Muchas Compras

Domingo 13 – Sábado 19 Enero 2013.  (Dom 13^th) What a way to start a new week! Though if sunday is the last day of the week – the day of rest, perhaps we ended our week with this happening. Our neighbor Juanita about seven houses down gave us some of her homemade special gorditas, in the style of Guanajuato, where she is from. Our favorite filling in these small tortillas was a potato blend. There was also one of green chilies that was hot, but not too hot, one of a meat with red sauce and one of tripe, which Carmen just would not put in her mouth, but Dan enjoyed. (In return, a couple of days later, we returned her bowl filled with homemade snickerdoodle cookies, since that was the current kind of dough in our freezer. When Carmen makes cookie dough, she always freezes part of it instead of baking off the whole batch. So very nice to bake a few cookies at a time in our toaster oven.)  Again we say that people here are really friendly. Maybe it is just that we have time, without working, to be more friendly to all around us?

Dan worked on flashing the wood subroofing on the marquesina over one window. Testing the sheet-metal channel piece we found at Home Depot, to see if we are going to do this to all our windows, and all along the roof edges. Trying to prevent rot around the exposed wood there. The beams are not structural at least, but they do look nice. Later in the day we walked into the center of Fortín to get a sunday periodico. Carmen sputtered about this long walk, assuring Dan there was a closer place to buy a newspaper – we just did not know where. On the way home, there it was – papers being sold at a small store but two blocks away! Dan does pick up good info from reading the paper here. This is where he discovered that we could get a discount on our property taxes. This week he learned that we could get an annual pass for the Fortín autopista exit at the booth north of town. This would be great if we commuted on this route, but paying the about US$14 per year does not make sense for our rare if ever use of the highway, since we travel around on the libre roads between the communities here.

We are still debating whether or not to get the special card that allows us, as retired people, to get discounts on all public transportation and museums, etc. We sometimes are given discounts on buses anyway – think it is our gray hair, or maybe our increasing wrinkles, so Carmen is using this as an excuse to keep her hair gray, though Dan prefers her as a blonde. And let's face it – the saying goes that blondes are supposed to have more fun. We are definitely having a most enjoyable time here as it is. The velador stopped by today as usual to collect his 15 pesos or US$1.13 a week for his night time block watch job.

(Lun 14^th ) A full day out and about, first in Cordoba and then in Orizaba. Arrived at Home Depot by 7:30am, trying to decide on the bathroom floor tile, to see which coordinates best with wall and trim tiles we have seen elsewhere. Some decisions are much harder than others. We have not seen any tile for our floor that we especially liked, other than at Home Depot. There are three here that might work for us. We snapped pictures of these on the digicam to take with us on our searches elsewhere. While here we did purchase electrical boxes and water seal for our wood beams.

Carmen had to be at our IMSS family clinic for another nutrition consultation at 10am today. The nurse in charge of this specialty had been in a meeting since 8am and finally arrived for the office appointment, only an hour late. We at least had comfy chairs to wait in. We have still learned nothing new from her. We already know all about it – how and what to eat, exercise required, etc – most of which we do anyway. She would like Carmen to continue losing weight, however her doctor in the US told her not to lose any more at her age. The IMSS nutrition specialist is hoping that more weight loss will bring down her cholesterol counts. Always good to hope.

We got home about noon, after a quick stop at Metalurve for caulk. Had lunch and then drove west – Cordoba is east – to Orizaba, where we hoped to find more alternatives for floor tile (loseta), and for the walls and trim (azulejos). What a time we had there. Never saw sooooooo much traffic with no parking spots available – even blocks away. Orizaba is a beautiful city, but it was laid out before the automobile age. So it's attractive, and interesting architecturally, but best visited when you're not responsible for driving thru it. Finally got lucky, finding a parking space adjacent to the large Alameda park on the west side of town center. What a beautiful park this is. We saw a group of folkloric dancers entertaining on stage here two Novembers ago.

Okay – so we had looked in our trusty phone book for tile stores. Four possibles within several blocks of each other and all along the wide Avenida 6 from fourth to twelfth street west. The weather was good for strolling thru the maddening crowds. We then drove to another tile store a ways off from these four, right thru the narrow streets near the public market. Positively no parking here, but by then it was after 2pm and things were shut down for the two hour lunchtime break. We still have not found exactly what tiles our hearts desire. Stopped at the Chedraui on our way out of town, heading back towards home. They make most delicious donuts, so planned to stock up. Only a few there today, plus not the ones we prefer, so that stop was disappointing!. Left our car in their underground parking area and walked a block to a Chinese buffet. Really great variety and good today.

On our drive home, we were just too tired to stop and buy a pineapple in Cuautlapan, even though they were being sold right off the trucks along the road and they did look especially sweet. When we got back just before the end of the crew's workday, we found that the roof tiling was finished, and they had been cutting up some of the remaining tiles to cap our property walls (muros). The mirador is just about ready for the beams and wood decking.

(Mar 15^th) Dan and Luis went to Frank & Ania's house over on Calle Paraiso to borrow his table saw. Manuel and his wife were working there. They had to disassemble the saw to get it to fit into our car.'s trunk The crew needed to trim the vigas (beams) and tablones (decking planks) that will go into building the roof top mirador. Overriding Dan's hesitation, Luis insisted we borrow Frank's belt sander from the new house site too. Luis and Jose worked on processing the wood while Heri and David worked on the laundry roof, cutting channels in the walls for the security fence poles, and they also cut the parapet wall to create a wee passageway that goes between the laundry room roof and the eventual terraza over the bathroom.

While Dan was gone, Carmen scrubbed the kitchen floor, so that it would be clean when the cabinet maker arrived. She just had a feeling he would be by today – and he was. Got a good price, we think, on the cabinet, and he will rebuild the window for the office also. If all goes well, we will next ask him to build two more gabinetes for the bathroom. He also made a quote on refinishing all the cabinets in the kitchen – a job we did not ask for or want done, plus it seemed high.

Luis informed us that today would be Jose's last day. Did not understand exactly why. Seemed that he could not work so far from home and continue with his schooling. Glad to hear that he has these priorities. Luis has another fellow he will bring into the crew tomorrow. A 17 year old named Alfonso, who he has worked with before.

(Mie 16^th) Alfonso joined the crew and they ripped and sanded roof deck boards today, and worked more on the laundry roof. Dan ordered block & drain pipe from FortiFerre, to be delivered tomorrow. Today has been light drizzle and a cold 50 degrees, then it started to seriously rain. Guys are too cold to work all day, so they decide to leave after eating lunch. As Dan took them to the bus stop, he and Luis decided that they might not be in to work tomorrow if this weather continues, which it is supposed to do, so they stopped by FortiFerre to let them know that they should not make the delivery unless Luis called them in the morning, since Carmen and Dan would not be home to take the delivery.

On the way home, Dan stopped by the Fester store to buy some backer rod – a flexible closed cell foam extrusion, to fill the cracks around the windows where cold air was infiltrating. We spent the next hour sealing windows and it has really helped.

(Jue 17^th) As expected, no crew today as the weather is worse, colder and rainier. We left home at 7:30am and got home again at 5pm after many stops and lots of money spent. After finding some needed sanding belts at El Clavo, we headed immediately to the El Gigante store in east Cordoba. We had scoped this store out earlier, knew their selection of azulejos and today made our purchase, which they will deliver next week. We took one only of the walls tiles to match against the floor tiles we liked at Home Depot.

Carmen spent two and a half hours in Doctor Soley's dentist chair, with work done on the second root canal. We bought the Brother printer at Ofix that was ordered some time ago, and then headed off to Home Depot. We shopped hard here, eliminating two of the three floor tile choices,comparing them to the wall tile sample we had with us. Choose a water-saving toilet (sanitario) and handsink (lavabo) set. We will use the mirror and sink, then adapt the included cabinet for bedroom use. The azulejos and bathroom appliances will be delivered to our house tomorrow.  

(Vie 18^th) Spent lots of time trying to get the authorizing papers for Carmen's appointment with the IMSS reumatologist in Orizaba. We waited in one line where we learned she had been denied, so we had to stand in a second line to talk with the clinic chief who could contact this hospital clinic again. The clinic head was at a lecture, and didn't get back to her office until one hour before she was to leave at 1pm. Fortunately we were in the head of this line. Altogether, four hours at IMSS. Supposedly her paper work will be ready next wednesday. Another visit to Home Depot where we selected faucet sets for the shower and sink, safety grab bars and pricey stuff like that. We headed home with another stop at Metalurve to buy the wall mounted flex-hose shower set that will go with our new faucets. – buying more good things for our bathroom that is about to be started.

Really a week of heavy-duty shopping (compras).  When we got back we found that Home Depot had made their delivery while we were gone, and oh yes, to find out that the borrowed sander had burned out. Dan had to immediately go back out in the car to try to find parts to repair it. The crew left at 5:30pm as usual and had to walk to their bus stop. Dan finally returned home after a 2 hour search to the far edge of Cordoba, visiting more than ten stores and repair shops, finding no brushes that fit the very rare Oakland belt sander. He did find some too large that he hoped could be reshaped to fit. During his absence, someone came to the door to ask something about pintura (perhaps he wanted to paint the house—at least once a week someone stops to offer their services for jobs like this), but Carmen turned him away unable to understand what the message was. What a day!  While we were gone today, the guys had hoisted the support beams up to the roof, and the mirador substructure is now fixed in place.  Dan had persuaded Luis to wrap the beams in pieces of asphalt roll-roofing, and pin them into the concrete walls for a secure foundation for the deck.  Looking good

(Sáb 19^th) Luis spent some time with the sander brushes trying to fit them, and did get the maquina working. But now he called Dan over to listen to the sounds it was making. They determined it was a main bearing going out. We already know that this rare brand is unknown in all the repair shops in the city. Finally it was decided for Luis to take the sander home with him and ask a repair man he knows to try to fix it if he can. We took off for Home Depot and made a sander purchase. The previous sander used was a belt sander, so the crew is not too happy with the random-orbital sander we purchased. but at least the work can continue

The Sayer paint that was supposed to be here this past wednesday, was delivered today. Dan was not home yesterday when they brought it by--so that guy who we thought wanted to paint the house was actually trying to deliver and collect for the paint. Sunny day today! The steel pipe fence posts which will hold the chain link fencing up around our laundry building parapet and property walls, were concreted into place, and Dan cleaned up all the clamps. A roll of fencing, the galvanized pipes/poles and a box of fittings were left here by the previous owners, so we decided to use them in our project. Maybe we can later persuade some flowering vines to use this fencing as a support of climbing up high. We removed the glass bottle shards that had been installed in the concrete on top of the walls, so things are definitely looking nicer out there.