Proyectos pequeños

Wow! (or as spelled out in spanish “¡Guau!”), how time flies (como vuela el tiempo)! It's been almost two months since we last posted here. No problems or issues, or too much of note, we're just enjoying life, reading, jigsaw-puzzling, some TV most nights, and keeping up with the flowers in the yard. It's typical summer weather here, with warm days and very frequent evening showers, that rainfall taking care of a lot of keeping the plants in the yard irrigated, except for those on the porch and under the roof overhangs.

One monday in mid-July, taking advantage of the timing of a 4pm IMSS appointment in Veracruz, we arranged to drive down early in the morning, taking our neighbor Carolyn along with us. She had been wanting to show us one of her favorite beaches there. Our previous trips to the big port city had us in the downtown area, so some time on the beach sounded great. We managed a good part of the day on Playa Mocambo, in the adjacent city of Boca del Rio, south of the port, From our shaded spot on the shore (we're not looking to burn) one can see far around south, past the river mouth, to the point where the navy school is located. The port area is not visible from here, as that vista is only available from around the point to the north. Carmen had packed a light lunch of sandwiches, so we didn't even have to wander off the playa for snacks or partake of fare from the occasional vendors trudging by. Keep in mind this was a non-weekend day, before school was let out for the month long summer vacation, so parking was no problem (in the lot of the waterpark just up the strand), and the beach was not crowded. The water temp was great, with minimal wave action just right for floating on one's back—a relaxing time.

We left Carolyn under a rented-for-the-day (MX$30) umbrella station (table, chairs) on the beach, got to the clinic in time for the cita, and afterwards had time for a great Carl Jr's burger next to where we parked. Then back to the Plaza America mall (across the coastal highway from Mocambo) where we connected with Carolyn in the food court. She just loves to mall browse. Aside from a few routing mistakes, caused by not having a detailed city map and street construction changing things up a bit, it was a good day. We got back home just after dark, the last few miles on the new lanes of the autopista in the rain (no visible lane edge markings yet, and a steep drop where the shoulder had not yet been graded) causing just a bit of white-knuckling. Dan hates driving at night, so we make every effort to plan our trips to avoid it—if we had avoided the transit misdirects in Veracruz we could have been home an hour earlier.

We celebrated Dan's birthday with a restaurant outing in Córdoba. A few days before we took the time to do a walking tour of the area we think of as the restaurant area of the city. We dropped into six or seven eating establishments serving a variety of cuisines (italian, argentine, brazilian,japanese, etc), viewed menus, prices and ambiance, and decided for this occasion we'd visit the Villa Franca, a new restaurant specializing in “Mediterranean” meals. It was a good choice, after we moved our party (the two of us plus Ania & Frank) from the open area in front (too much street noise) to farther back but next to an inner courtyard window.

A couple of proyectos pequeños (small projects) in the house occupied us a bit. The open shelves in the bathroom got fitted with cantina-style doors (two pairs, the lower ones hung upside down). We bought these unfinished at Home Depot, and stained, varnished, hinged and hung them to create the look of a floor to ceiling cabinet. Now all the bottles and boxes of meds and body care stuff are out of sight.

Items in open hanging areas and on shelves tends to get dusty, but one has to be careful if closing-in spaces or covering them, because mildew is always lurking. So the new bath cabinet has louvered doors. The shelves and unenclosed “closet” spaces where our clothes live have been great for reducing chances for mildew on the fabrics, but even so Carmen hangs them all out in the sunshine every so often to keep them fresh. Closing off that end of the bedroom with louvered doors was considered, but that would have been a big, pricey, job and the doors would always be in the way. So for the master bedroom we found some pull-up “cortinas romanas” made of bamboo slats at Walmart, a type of shade normally used outdoors on a porch. Even this much of enclosure will keep the air a bit stagnant around the clothes, so we will only use these shades some of the time. Pulled up, they are completely out of the way.

Of course they didn't exactly fit the spaces, so both sides had

to be trimmed off with shears and hacksaw, and the bracket slots recreated in the new ends. That got the widths correct, without having to change the cording mechanisms. We elected to hang these so that there was about 8” of space above the shade (where air can easily exit, yet above the sight-line so the hanging clothes aren't visible), and a similar amount at the floor, where our shoes get stashed (again, this is good for keeping them dry and mildew-free).

We have had building-related activity on all three sides of us. Actually, as I write this, there is a crew cleaning out the undergrowth and pulling down bedraggled and brown leaves from the banana field to the north, so some activity interesting to us has taken place in all four directions. After Valentin, in the single-story house to the west, moved away, the landlord came by with a crew to touch up all the exterior painting, reseal most of the roof, and put it new rain scuppers there. So far, no new tenants into this small house, and the landlord comes by de vez en cuando to keep the garden looking nice. Beyond that house, there is a vacant lot, overgrown and rampantly green for all the

while we have been here, that has now be cleaned out, possibly to be sold?

To the east, the corner double-wide lot across the street has been rising fast. The regular crew seems to consist of six or seven happy guys. After the concrete walls went up, about a week of work erecting temporary posts and plywood floor forms, topped with a maze of rebar (varilla) and lastly a bunch of orange flexible electrical conduit and junction boxes tacked to the forms. We expected a pumper and concrete truck (from Veracruz port, the closest ready-mix plant) would be the next step.

Not so. This past saturday trucks delivered huge piles of sand, gravel and then a hundred or so bags of cement, these last stacked against the walls of the church to the north. A crew of 35 men swarmed over the area, making concrete in two large towable mixers, with others carrying it in partly-filled 5-gal buckets (cubetas) to the wall, others standing on a mid-wall height scaffold and hoisting the buckets to the floor level where others would run it over the rebar-covered floor to dump it for the guys placing and vibrating the mix into place. There were enough guys on the crew that a couple would be free to rest for brief periods. By the end of the afternoon all the work was done. Amazing!

Next door to the south, the house (used to be an office for a social-services organization, empty since the end of the year) has been sold to a local newly-married couple, Jorge & Carla. This is Jorge's second marriage, as also living with them is his daughter and his granddaughter (nieta). We have only met Jorge so far. This building, as an office, was only finished on the ground floor, with open-to-sky partial brick walls on the unfinished second story. There is now a crew of three albañiles working to complete the construction (with also some paint and finish work downstairs), which will consist of pouring posts between the old freestanding brick upper walls, then beams and eventually a sloping slab concrete roof. It will be good to have this building made weather-proof, as the rain-soaked brickwork has been wicking moisture into our contiguous wall.

A couple of new blooms have pleased us. First, our night-blooming cereus had three buds that we had thought were new branching stems, but as they developed we discovered they would be flowers. Unfortunately they got to just that point where we were checking every night to see if they had opened when they suddenly died back. Turns out we had let the pot get too dry. We are now taking more care and we have gotten another burst of seven flower buds. Since this plant blooms earlier in the year, perhaps this is because the first flowers failed to mature. How far will these get, and will any of them then form into pitahaya (“dragon fruit”). (Dan bought a huge pitahaya at the grocery store and enjoyed it's succulence. Carmen used a bit of it as a garnish on a melon-jicama pineaple-yogurt-dressed salad one day that Frank & Ania visited us for lunch.). The Stapelia gigantea (carrion plant) just keeps pushing out huge blooms that the house flies just love to visit.

The Stanhopea occulata (Torito, Two-Eyes Stanhopea) we have had for the longest time in a coir lined wire-basket hanging near the from gate, pushed out a bloom stalk thru the bottom of the basket. The large native orchids didn;t last very long but were beautiful, with a fragrance of mint-chocolate. We took the time one day when the car was out to visit the floricultura center north of town and but several plants we have been wanting. This include a Cycas revoluta (sago palm), a native Zamia furfuracea (cardboard palm) and an Adenium obesum (desert/karoo rose), plus another hibiscus to replace the one we lost.

Currently, the open storage wall in the mid-sized front guest room also is getting an enclosing “treatment,” vertical curtains. The fabric Carmen is using is actually plant shading cloth, so it is very strong, weatherproof and yet allows air to pass thru it. Aside from some problems with the sewing machine, which have been resolved, this project is almost done.

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El juego hermoso

Sábado 05 Julio 2014   Why it is called “the beautiful game” always was a mystery. No longer. Futbol (you might know it as soccer) mania cannot be escaped in whatever corner of the world you might find yourself, outside of the USA. It's the most popular sport played across the planet. Over the last half of June and the first couple of weeks of July, the elimination tournament known as the FIFA World Cup (Copa Mundial) is played out, this year in Brasil. More people watch these broadcasts than any other event. We are now veterans of this here in Fortin, as we were first here thinking about finding a retirement home, four years ago during a similar time. Still can remember the flat screens TV's playing to load and attentive aficionados at every possible open-to-the-street venue we passed.

It's a beautiful game because it can be played on almost any flat field, little team & personal equipment is required, the ball is always highly visible, anybody can score, scoring is rare enough that each point made is memorable, the rules are very simple, collaborative skill and intelligence is needed to score, a team doesn't have to win to leave the field satisfied (hard-fought ties are sometimes the most talked about games), and except for rare overtimes, the game never consumes more than two hours. It doesn't hurt that, at a national level, a lot of very smart, very fit and arguably very attractive players fill out the teams.

Contrast this with the paint-dryingly boring games that populate the NoB networks: baseball, basketball, golf and “American” football (and that, a real misnomer).

Why is the USA the only country where soccer has been almost a second place sport? Perhaps because there the crowds can't chant with any conviction “We're Number One!” Perhaps because the media can't get behind a sport where there are rare time-outs and the halftime cannot be longer than 15 minutes, therefore not allowing enough time for lots of commercials? Perhaps because the American public has been now well trained to demand spectator sports broadcasts long enough and slow enough to allow for frequent and extended beer and snack breaks?

The scoop is that this tournament has actually amped up US public interest in the game, so things perhaps are looking up. Both the Mexico and US teams made it to the octavo eliminations, succumbing to Holland and Belgium, respectively. It was great while it lasted. That last four minutes of the Mexico-Netherlands game was so disheartening—“we was robbed!” Please tune in and enjoy the rest of the tourney—personally, we're hoping that tiny Costa Rica triumphs.

There was a field-of-vision eye exam scheduled in Veracruz city, so we decided to go down a day early to see if we could catch some of the port's festivities surrounding the presence of the Tall Ships, which were due to sail out the same Monday as the eye exam. We found accommodations at the Hotel Posada del Carmen, one block from the pier. Our room, on the sixth floor, gave us a view of four of the ships, and later the Sunday parade that came down the Boulevard Avila Camacho that evening. This was the last port of call for the Velas Sudamerica 2014 Regatta that left from Rio de Janeiro in early February. The extremely long, slow-moving lines formed up for people to board and visit the ships this last day convinced us our time was better spent on land. We've been on large sailing ships before.

We walked around the downtown area, visiting a few of the sights including the city museo and the Baluarte de Santiago, a fortified cannon battery that used to sit on the coast here to protect this city. It is now inland about four blocks from the water, and city maps showed how, over the years, the city configuration of today was built up on reclaimed land around the present day port basin. We arrived just before closing for the famous naval museum, so we'll visit there another day.

The next morning we visited the mooring area for the other three veleros altos, including Mexico's Cuauhtemoc training vessel.  Ships were also there (in homage to the 100^th anniversary of the brave who died in defense of the port from the invading US yanquis) from other countries: Brasil (Cisne Branco), Colombia (Gloria), Venezuela (Simon Bolivar), Chile (Esmeralda), Argentina (Libertad) and the Peru (Villavicencio).

The Mexican vessel was moored just in front of the Pemex tower at the foot of the malecon. Off to the northeast, across the basin, one can see the cranes above the working port facilities. The city buildings in this downtown area were all spruced up, sporting fresh paint, for the centennial observances held here earlier in the year. Unfortunately, the eye exam took place over in the other end of the city, so we had to leave before the zarpa (setting sail) of any of the ships. On the way home we stopped a couple of times at mini-fruit stands to check on buying a box a mangos, but the peak of the season seems to have passed, and they didn't look good enough to chance it. We got back home in time to see Mexico beat Croatia in game #34 of the FIFA Cup. We reflected on how our friends back home in Anacortes, a town with a large expat Croatian population, were probably rooting for the other side this day.

We have been jumping thru hoops for more than a month now, dealing with the fallout from BanamexUSA's abrupt action to close our accounts in Los Angeles. No great problem making wire transfers to other US institutions (at least while we still own a bit of property there, with an address of record), and redirecting social security payments was a snap. But, we have been fighting with BmxUSA for over two weeks trying to wire funds to a recently opened Banamex account here in Fortín, still not accomplished.

Interestingly, opening the Banamex peso account was no problem, but part of the process was completion of a W-9 form, in English, and an agreement (again in English) stating: "The undersigned hereby authorizes [Banamex] to report, on (an) annual basis, the account holder information and any interest earned to the US Internal Revenue Service and to withhold any US tax on such interest, if withholding is required, at the current applicable rate." We are attempting to maintain Mexican joint bank accounts well below the US$10,000 amount to avoid annual FBAR reporting, and to be able to maintain FDIC and SIPC protections on our assets NoB. This may be impossible depending on how other US financial institutions react.

It is incomprehensible to us how rejecting investments from persons outside the US (ie, stopping money flow into the US), coupled with requiring that US citizens living abroad remove their funds from the US (ie, making money flow out of the US), can make any kind of economic sense to the US economy in the long run. Seems that paranoia in the US congress (source of these xenophobic new laws), on both sides of the aisle, is moving that once-great country nearer to a fiscal meltdown. I guess we will have to do some investigation with a goal of discovering some Mexican financial instruments that we feel good about--where it seems like where we will ultimately have to place our assets.

On the home front, seems like every several days there is a new orchid, bromeliad or heliconia to amaze us, as plants we purchased along the way open their blooms for the first time. Our vanilla orchid continues to grow taller, and its now above the tree planted to support it, surging up along the tall bamboo pole erected on the south wall of the front garden. Summer rains have lessened the need to get out the hose to irrigate by hand, and we have had more time for reading and jigsaw puzzling.

Dia mundial del medio ambiente

Turns out yesterday was World Environment Day.  We learned this after the fact, but as it turns out we had put out for the regular solid waste collection, a large container of clean plastic containers and tin cans we had been accumulating, and Carmen had also policed around the house and up & down the streets a bit, disposing of the scraps of paper and plastic trash blown out of passing vehicles or was discarded by sloppy passers-by.  Here, separation of waste materials takes place right beside the garbage compactor truck, which has bags and boxes strapped or tied to it for plastic, steel, newspapers and the like.  When a container is completely filled with a recyclable material, someone lifts it to the top of the truck where it is tied on.  At the end of the run the truck is quite a sight, covered as it is with bags and stacks of flattened cardboard. Only true mixed garbage goes into the maw of the compactor.  This seems so much more sensible than compacting everything and then picking thru the mess in some centralized recycling facility.

A hard rain again last night and steady all last sunday. However at this time of year the temperature only drops into the high 60s F with the nighttime tormentas. so we leave the windows open except if there are gusts blowing the raindrops thru the screens. Around here, when we get rain it's often accompanied by a bit of (usually distant, 9 seconds away or so) trueno y relampago (thunder and lightning, donner und blitzen).  This kind of sound and light show was very rare in Anacortes, WA, so we're kind of in awe of the spectacle here and beginning to like the dramatic, usually brief, tropical downpours.  At night we often smell the fragrance of whatever orchid is currently flowering.  We've heard that flowers which smell strongest at night are normally fertilized by moths.

We are reminded occasionally that we still live on the Pacific ring of fire.  Every so often we feel the ground tremble.  Not long ago we awoke one morning about 5am with our bed jiggling.  There was a tremor down on the isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca. No damage to speak of, but it's always unsettling when what is presumed to be solid underfoot, isn't. (It seems that most of the faults that are subject to underground movement are on the Pacific side of the country, most often in the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero.)  Then that same morning at 8am there was a tremendous boom, as a power transformer down the street blew up!   We expected a long period without electricity, but CFE had it replaced in about four hours. 

We finally put a bar along the bottom of our car gate where we saw the gray cat belly-squiggling under. Then a week later we found her sitting just inside our back door discussing who knows what with our own cats – very quietly. Shooed her out and discovered another place that she could squeeze thru. She surely is slender, and gets along well with the other two. We just do not need or can afford another animal, so we blocked that access point off as well.  The animals will just have to visit nose-to-nose thru the gate.

Seems that the zafra (cane harvest) is finished for this season, which means the air is cleaner. We have worked hard getting the black soot off from everything. We are busy “working” on jigsaw puzzles and reading, including the Harry Potter series, borrowed electronically from the Anacortes library, which we have not read before. Our bleeding heart Clerodendrum thomsoniae (flor de bandera) is blossoming beautifully this year.

Things are happening! First and most interesting – Gardi cat found us a salamander. Are they not just the cutest creatures? Long slender bodies with a bulbus roundish head and tiny short stick like legs with toes. This one was medium brown and in our back yard. Actually in a large empty flower pot which Gardi tipped over with a small crash of the ceramic pot. Carmen rescued it and hopefully saved it in some thick plantings.  She notes that american robins are out and about singing the songs we grew up with.  Since Mexico is as far as they migrate south for the winters, the ones we have seen must be stoking up getting ready to wing their way north!

The house construction across the street to the east of our house has been restarted after a five month break of no action. The work and daily progress keeps us entertained. One of the fellows working has a great voice and spends much time singing at the top of his lungs.

From our rooftop we saw some construction happening at the other end of the banana field to our east – well behind the house being built, just about a block away.  When it first started we assumed (as indicated by the city building permit nailed to the wall), that is was a large residence.  To our disconcertion it is actually a storage yard and bodega (warehouse) for storing chicken crates, usually loaded high on parked semi-trailers. No live chickens, but some of the odor is still there! So far we have seldom smelled anything at our house, but there are occasional hints or whiffs of "fragrance" on the breeze.

Our good quiet neighbor, Valentin, to our west has moved out. Bummer. The house is a rental and is now being spruced up. We hope the next tenant speaks English and is quiet, and perhaps this time with no barking dogs. Time will tell.  Also the house to our immediate south (actually used as an office), with which we share a wall, has had no visible activity in it since before Xmas.

Thanks to Homeland Security and Bernie Madoff, BanamexUSA has canceled all of the bank accounts it holds with folks living in Mexico, giving only a month's notice, so we have been scrambling to find the best new arrangement for our banking needs. BanamexUSA was so convenient, providing peso withdrawals by local ATM from our accounts held in California, and charging no international funds access fees. This also means that we must have our social security sent to a different location. Talk about frustrating!!!!

On the way home from our walk into town today, we purchased 17 manila mangoes for US$0.78. The time before we bought a bunch of fresh litchis.  We love the availability of fresh, inexpensive tropical fruit.  When visiting the bank, we walked past a nearby house in downtown Fortín, where we heard and saw two men yesterday sitting on the front porch and speaking english. We were in a hurry at the time so did not stop then, and they were gone later. Will introduce ourselves eventually.

We went to bed one night recently and discovered that part of our upstairs is now lit with a bright new halogen light. We could probably read by this light in the one bedroom. The new light is aimed down Avenida 21, but canted in such a way to illuminate our north wall from the power pole across the street. It will certainly give us more security, and at no cost to us except for a bit of glare! The bedroom we sleep in has curtains heavy enough that the extra light does not bother us, plus it is easier to see when we go to the potty in the night. So, what we first considered to be a bad thing, is actually all good!

We discovered the hugest paper wasp nest (about the size of a soccer ball) we have ever seen near our chimney high up on the north wall outside! We are getting up early in the mornings when the air is as cool as it gets, and spraying with a long jet of insecticide. We now see little wasp activity, and need to eventually get brave enough to knock it down, hoping that the wasps have all departed.

We are getting back into fix-up mode again. Dan put up the toilet paper roller and towel rods in our new bathroom, and also hung a full length mirror and installed a door stop in the tiled floor. Next we sanded off the deteriorating finish on our cedar chest. We have two power sanders, so we could both work at the same time. Had to mix a bit of special stain for some trim strips. Carmen gave the whole chest three coats of new nitrocellulose lacquer.  We also sanded some rough spots on the bed frame we had made for the guestroom, and restained and sealed that too. While we had the lacquer out, we disassembled our queen-sized storage bed John Janda had built for us, and attached padded galvanized steel channel stock on the bottom, to raise the structure about 3/4" off the floor.  When we reassembled things we touched up the surfaces where the shallow flooding coming inside from the terrace had damaged the finish.  The bed is now high enough that it stands completely off the the floor--so no more worries about damaging things from stormwater emergencies or wet-mopping the tiled floor.

We still have many small projects. Dan was going to paint a sealer on a bit of our wall that faces the house to west (where Valentin lived). There are some fellows working there getting ready to repaint that house, so Dan asked if he could go over with our ladder to work on that face of our wall while they were there. The fellow showed up this morning and suggested he could do the application of the impermeabilizante for us.  Dan was happy to pay him, and mark that job off our to-do list.

Cuidando las orquideas

Domingo 12 - Sábado 18 Enero  Sunday morning seems there are many men taking their young children for a walk around the neighborhood. An enjoyable sight to see and hear!  We started our week by going to Shattuck's to feed their kitty, hoping to find her home. Thankfully she was waiting for us at the top of their driveway! After feeding her, we sat and held and petted kitty for a while. She was happily taking a nap in a sunny spot when we left. What a beautiful setting their home is in.

No, we did not go to a church this day. We instead took a walk, at the south side of town, thru God's beautiful countryside. Our preferred way of spending sundays. We saw butterflies, tall sugarcane in bloom, and gorgeous trees with old leaves off and new ones beginning to grow. The sky was blue, temperatures in the mid-70s F, and birds were chattering. Looking north towards where our house is, we discovered that many new good looking houses are being built inside a walled and gated area on the south east corner of town. These are in the Las Villitas development that is due south of the new rental home Ania & Frank built at Los Encinos.

We found a gnarly tree, trimmed, cut off with a saw and discarded with some building materials along the old railbed, so we wrestled it back with us and stuck it thru the car's trunk to bring home.  Once home, we found the perfect spot for it and Dan installed it next to our front gate. It is already home for a few orchids that we had elsewhere, and waiting for more. We took the time to re-hang and surround the bases of other orchids with the spanish moss that we had purchased at Xmas time, to improve the immediate environment around the aerial roots.We are still learning about cuidando (caring for) las orquideas, as each type seems to want it's own micro-environment, some potted, some attached to branches and a few in the ground.  Some like it cool and shaded, others don't mind some sun. So much to learn.

It's yearly bill paying time. If we pay property tax, refuse/recycling and water bills for the year in january, we can get a 50% discount because of our age.  Monday morning we tried to pay the water bill. The attendant said we needed our social security number, to prove we were retired. This was not needed last year, now why would that US number be needed in Mexico?  Since we were out we went to the post office and asked that our mailman would please stop at our house for his Xmas gift, then headed home.  Later in the day a couple of city sanitation workers came to our door collecting for our refuse/recycling service--no problem with the discount here, and we paid our fee, equivalent to US$12, for twice weekly pickup.

Tuesday we looked for the ss card and realized that it is in a safe deposit box in the US. Now what? We did locate a medicare card with Dan's number on it and decided to try it. and so we went to the water office again. The lady was happy with the number we showed her, and collected the discounted amount (~US$25) for the year. Next stop, the property tax office which was temporarily set up in the city sports arena. After waiting in line two hours we paid our tax bill, discounted with no problem.  The ~US$24 we paid would easily be sixty times higher in the US.

Miss kitty was no place to be found at Shattuck's again wednesday. We did our usual tour of our favorite stores before coming home, and finally found the copper fittings he needed at a plumbing speciality house. Later Dan soldered the fittings together for the water heater to be installed at our kitchen sink. Carmen made some healthful oatmeal cookies, and by the way warmed up the house. Oil instead of butter and all whole wheat flour. All had cinnamon, and some also seasoned with clove. The cinnamon-only ones had either raisins or dried apricots. All yummy.  Carmen bought green carnations plus orange ones this week. Big splurge of 30 pesos!

Finally we have an appointment for the inner-ear tests Carmen needs in downtown Veracruz city, the 21st of january at nine in the morning. We will have to pick up the paper work at the Córdoba hospital the day before. Since this out-of-town appointment is the same day scheduled for Carmen's next ENT appointment, we had to go into the hospital and change this local appointment. It will  now be the 24^th, when we should have testing results in hand.  It will be good to find out if Carmen is to live with her situation of continual dizziness and nausea.  With a firm diagnosis in Veracruz, we hope improvement will be a matter of course.

Cosiendo y Cociendo

Domingo 06 - Sábado 12 Octubre   Our planned hike for sunday did not happen. It rained the night before, and we felt the forest would be too wet and footing would be slippery. None of us work after all, so we can do it any day of the week that might be dry and not too hot. Weather conditions are supposedly going to be such, by later this week.

Some fellows from Honduras stopped at our gate today, asking for anything we could help them out with. Dan gave them an old tee shirt and underwear, plus a juice box. We have decided to separate some of the extra clothes we brought with us to give to the needy at our gate. Too bad it is always men, as Carmen has some clothing that she now admits she will never wear again.. There seems to be a store in downtown Fortín that is for only second hand clothes. Every day there are fellows on top of the trains traveling across Mexico from south of the border.

We got a start on the big piece of fabric for our new futon cover. Just the cutting on sunday. Monday Carmen sewed three sides of the futon cover and tuesday she put in the two zippers. The cosiendo (sewing) all finished and it fits the futon very nicely. She had not done a zipper in forty years, so Dan found a site on the internet that had a video of exactly what she needed to do. It was so easy! Our sewing machine does have a zipper foot. This project went so well, that she took the stitching out of a triangle couch pillow to wash the cover. She now has to re-stuff the pillow case and stitch the opening back together. One by one perhaps she will get all our pillow covers cleaned.

Most of the schools are back in session, but there are still a few teachers on strike and the manifestaciones are still closing the highways all over the state We are hoping to go to Orizaba before Carmen's scleroderma doctor appointment the first part of November. There is a small foam shop in Orizaba where we want to have the seat cushion for the closet seat in our bedroom made. Carmen is happy with the painted wooden cover of this center chest unovered, but Dan had in mind when he designed and built it, that it would have a cushioned seat, and he still thinks it will be better that way.

It's been awhile since we shopped at Home Depot, after being regular weekly or more frequent shoppers there for so long. Our foreman from the crew we had here building for us, called a few days ago and asked if we would check on the price of a pump for his little community water system. Oh yea! We now have a reason to drive to Home Depot for something other than a couple small items. It seems to be true that Carmen wants one of every plant available, but Dan seems to want one of everything at Home Depot. We each have our toys!

Dan bought a Stanley miter box to replace an almost worthless wooden one he's had for years. He wants to cut some accurate 45º angles to make some picture frames, and the old box just is too inaccurate. When we got home, he discovered that it was missing the two cam pins that hold the wood in place while sawing. Bummer. Now we must return it for an exchange. Maybe Carmen will need some more planting soil soon, and some lightweight tezontle (lava rock) which works out well for pot drainage. Perhaps some more slug bait too! In the US we were happy to see plants grow. Here they grow so fast! We are frequently pruning back. So far, we can put the prunings in the banana field to the north of us, but they will become a problem when that field someday turns into houses.

Rooster dear, from down the street to our west, has been crowing at two in the morning. Is this not a bit early for catching worms? But, the guinea fowl, that seem to live in the forest a block west of us, seem to be waking up later than usual – about 9am. They used to wake at 6am and do their cackling, as only guinea can do. If you are not familiar with their unique call, listen to them on the internet.  Saturday morning we woke to a woodpecker tapping away on our roof beams. We looked out the window, hoping to be able to see the bird as it flew away, but we were given a surprise as two landed on the telephone pole just outside our bedroom window! They appear to be Smoky-brown peckerwoods (Picoides fumigatus, locally named Carpintero café). They rattat-tap-tapped a bit, then flew off.  Just a little evening rain now, just enough to leave a few glistening jewels on some of the larger plants' leaves.  Our papaya tree is getting quite substantial--glad we picked a big pot for it.

We now have purchased enough tightly sealing lidded plastic containers that our friendly tiny ants can no longer get into our foods. Everything that is in the kitchen and not in a sealed can, is now in one of these containers.

Smij cat likes catching butterflies. We have seen her let them go after she plays with them awhile, as cats will do. Our deck outside our upstairs bedroom is a great place for catching such things. The best place to just admire them fluttering by is on the rooftop mirador. Now we can attest to the fact that black butterflies do not settle well in a cats stomach, and they have many parts, which are very visible when thrown up.

Carmen spent a full day cociendo (cooking) in the kitchen, which she has not done in a long while. She did catch up things such as pie crusts to freeze and cobbler topping, and hummus to eat for our supper and freeze. Then beef liver with bacon and fried onions with yams mixed with the extra cooked garbanzo beans. Topped off with a two person banana cream pie. On a crust of crushed coconut cookies. The next day she baked a two person portion of apple cobbler. The apples are so good this time of year. Inspite of these goodies, Dan is managing to lose a few pounds simply by serving up smaller food portions. He has a bad habit of always cleaning his plate, even if over-served. Carmen is just trying to keep her weight where it is.

A fellow has discovered that we are suckers for buying new plants. He does have nice starts. Lots of herbs, which we might now have all we will use. Also some flowers that we do not have yet. Our passion fruit now has eight fruits at least, and Dan figures his efforts at pollination are beginning to pay off. Dan can hardly wait for them to ripen. The flowers, of course, are magnificent, but only last one day.

The lot across the street to our east has been graded flat and a trench dug around it where we assume the perimeter wall will go. So, it seems that our wish for one large house, most likely on one level, will be built there. How exciting. We hope it will have a beautiful yard for us to enjoy, and it looks as if it will face us. A man with crutches just walked by on the calle. Many people here walk on the road instead of using sidewalks. Often the sidewalks have vegetation growing out over them, or perhaps a utility poles inset there (with no widening of the walkway around it,) so that little sidewalk space is actually available.

Oh woe is me, says Carmen. She counted the jigsaw puzzles she brought here, and she has already done seventeen of the 37. However, she has done the 500 and 750 piece ones and has the 1000 piece puzzles left. She also has to take the time to clean and repaint the upstairs bathroom shelves. We were going to leave them stained & varnished, but have decided they will look better if they are painted the same as the walls. In the past, whoever painted took little care to cut in the paint edges, leaving sloppy paint on the shelves. Also, as she considers herself the painter of our family, she will eventually scrape and re-paint many inside wall areas where the paint is loose. Dan has a far longer list of little things that need accomplished around the house, some definitely more pressing than others. However, since the pressure to complete renovation tasks while our crew was here is over, he doesn't want to rush into things, but would prefer to putter thru these things de vez en cuando, as the inspiration strikes and there's nothing more interesting to spend his time on. After all, isn't that what retirement should be all about? Plus, we really need to venture out by car and do some exploration of the surrounding countryside. And travel to some of those places that we have not visited by bus in the past is definitely in the cards.

Our spanish lessons on the mirador still are a looked-forward-to time of the day. Many of the folks passing by give us a cheerful wave. Gardi cat especially enjoys his time up there with us, as he walks the wooden counter-height shelf around the structure, and purrs to us. He also enjoys the mariposas (butterflies) that chance by. This week there have been more of the little Turquoise Emperors. Also a yellow variety with vertical black stripe patterned wings.

El mas lluvioso mes del año

(Domingo 01 - Sábado 07 Septiembre)  Now that our medium sized bedroom has a bed in it, it is time to move the stored wood out of this room. But where shall we store it? Next problem, the hose hanger that Dan installed in the front of the house has got to be moved to a more accessible location. He had put it where it looked best, right over the hose bibb, but too many plants got crushed when doing the watering with it. Much time was spent on cleaning up our backyard area.

It was our understanding that on the first and fifteenth of the month, the Similares (generics) drugstores in town had a twenty-five per cent discount, so we walked into Fortín center to stock up on the meds that Carmen cannot get dispensed from IMSS. She is allergic to the brand IMSS carries, and they stock only one of each formulation. Turns out that this month, since the 1^st falls on a sunday, that the deal is on the second, monday. Since our hands are empty, we wandered thru the flower market shops. Carmen unfortunately wants one of everything. Luckily our property will not hold that many plants. We came home with only six. We are still looking for a hen & chicks plant.

A man came to our back gate, selling plant stands made from black enameled rebar, and we bought one which holds five plants. Carmen spent time transplanting her herbs into the colorful little pots we bought to fit the stand. The pots are too small for all the herbs that she started from seed, so we now find these herbs here and there throughout other pots. The two long planters that had the herbs now sit empty, waiting for...?

Early in the day we did some skype “video messages” of the panoramic views from our mirador, to send to some friends. Thought we would be able to copy and resend to others, but have not figured out yet how to send a video to more than that one person. We are still waiting to do more videoing, when we're home in the morning, and not otherwise occupied, when Mt Orizaba is not hiding behind clouds, as it does by 10am, or earlier, at this time of year. The radio station we listen to in the mornings reminded us that September is the mas lluvioso mes del año (the rainiest month of the year) here.

Monday morning we were at IMSS by eight am for Carmen's monthly appointment to get her prescriptions reauthorized and filled. Our time was for 9am and we were taken at 10 am. Seems that one has a two hour wait, no matter what time one arrives, because people are taken in order of their arrival, not according to appointment time. Just take a book to read, enjoy people watching, or napping,

Next stop was grocery shopping. (Carmen got a surprise when sorting thru the carrot bin. A fellow, dressed as an employee, looked her in the eye and said buenos dias, with a great big smile! The surprise was that he is our next door neighbor, Valentin. So now we know he works here at Walmart.) We had invited Ania and Frank for dinner wednesday, so we needed to stock us on some foods for the planned menu. Today's new item that we found at the store is smoked tuna, at half the price of un-smoked tuna steaks right next to them in the case. Always interesting to see what new foods will be here each time we shop. Could be anything from canned goods, meats, fresh veggies or fruits we are unaccustomed to. Adds to our excitement of being here. Hmm, a fresh spinach bread too. Carmen used to bake bread frequently, but the stores we shop at have such a good variety, that she rarely has this task, though her bread is a different sort than what bakeries produce here. Yep – this was likely written before, but breads deserve lots of mentions!

Got our 25% discount Monday at the Similares drugstores. Thankfully we did our bank stop the day before, as there was a block-long line waiting for the ATM, being the first monday of the month. Stopped by the grocery store in town to buy some beets for a salad. They usually have good fresh ones, and there were none at Walmart today. Found a fresh pineapple at a fruit stand. And lastly we went to the electric company to pay our two month bill of less than US$25. Electricity is expensive here, but we are in the lowest bracket that still gives a special discount to small consumers, as our only electric usage comes from lights and outlets (TV, computers, refrigerator, and a rarely used fan, which we used only twice this past year).

Since we installed the wide eaves trough along the edge of part of our back roof, we now have a deluge in one spot at then end of the gutter, instead of all along this ten foot area. We wanted to keep the water from falling onto the terraza just outside our bedroom door. That part is working great. Now we have a waterfall effect hitting the ground level patio. We bought some white largish decorative rocks from Home Depot, and put them in a large tray, so that the water falling from the roof now drops into there and more slowly leaves the area and flows out of the slightly slanted parking area to the street, instead of drowning the planting area which it is adjacent to. Unfortunately, the harder it rains the farther out the water falls, missing the landing spot we made for it. Back to the drawing board!

Tuesday the young lady at DIF called us, to come in to their office in Fortín to finalize the paper work and receive our senior INAPAM id cards. These will give discounts on public transportation, admissions, and some stores. We feel almost guilty for taking advantage of this program, but we are gray haired now. This gobbled up a couple hours of time. As we walked home, we saw the grader just finishing scraping up the escombro (dirt & debris) the city had left on the road, from doing our sewer connection.  Now, aside from some little patching of the steps which Dan will do, our construction job is at an end.

We unpacked our pictures and together we got those hung on the walls. The hardest part was of course, deciding where to put each one. Also we hung some of our fabric hangings, like Dan's Yale rug in the stairwell. This was a tricky job, on top of a ladder and stretching to reach high on the wall over the open stairwell, to set the anchors. Also put one of Dan's mom's quilts over the new bed, and a colorful batik we purchased when on a cruise in the Caribbean – from Caribelle Batik at Romney Manor on the island of St Kitts (http://www.caribellebatikstkitts.com/caribelle_batik.asp). Still have a lovely piece from Italy that Dan's daughter, Harmony, gave us from when she was in school there for a semester. We are looking for just the right pieces of local color for a couple spots of wall yet.

Dan spent a couple hours cleaning while Carmen did some cooking for the next days meal, both of which continued the next day. Finally there was a day when Ania & Frank could get together with us for a meal on our rooftop! We four have had many past weeks of sore backs or bad weather or house guests which have prevented this meal from happening high up on the mirador. Wanting a nice meal, but easy to carry up all those steps, was a dilemma.

Carmen went the route of appetizers, with nothing hot. Carrying items up the steep stairway is not too difficult, but bringing them back down is a feat! So – in a five gallon bucket, were stacked, all the plates, soup cups, silverware and water and wine glasses. Next came the smoked tuna, deviled eggs and stuffed mushrooms. Then the biscuits made with some cornmeal, chorizo sausage and cheese to the usual dough, topped and covered with and table cloth and napkins. Dan carried the bucket, just like a picnic basket! Carmen carried the room temperature carrot soup in a pitcher. Ania took the bottle of wine and water pitcher, and Frank carted the large bowl of a salad of cooked beets, apple, garbanzo beans, broccoli, and grapes with a fat free caesar dressing, on a bed of butter crunch lettuce. Most elegant looking and oh so delicious! Earlier Dan had carried a card table and chairs up.

The view is so very gorgeous from the top of our house. There was a wee breeze and no flies until a moment after Carmen foolishly remarked about no bugs! Frank suggested that we install a zip line between our houses. Wow! Wouldn't that be something, going over town and cane fields from our mirador to the hill they live on! While packing up to carry all back down the stairs, Dan managed to flip the wine cork and opener off the deck onto the roof top. He retrieved it, which gave us all a bit of excitement. After carrying our items back down, we played a game of rummy cube. Ania won, as usual. Then we had our dessert. Carmen made a cheesecake, and it was the worst she had ever made – extremely dense. Why? Who knows, maybe the cream cheese brand, over baking it, or not whipping long enough? It was sad, and a challenge for the next time she attempts it.

Ania brought a plant for Carmen that she had started, and Carmen sent her home with several starts she had been hoping for. Unlike us, they have a huge piece of property, so lots of room for more plants, which is good since they have almost one of everything. They also have room for trees, shrubs, and tall and sprawling plants. Lucky them – or maybe not – all that yard area requires a lot of upkeep, and we have purposely left that part of our lives behind us.

Needless to say, the next day for breakfast we had party left overs – in the form of an omelet stuffed to falling apart with fresh mushrooms, smoked tuna, broccoli and tomato, with a good local gouda cheese And there were two biscuits left to be freshened in the toaster oven. Oh yum. Yogurt on the side of course.

Dan has been going over tax returns for some northern folks. Carmen fluttered through the day with the plants. Amazing how time consuming they can be. Before these fun things, though, we had a lonnnng spanish lesson while sitting up on the mirador. Most difficult for Carmen to concentrate up there. Too many things to keep track of – birds, butterflies, Gardi cat who joined us, cars on the street below, people walking by, and even a plane flew over. In Anacortes we had frequent overflights, but here they are rare and this was probably only a business jet, unlike the frequent fighter jets in the US from the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. We're glad to be missing the sometimes annoying “sounds of freedom.”

A tropical storm was predicted for the afternoon, so laundry was hung out early and dried. The rainy weather was later than predicted and never did get really bad here. Carmen made some ginger cookies to help us thru the evening. She makes and freezes dough in small batches, then bakes them off in the toaster oven, just enough to eat up right away.

We always take in about an hour or so of evening TV news on ForoTV (and sometimes a little CÑÑ), with Dan translating the highlights for Carmen. After only two weeks of school, the big news is the teachers are on strike, protesting the federal government's education reform program which will have teachers take competency tests, with possible firings for those that fail three evaluations. A big manifestación outside the international airport in Mexico City slowed things down there for the day. There seems to be a general willingness on the part of citizens here to let aggrieved groups have their say with actions like this, but it's getting to the point that parents are becoming angry that classes are on hold.

Friday was a chilly 70 degrees. Time to have the oven on and make a lime meringue pie. Our carpenter came by to tell us that he will be delivering the repaired kitchen cabinet door tomorrow. He had been working on a big job in Córdoba, but he hadn't forgotten us. The original door warped badly after he had installed it. He was trying to straighten it, and if that was not possible, he will have made us a new one. Carpenters must have a hard time here, with little kiln-dried wood available for purchase.

We barely had our eyes open saturday morning before a woodpecker ratta-tat-tatted on a wood en beam above the bedroom window. Up near the roof, we were unable to actually see it. Hope he comes back sometime we're outside, as we like to identify and tally the fauna and flora around us here. We then enjoyed listening to the radio (classic hits on XHSIC “La Poderosa” in Cordoba) music for awhile before the kitties could talk us into getting up.

A flower seller stopped at our gate. His fresh flowers are lonnnnng stemmed and so beautiful! Today we bought a bunch containing Alstroemeria and another of large gerber daisies . Hope they last two weeks as the last ones we purchased from him did. Carmen put one branch of the alstroemeria into a pot of soil – hoping to root it. We had one of these Peruvian lilies growing in Anacortes. Dan has spent the day pecking way at his computer on financial stuff. Carmen spent the day with our plants. Actually sewing the straw like coconut fiber on to the mesh form we made to hold our staghorn fern.

We have a banana every morning for breakfast and they have gotten a bit ahead of us. Since we had recently purchased a six hole muffin pan that nicely fits into our toaster oven, Carmen made banana muffins for our 10:30am snack. The kitties seem tired out today, so they must have worked hard protecting us last night. Dan had suggested that the wine left over from dinner with Ania & Frank wednesday, be used in cooking. The result was our mid-day meal: chicken thighs roasted in our toaster oven, with veggies (carrots, shallots, chayote and garlic cloves, thyme) and red wine. Many children about today. In fact, lots of folks walking into town today. An old red pickup truck with large cans or raw milk also drove by. It actually had a tin cup attached to one of the milk cans. Our carpenter never arrived, so for sure he had something pressing come up. We had wanted to go for a walk, but did not for fear of missing him. Tomorrow for sure a walk.

Jubilado

(Domingo 28 Julio- Sábado 03 Agosto)   Last Saturday at the end of the work day, Dan called our welder, carpenter and glazier, wondering why they hadn't got back to us about the small jobs that are still pending. Mauricio the welder apologized profusely and said he would stop by on tuesday, when he was expecting to finish up on another job. We could only leave a message on Melitón the carpenter's answering machine, and the glass shop said that Lenny would talk to us on monday. Of these, only Lenny was on top of things. We ordered two master sheets of 4.5mm thick polycarbonate, cut to fit the lower two feet of most of our upstairs windows. The idea was to mount them between the screen and the security bars, situated to block the rain that blows in when it bounces off the roof in these tropical downpours we have been experiencing. Lenny seemed to understand what we wanted and said the shop would call with a price for the materials. In the early evening they indeed called and quoted a price about 25% of what we had expected, and for 6mm thick material. We should have been suspicious, since the local glass shop had given us prices eight months ago that were much higher.

The next day Lenny showed up with the ten cut pieces, but they were not the solid lexan we expected, but instead were of two-layer insulated greenhouse glazing. Instead of glass-clear sheets, these obscure the view a bit. A trade-off, more privacy inside and a much better price, but with all those channels to collect water and dirt. What could we do but accept them, since it was special order? Later we found some cap strips at Home Depot, which we attached with aluminized tape at the ends, coming up with acceptable watertight units which we mounted on the windows later in the week. Looks like it may work fine, based on a couple of rainstorms since then.

Wonder of wonders, about 9am monday the water commission guys stopped by and began the excavation for our sewer connection. We have been waiting for this project to start for more than six months now. We expected the work to continue the next day, but a hole at the edge of the street, in front of neighbor Valentin's home, flagged off with warning tape, remained there for the rest of the week with no indication made of any further progress, although one morning a truck of workers did pull up, only to leave and not return. Our carpenter did not contact us, and the welder did not show up on tuesday or any day this week. Such is life here SoB, but we know enough to not get upset and bide our time. Being jubilado (retired, or as we say here, tongue in cheek, "jubilated"), we really don't have anything else to do but wait—and, eventually, things will be resolved.

We stained and varnished the frame and hinged louvered panels Dan had configured, converting two of the upper shelves in the office into a cabinet of sorts. Loose odds & ends that had been sitting on the bookshelves now go here, making the room seem much more tidy.

Friday was Carmen's scheduled appointment with Dr Rendon in consultorio 5 at the IMSS clinic, so she could pick up another month's worth of prescription meds, followed by getting those last two fillings done in the dental section. When we were talking to the doctor, Dan tried to find out about making an appointment for his annual labs and consult. Turns out his records had NOT been transferred from unit 3 over to unit 5. You might recall that we had gotten a phone call from IMSS that this had been taken care of in april, after initiating a request in early december with the head of the facility. After Carmen's work was finished, we visited the archivo (records) office, where they reassured us this could be cleared up, if only Dan could stop by with some additional documentation (proof of domicile, etc.) We'll have to take care of this some other day, as these docs are stored at home.

Now for the fun of the week! After breakfast each morning, we have been spending a couple hours on the terraza level outside our bedroom doing flash-card spanish lessons. Hopefully this is getting Carmen further along with comprehension, and the kitties have been helping by their presence too. Out on the corner of the terraza, the papaya plant which we planted from seeds garnered from a ripe fruit, sits in a big pot, and seems to grow a bit each day.  One day, to her surprise Smij kitty caught a butterfly and after being sure we saw it, she ran into the house with it still wiggling in her mouth. Wonder where it went – into her tummy or hiding out in the house? We got a good look, with our binoculars, at two birds. The one small brown & gray with a narrow bill. This one has a nest in the northwest corner of our roof. This bird has a beautiful song—and we have determined it to be a house wren. The other bird is all dark brown or black, with a slash of yellow across the head above the eye. We have not been able to find this bird in any website or bird book. How frustrating, but the the bird watching make the spanish lessons more enjoyable. And the butterflies by the dozens of many varieties. Also there is a huge dark moth fluttering about as we disturb its daily retreat.

Other fun – we have enjoyed relaxing on our front porch, acting like jubilados (retired, or as we say tongue in cheek, jubilated) folks. Watching people walk by as we are mostly hidden behind all our flowering plants. Dan in the green hanging (hammock-like) sky-chair and Carmen in a the most colorful woven hamaca, which we purchased in the Yucatan many years ago.

Last week we purchased light fixtures for our dining room and kitchen, replacing the last bare bulb sockets on the lower floor that came, as is typical here, with the house We (mostly Dan) installed them and we are happy with them. Our umbrella plant continues to lose leaves and we don't seem to be able to solve it's problem – too much or too little water/light? We have had hard rainstorms every evening and night for a couple weeks. Days are delightful however. Mother nature sure knows how to time her watering of the greenery and keep people happy at the same time, at least in this beautiful part of Mexico!