Una semana atareada

Domingo 29 Sep - Sábado 05 Octubre   What a way to start a semana atareada (busy week)! As Carmen was reaching for her storage container of oatmeal, she noticed ants in her new unopened two pound bag of sugar! No sooner did she get the little ones sifted out of the sugar, than she saw a new package of cookies with far more ants than the sugar had! Breakfast was very late! Mother nature always seems to balance the bad with some good happenings – and so it was. While giving plants out front a drink, Carmen was watering near this sizable rock behind the geraniums, when suddenly the rock made a hop! Who would ever expect to see a toad in such a small garden area. Cats were warned not to bother it. We can just sit inside and imagine toady working hard to catch his dinner.

Early in the week, an excavator was busy removing the remaining vegetation and leveling the new building lot across the street. As a result we had men using our little wall at the base of the fence as a front row seat for watching their excitement of the day. We had a great view ourselves from the rooftop mirador, during spanish lesson time. After all had gone from the site, Dan went across the street and found some pieces of broken concrete there to bring back and put in a developing hole just west of our parking entrance. Heavy vehicles have driven over and broken up the edge of a new section of concrete we had put down. You may recall we told you that the city elected not to repair an obvious waterline leak we spotted there, asking us to wait until rainy season had passed to see it it would go away on its own. As if! But, aren't cracks wonderful! So much more decorative than plain old smooth surfaces. Nothing new has happened at the field across the street since the clearing that took place. We are anxious to see what will go in there.

Wednesday morning we left home at 7am. First stop was the bank in downtown Fortín for an atm draw. Next, we both had IMSS appointments with Doctor Rendón, scheduled for around 9am. We arrived nice and early at 7:20am, hoping to be amongst the first in to see him. Well, there were many others with the same idea and we did not get taken until 9:30. We both had books to read, just for this situation. Carmen was there just for her monthly meds, and Dan to set things up for his yearly physical. Seems that all the IMSS family physicians do is talk to patients about any perceived health changes, pains or complaints, authorizing prescriptions & necessary tests, and generating referrals to any specialist that might be called for. Weight and blood pressure are checked by the doctor's nurse and he checks lungs and heart with a stethoscope. All the data is entered on the computer terminal on the doctor's desk. We shall see how an annual physical is conducted, after our test results are in. How different will it be from what we are used to in the US? After picking up the prescriptions, we left there about 10:30a. Doctor Rendon's english may be improving faster than Carmen's spanish.

Next we drove the ten blocks to the main hospital in downtown Córdoba, and finally found a parking place a couple of blocks away. We waited behind a dozen or so people for Carmen's labs appointment, which was set up for the week just before her early November visit with the rheumatologist in Orizaba. Unfortunately, Dan's labs appointment can not be made until next month. We can not see how the IMSS system could work out for people who are working full time. However, what else do we have to do but stand or sit around and wait? And, the people-watching is always great. We did see, while at the hospital, the widest woman we have ever seen. Perhaps she has a thyroid problem, otherwise, why would anyone carry that much weight around willingly?

Our next items on our list required lots of walking around downtown Córdoba. We passed the Casa de Cultura where a free exhibition of some of the artworks of Diego Rivera were on display. We wandered thru the cool rooms, admiring the works, however we were disappointed in the selections of his paintings. There were some of his early cubist works, before he came back from studying in Europe and changed his more realistic painting style. Dan had been hoping to see more studies of his murals of working life, or maybe a portrait he made of his wife Frida Kahlo. It was well worth the stop nonetheless. As usual, the attendant wanted to know all about where we were from, etc. Such friendly folks here!

Dan had looked up various addresses in an almost year old phone book, which is notoriously incomplete and unhelpful. And again it was wrong several times, citing addresses where the tenant no longer was the store we were looking for, or just totally misdirecting us. We were trying to find a battery for a Clarity phone brought south with us, which has an answering machine attached. Seems to be no such battery in existence here. Not even at Radio Shack. Also looking for a fabric shop to buy material for a new futon cover, and an agricultural chemicals store for some weed killer. Wish Home Depot would get it in, to make our shopping easier. At any rate, we walked many blocks and made many stops and found nothing. By late afternoon we were beyond exhaustion. Had not eaten since breakfast, and foolishly had nothing to drink. When will we ever learn that we must drink when exercising in the heat of the day?

The last three downtown stops of the day were within a block of each other. Thank heaven for that! We went to Sears to check out their vacuum cleaners, which we had looked at online. However, the store had only two models, neither of which we wanted. Next was our favorite fabric store, ModaTelas. Here we handled and considered lots of fabrics, finally narrowing choices down to three, then finally, one. Next thread, none of which matched well, and then a long closure. We had to be satisfied with two shorter zippers (which will slide open in two directions), since nothing was available longer than 70cm.

Leaving the purchased items at the fabric store, we went next door to Waldo's, where we assumed we would find what we wanted. Wrong again. The store's stock had been changed since the time of our last visit, and the sections in the store moved around. The large glass lever-lock storage jars which we had purchased there several times were not there. Nor were Dan's favorite oatmeal cookies, or the fig or apple bars he had been longing for. We did find the bulk hand soap. After picking up the stuff from the fabric store, we walked the five blocks up and down hill, to our car. Always so happy to see that our car is right where we thought we left it!

Next a drive to Chedraui and a walk over to Josefinas. Still looking for those favored cookies. Plus we still need some tightly closing storage containers to keep the ants out. Found some containers at Chedraui, plus we bought a large toronja (grapefruit, our favorite thirst quencher) soda pop and started drinking. Did we ever need the liquid. Next stop was WalMart, where we found more storage containers for the kitchen, which was a good thing, since while we were gone, those ants found a small piece of chocolate in a ziplock bag. We do seem to keep our ants happy! Had to make one more bank stop, since at the morning stop only Carmen's card would work.

Finally back in Fortín, we made one last stop at the floral market, where we checked with the lady who was trying to purchase a true citronella plant for us. She finally told us that she was not able to find a source for this, even though we believe this lemon grass relative is grown somewhere in México for medicinal & industrial purposes. Disappointing, as we hoped to grow some natural and effective mosquito repellent here at home. Back in the house again by 6pm, talk about exhaustion. Groceries & goods stored away and a quick bite of leftovers.

The next day Ania stopped by to ask us if we'd like to come for dinner and games friday. But of course! She had walked from their new rental place nine blocks away while Frank did a bit of maintenance there. On her walk, she snipped off three starts for a plant she admired, and stuck them into one of our planters here to try to root.  Our plants up the upstairs terraza are doing well.  We actually have some yellow flowers on the Thevetia ahouai, a plant Ania ripped from her garden and which had so little root we were sure it would die.  Some bright red Bishop's Balls are not far behind.  Also we've posted a picture of a bloom from our white Mandevilla, happily spreading over our wall-top fencing.  Friday's meal was delicious and beautiful as usual! She had made a torta de elote (a polenta-like firm pudding) served with a sauce of yogurt & cotija cheese over it. She also prepared a salad of cooked then cooled alcelga (swiss chard) with a garlic yogurt dressing, a steamed whole broccoli head with cooked herbed garbanzo beans, plus some beef and chicken. Totally wonderful! Plus, for a change, Carmen won the set of four rummy tile games, with Dan winning one of the games. We tentatively planned to go on a hike together on sunday, depending on the weather.

Kitties made another trip to visit Doctor Vargas. He certainly is a friendly man! Both cats got free vitamin B shots. Apparently the vitamin is good for cats, just like people. Why did our US vets never suggest them? Gardi got his feline leukemia shot, and they both got two mouthfuls of a paste for internal parasites, plus we have three days worth of pills to get into them twice a day. Luckily we can crush the pills into their moist food and they happily chow them down.

We have a rotting piece of tree branch with many different kinds orchids well attached to it, near our front entry. We noticed termite debris under it, so have injected Festermicide into holes in the wood. Seems we are not able to get to the correct spot, because every day there is more termite leavings (frass) on the ground below it. Frustrating. While out one day, we purchased a pot of black petunias to hang up near our front gate, and Dan took his Craftsman taladro (drill) into a little repair shop where we see a man working on all sorts of domestic appliances on his street-side countertop. He immediately disassembled the drill, and it was done shortly, later in the day, and very inexpensively. Supposedly more rain is arriving for the next few days, followed by, finally, some clearing. Still having giant thunders briefly during the nights! Carmen's cousin Maxine skyped us saturday evening. Always is great to talk to friends and relatives, and we wish it would happen more often!

PS, iGoogle terminating, & a Chrome tweak

If anyone has been using iGoogle for your browser's start page, you will have noticed the message each day reporting the termination of this service at the end of this month.  A personalized start page, configured to be the page that opens when you call up your browser (whichever one you use), can be populated with convenient gadgets giving current news, data and links.  Think weather, news headlines, stock market reports, sports scores and the like -- hundreds of gadgets/widgets exist, mini-applications which run in little boxes you can place on your page.

I have been testing some replacements for the expiring iGoogle service.  The best seem to be Protopage and igHome, both are stable and flexibly configured.  Convenient widgets on Protopage for me are:  AccuWeather for Fortín, Breaking Mexico News, Random Quotes in Spanish, and Google Translate, plus some US/intl news sources.  igHome has more gadgets available: most of the above, three Spanish vocabulary builders (Word-, Verb- & Idiom-a-Day) and a even gadget that samples all the new MexConnect articles.  igHome also seems to allow more flexible sizing of the gadgets you select.  When iGoogle goes away, I will most miss the Nahuatl Word of the Day feed, not available from the other services.

Here's a fix if your browser of choice is Chrome.  Google recently made changes to the New Tab page.  Before, it opened a display of large tiles for your most recently opened webpages, with a second page (to the right >) for your chosen web apps, identified there by labeled large tiles.  Now the New Tab page opens with much smaller web history thumbnails, a big Search box, and any webapps you use accessible by clicking a new icon.  That icon opens a popup box of a small number of your webapps only identified by graphic icons.  Here's the fix to get rid of that superfluous, space-eating, Search box (you use the address bar at the top of the browser window for searches, right?), and restore utility to the display of webapps.

Open a new tab in Chrome, and go to the following address:  chrome://flags
Scroll down to the entry "Enable Instant Extended API" and click into the dropdown box selecting "Disabled"
Result: the new changes to the New Tab go away and Chrome behaves like it did before.

Dan