to have plants hanging between the two levels.

It is hard for us to have the crew work, when we have in the past done all our own work. Dan spent some time estimating what pipe, fittings, conduit and wire we'll need for the new addition, calculating the plumbing and wiring runs, and where we'll tie into the existing building systems.

(Vie 28^th) Another trip to the central IMSS facility. This time Dan has an appointment with a urologist there. Eight o'clock am. We only waited two hours for the doctor to arrive, but arrive he did – perhaps he had surgery this morning?. The doc looked over Dan's papers and told him that he must come back for a PSA blood test and another consult afterwards. We tried to make the necessary appointments, but were told to return in the second week of January. No appointments could be made before that time.

Next we drove ten blocks further east to the Delter lumberyard to get quotes on timbers we need. The store was closed for the holidays. Our foreman tells us that the town he lives in has good prices on wood and the delivery is free so we'll probably just have him order it for us. Made our usual other stops on the journey back home. Carmen finished her afternoon off “working” on the jigsaw puzzle. Dan read and caught up on blogs & forums on the internet.

(Sab 29^th) David came to the door once to see if we had any window screen. They needed to sift the sand finer for the finish coat on the mirador base's walls. We were not told to go buy it, so we forgot about it 'til later we looked out the window and saw sand being sifted thru a window screen. Dan went out and asked where they found it and David said that he ran up to the hardware for it. The fellows are allowed to charge there for our project. Bet David literally did run to the store. David is the one in the crew not closely related to the other three. He's the youngest and gets all the hardest drudgery jobs. More progress on laying tiles. Looks like it will take at least another week or two to finish this task, as laying the tiles accurately, adhering each one with mortar, is not as quick as nailing down shingles.

A laundry was done before the crew left since they were not eating lunch today, but leaving at two pm. Laundry was hung on front porch. After Dan dropped the crew off for the bus, he placed another order for cement and sand, to be delivered next Wednesday, the first workday of the new year. Sand – unlike in the US, the sand delivered here is something like pit run. It comes as a mixture of all sizes from small rocks to fine grains, so must be sifted for whatever size one wants. We are getting quite a pile of gravel from it!