Plantas en las macetas

(Domingo 30 Junio - Sábado 06 Julio )   A new week! Lots of gatherings for many candidates running for offices. The corner we live on seems to be a favorite for the parties to gather and start their parades. They have all asked us if they can put signs up on our expanse of blue wall, and will we support them. The answer is always no, because since we are not Mexican citizens, we can have nothing whatsoever to do with voting and campaigns. Gives us lots of excitement though!

Sunday late afternoon we walked into town for our paletas, knowing there were to be big rallies in the park this day. We passed dozens of parked buses. They must have brought hundreds of folks into town from the outlying villages. As we walked out of our chosen ice cream parlor (there are five around the park), the first thing we saw was a group of vaqueros riding horses down the street. One man was showing off his horse doing the sidewards dance. Always an enjoyable sight! Sprinkles started shortly after we got there. We stood under various overhangs for a couple hours, and on some park benches under protective trees, enjoying the music and people-watching. There were people by the hundred still walking into town into the early evening! We found a break in the rain and hustled the 15 blocks home.

We had no sooner got into the house, when the heavens opened up! Booming fireworks went on 'til the partying broke up near midnight.  This kept all the barkers in the neighborhood going crazy.  With all the dogs in this area, we never, until this past week had dogs barking in the evening and into the night. Now there must be a new dog about a block away, and every little mouse or strange sound makes it bark, and that of course starts others joining in. The fireworks just added to the din.  Hope it quiets back down soon.

Monday morning Carmen had a 9am appointment with the IMSS nutritionist. Just one of those things the doctors put us thru here. But the nurse is happy with the recent blood test numbers and weight loss, so a followup appointment is not needed. Then wednesday morning we were again at IMSS at 7am for an 8:30am appointment. This is just the routine monthly appointment to get prescriptions refilled free at the IMSS pharmacy. No matter what time your appointment is, you are taken according to the order in which you arrived at the clinic, hence our idea of getting there super early – staff doesn't get in place until 8am or so. There were 24 folks already waiting by the time we arrived, however not all for our doctor's office. Turned out that five were ahead of us. Then for some reason a white haired lady got taken first and she came in way after us. We had noticed that Carmen's booklet was kept separate and wondered why. Well, she was called in second. We finally figured that ancianos (oldsters) seem to get priority. We will check that theory out next month—seems like having gray or white hair has it's benefits.

Extra times are being filled with Carmen doing odds and ends of painting. One day Carmen went down memory lane with sorting and filing many photos into albums. Dan is busy working on the storage area in the master bedroom. He misses his radial arm saw that we decided not to bring since he “would not be doing much carpentry” that requires it, and storage of an item of that size is a problem here. He is making do with various jigs and work-arounds using the circular and sabre saws.

And what does Carmen miss? Hmm. There must be something. Ah yes – the clear colored dust instead of the charcoal colored dust! However, truth be told, there is now far less dust on surfaces than a month ago. Why you ask? Because of no masonry construction/renovation or cane burning. As we drove past the El Carmen ingenio (sugar refinery) in Cuautlapan last week, there were no trucks waiting to be processed. In fact, there was no steam or smoke coming from the factory at all. The zafra (sugar harvest) is over, marking the end of the dry season, and indeed the afternoon and evening rains have been pretty regular of late.

Is there a ghost in the house? Carmen says she has sensed a girl about five years old in ghostly attire. Tuesday Dan was working between our master bedroom where the new closet is being built and his current work area in the medium bedroom. He was in the master bedroom and Carmen was downstairs. Suddenly his electric sander, in the medium bedroom, started up. All by itself?

Yes, we had another bedroom flood. This time, a sudden really hard rain and wind came up and before we could get upstairs, our north master bedroom window, that was closed but not latched tight, blew open. The curtain got soaked and water soaked the floor – half way across the room!! What is there about this room that attracts water so?

Still the ceramic shop is closed. There are flowers in the front – as if there was a funeral in the family? Eventually someone will return, if only to dispose of the inventory with a sale, so we'll keep checking here every time we head down the Fortín-Córdoba bulevar.  The kitties have gotten into the habit of going out back for a while as soon as they finish their breakfast, just to check out the day We keep telling them it is okay to use the bit of dirt out there for their potty area. No luck so far though.

Friday morning fourteen city workers showed up about 9am, three trucks and one excavator. Wow – is the city actually here to put our sewer line for the new bathroom in? Seems that the architect and the engineer still do not agree on which direction the drain should go. At least the engineer looked at the project and he said it was a real reto (challenge). No, they accomplished nothing but to take one measurement, but did get us a bit excited. Dan moved our car out of the way only to see all the crew and machinery leave. Just another disappointment. At least they are thinking about us...!

About 4pm Friday a crew returned from the water/sewer department. It seems at this time that the decision was made to drain our sewage across under the road into the stream at the foot of the hill, along with other neighbors along the avenida. This is instead of connecting into the larger/deeper main sewer line which runs along the calle, and which dumps into another creek much farther south of here. So much for water quality concerns, vs. the huge expense of putting in a sewage treatment plant. Without a reliable taxation system in place, it's amazing that any public works get done. Be that as it is, thank goodness for daily heavy rains. The men spent some time trying to find the entrance to the sewer line from our closest neighbor.'s house Our registro (sewer junction box) was enlarged by our renovation crew several months ago, but the engineer now wants it even bigger, plus a bit reshaped. Guess the city can put their pipes up to the registro at the edge of our property, and when some of our crew can come back for a few days, they can rebuild the box and connect things up.

 

Since we had to start the car to put it away, we drove to the ceramic shop again – just in case by some chance it might be open. Miracles do happen, turns out the folks were on vacation! We now own five large decorative macetas (pots for plants). We talked the owner down twenty percent from the asking prices, which were already good. We think we are happy! We can now plant our shrimp plant and the Pata de elefante, plus, we can buy more large plants for inside or outside!

Carmen baked homemade bread for the first time here. She has not lost her knack yet, though the cinnamon rolls needed more sugar and butter to become stickier. Well, the rolls could have been lighter in texture too. The problem with homemade goodies is that we do not stop at one piece. Saturday, the last day for electioneering before tomorrow's regional voting, saw the end of loud-speaker equipped cars touring thru the neighborhood touting candidates for political office. Carmen got the plants into their new pots, and also transplanted some out of plastic pots into the new bigger ones, and Dan progressed on the new bedroom storage unit, completing the hinged bench seat with space underneath, with a start on installing the Home Depot cabinets in the structure.  

We note that the hot spell just experienced by the western US brought the temperatures in our old home town Anacortes, in Washington State, about to an even match with those we have been enjoying here in western Veracruz state for most of the time we've been here.  We have lived thru many summers up in the Pacific Northwest when only a week or so in august would see hot days and sleep-under-only-a-sheet nights, so that brief heat wave this week was probably perceived as a welcome surprise for our friends and relatives still in the homeland.