Levantando los Muros

Domingo 27 Enero – Sábado 02 Febrero 2013.  (Dom 27^th)  Oh, isn't life exciting!!!!!!!!!! Dan advised on payroll taxes for a couple of his people while Carmen lounged in bed with the kitties. Had a nice leisurely brunch. Carmen spent a couple hours out front happily weeding and watering plants, after hanging out laundry. What ever will she do with her extra time when we get our washing machine? Clothes will still mostly be hung outside to dry, even with a new dryer. Dan now went into our work zone and installed cyclone fence clips. Carmen had to keep running out back to hold the ladder. We had stuff against open front door so that Gardi could see out where Carmen was. While Dan was going in and out back door – Gardi got outside and Dan called Carmen to come get him Gardi was simply wanting to mosey around smelling of things. Well kitty got his nose totally out of joint when he was not allowed to continue his great discoveries by himself.

Next we went to Home Depot to buy a lot of things that we knew would take a long, long time deciding on. We need to be mostly here this week because of what the work crew is doing. Much plumbing and electrical, which Dan must do part of. Shopping done, we went to check out and waited and waited and waited some more for someone to help us at the contractor's counter where we get a discount of up to 15%. Finally we were told that one can not check out there on sundays, or after 3pm saturdays. We left our very full cart there behind the contactor counter hoping it would not be unpacked by monday morning, since we had spent hours filling it.

Drove into Fortín to get another bank atm draw, only to find no available parking. Another beautiful evening and it seemed the whole town was there to enjoy life in the park.

(Lun 28^th) Got to Home Depot before eight this morning - they open at seven. Happy to find our cart there and full. No one in the contractor station yet, so we did a bit more shopping. The one metal door we have chosen might not be available, and if it is it will be a month in arriving. Eight o'clock rolled around and someone arrived to check us out. Home again by 9am. Went to the bank and the atm was out of money! Bank does not open til 10 am to refill the atm.

Our foreman did not arrive with his crew today. He had to go to the doctor with his wife. His crew is keeping busy. Saturday Dan ordered a sand delivery for this morning – it was not delivered be midday. The guys saw a truck go by from FortiFerre and hailed them down to inquire about it – did not know about the order, but would bring it soon – an hour ago. Meanwhile the guys are out of sand, so have had to change jobs. Dan called the store an hour later and they assured him it would be here soon. Wonder just what 'soon' means?

Also the city sanitation fellows said they would come here today to let us know exactly where we are to put our new larger lines. Our foreman says we must construct a larger registro, a sewage distribution box set into our sidewalk outside the property walls. In the US one would just use some plumbing fittings, perhaps with a cleanout fitting inlcuded. Dan installed more overhead lights that we bought this morning. All the overhead lights in the house were fitted out with the cheap white porcelain bare bulb sockets, or just a hanging socket at the end of a wire. The hanging bulbs we outfitted with paper Chinese globular shades, and now we're swapping out the white sockets with some good looking but inexpensive fixtures

Cosme, the fellow who likes to sell us plants and malathion spray our house, rang our door bell a bit ago. Here he is with bug spray again. No, we do not want our house sprayed, but some of the plants have way too many white flies and various other buggies and larvae. So we had him spray the plants. We looked out the kitchen window and discovered him spraying our porch roof. He said that the wood harbors insects so he assumed we wanted that sprayed too.

Carmen looked into the kitchen to see a flame shooting across a counter – over a newspaper. Dan was soldering some copper pipes and fittings. Looked scarier than it apparently was. Time to put items in our new kitchen cupboard, having left the fresh varnish to dry until there was no odor apparent. Oh what shall go there?? Such decisions. Sad report on lunch. Fresh green beans got their bottoms scorched. Carmen added fresh tomato slices over their tops on the dinner plate to pretty them up, though actually the dark streaks on the beans did add color to the plate.

(Mar 29^th) Luis was back at work today, and he and Dan decided the best next task was to get all the white PVC waste pipes in the ground. The crew started removing the paving blocks in the backyard, and opening the ditches we'll need to run from the new bath area to the road. While this was going on we cemented up a little Christmas tree of fittings and the four faucets which will control the water temp and selection of heads (one fixed, one on a wall slider bar) for the new shower space. These all have to line up and the whole assembly has to be let into the wall that will be going up later this week.

Our living room floor looked like a child has been playing with his building blocks, as Dan had all the plumbing fittings for the drain lines set out so they will know where each part goes. The old registro that took the 2” drain line from the laundry was broken out and enlarged into the sidewalk by the back gate. Still no help from the city as to where the line goes from there, but Luis seems confident that info will be provided later. He and Alfonso continued ditching in the addition's floor area, cut all the PVC pipe and dry fitted it all together. Dan looked it over and approved the layout, and the guys proceeded to glue up everything, and then backfill.

Carmen found a package of Nonsuch mincemeat, so of course she made a pie of it today. Oven worked great, though we have not determined exactly how to control the temperature. We spent some time on the internet trying to figure out the best route for our journey north in May. Going to visit Carmen's siblings in Pennsylvania, and also visiting Washington state. Lovely out today. Dan also spent time on computer helping various folks with bookkeeping, plus he made a quick run or walk to a store for a couple more pieces of waste pipe, so it could all be cemented together.

The car will remain on the street tonight, since we can't enter the backyard with the new registro box remaining, newly mortared blocks setting up & hardening, open in the middle of the sidewalk.

(Mie 30^th) Still trying to get Carmen's appointment for Orizaba. How many times have we stood in a line to get these appointment documents? Again this morn we arrived at the IMSS hospital where we needed to get these forms, as we were told to to this a week ago. Were there by 8:15am for an office that opens at 9am, and found only two people ahead of us. We were out by 9:15am this time. However, our paper work still has not gone thru, so we must return to stand in yet this line again, next week thursday! Oh well. What else do we have to do with our time, now that we are “retired”?

Now on to Home Depot to check on the door we ordered. Still not sure if we can get our first choice. The screws did finally arrive though This store has many empty shelf spaces and stock bins in it now. The managers are not yet good at predicting which items delete quickly and can not easily be replaced. A fellow shopper talked to us in english sputtering about the store not being like the ones in the US. We bought lights and fixtures for our laundry-shop room, plus more plumbing fittings and of course the long awaited screws. Carmen checked out the items while Dan talked to office personnel about the door. Took three ladies to cope with Carmen's no spanish. We stopped at Chedraui to purchase this week's fresh veggies and fruits. As we were checking out, Carmen realized that she had forgotten to cruise the bakery. That is a first! She and Dan checked out at different counters, since the good sale on juice oranges (less than US$0.06/lb) only allowed three kilos per person at that price. We do enjoy our fresh orange juice-----

Now we had an unusual situation. Carmen had a dental appointment at noon and it was not even 11am. Since we had no more shopping for the day, and the IMSS wait was so short today – now what? We decided to try the dentist early, and were in luck. His earlier patient was gone already, so we were thankful we thought to check in early. We find the fact that Dr Soley makes all the parts for teeth right there most interesting. Today Carmen opened her sleepy eyes and saw a flame torching up into the air. He was finishing off the pin or endopost that will go into the last root canaled tooth. Dan forgot to bring a book to read, but found an interesting publication, full of local history and commentary. Here's a link http://magazineveracruzano.blogspot.mx so you can look up this magazine on the internet.

We were home by 12:30pm. Would have been a few minutes earlier, but for the transito police not letting anyone thru - all had to make a u-turn on the bulevar and go back east on the road, back towards Córdoba! We assumed there was an accident up ahead. At any rate, there are few roads that go between the two cities. Luckily Dan had been eying this one cobblestone road – wondering where exactly it would take him, figuring it would go thru a subdivision that was gated. Yes it did go there, but we were able to find an ungated route around the gated areas. Dan's curiosity was satisfied and this detour saved us another half hour of driving to get home, plus a passage thru the toll booth on the autopista, which was the route most seemed to be taking.

We both took a wee nap. Workers filled in the paving blocks removed to run sewer lines and started mortaring up the blocks for bathroom wall. Time for decisions. Dan has spent much time on plans for the bathroom. Now we needed to refine a few measurements, to make the tile work be perfect.

(Jue 31^st) Dan is lodged in front of his computer this day, making sure credit card accounts are paid up, and trying to find out why the magazines we expected to be delivered here haven't been showing up. Carmen made chocolate chip cookies. They came out flat and rather crispy. Not sure what in ingredient is making this happen. Still yummy and shared with our employees – just warm from oven when they were taking their morning break. They are still working on the bathroom walls. This morning we had to dash upstairs and measure Carmen for the height of a short wall running along and a bit further from the seat at one end of the shower. Yesterday Carmen had to stand along where the window above the shower goes, to let Dan determine how high the window will be.

Since there will be copper piping being used for the gas line, Dan spent time on the internet studying the whys and why-nots of embedding the pipe in concrete. Raining at bit this morning and 55 degrees. Still the fellows are sounding happy. Near noon the rain stopped and temperature is up to 60.

There is a gray cat outside that seems to think this area is hers. A female, because we saw a kitten with her awhile ago. She can get on our roof next to several windows, which means of course that we need to keep those windows closed at night or our Smij thinks she must protect us by screaming and bouncing off the screen. Doubt that the screens will last long with her antics. Last night the gray cat was sitting on the back wall staring at our house. Pretty in silhouette.

(Vie 01^st) Had to turn the computer on to find out what day of the week today is. Too much retirement? More blocks, and gravel for the ceiling/roof slab delivered. Work progressing on bathroom muros (walls). Much chipping out of old concrete along our south retaining wall – to be able to key in the new bath ceiling/terrace floor slab. An upstairs bedroom window was removed to prep for the door opening on to the terraza that will go in it's place. Carmen must get the screen on the window sanded and painted. She refinished the rest of the window already.

Drove to Home Depot for some pipe insulation. Since the concrete was chipped out, the old water lines which were embedded in the walls to our existing upstairs bath are exposed and we want them insulated, reducing heat loss on the long run, with the hopeful result of more hot water for showers there. Wanted to do a bank stop, but being the first of the month AND a Friday, a long line of folks was at the atm. Stopped at an atm in the mall about 11am, and it was out of money. We have enough to pay wages tomorrow but little besides. Not good to get this low.  The guys installed the pipe insulation right away, the new beam and slab will cover this area soon.

We bought a piece of hardware cloth fencing to put over the bottom of our front gate so that little dogs can not come in and use our front yard for their toilet! Also will put some of the fencing over the lower part of our gate attached to the front door so that kitties can look out the door without escaping.

We toured the bakery at Chedraui. Did not expect to buy anything in the store this time so did not take a shopping basket. They have the best huge muffins there!! And there were maple covered donuts today – our favorite. Dan checked out the shelf of discontinued specials and we stacked Carmen's arms full of ½ pound bags of imported italian linguini flavored with salmon, squid ink, lemon and porcini mushrooms. . Next we happened to passed by the liquor section. All 30% off. So what could we do? A bottle of rum was added. Plus a box of specialty cookies and a specialty bread to freeze. Food shopping has become much fun here. Must admit that we occasionally can not eat what we buy. But always worth a try!

We traveled the length and breadth of Córdaba this morning searching for hardware for the windows we are having moved and rehung, converted from sliders to hinged. Also searching for a wall hung tiny sink for our terrace above the bathroom. There do not seem to be any in this part of the world. How would a urinal look up there, to use as a simple sink? All we need is the connection to the drain line, and install a hose bibb above it for a faucet and sometime connection for the hose we'll use to water the potted plants planned for the terrace. We just want to run cold water, and do little washing there.

While Carmen was waiting at the car gate for Dan to return from taking our crew to the bus stop, a young fellow stopped his bicycle and said hello. Carmen asked if he spoke english and he said yes, he just moved here from Los Angeles four months ago, and he speaks little spanish. His father is from the US and his mother is from here. She was so homesick that they moved back here. They live one block west and one block south from us. Carmen told Louis to stop by any time he wanted to speak english.

(Sab 02^nd ) Laundry out this morn – four days worth. Foggy, but see a wee bit of blue sky with 58 degrees at 7am. Kitties are most interested in the room upstairs that now has a piece of plywood over the window hole. The crew finished working their 56 hour week at 1pm. The walls are up and and work is progressing on tying the rebar cadenas to reinforce the beams that will be poured on top of them, tying everything together.  Dan took them to almost the bus stop – actually he dropped them off at an automotive supply store near there. The one fellow has a car in need of repair, and parts are cheaper here than is Cosco. Next Dan picked Carmen up and drove over to Fortín center. Finally made a successful atm stop. Bought a tiny hand sink for the terrace and more ½” galvanized mesh for the front porch area. Sat in the park awhile. Today the clerks at the hardware asked how old we are. We often wonder how old people are, so guess it is acceptable to ask them here. Last week Dan was asked how old he was by our crew and Carmen was asked by her dentist. Happily most people guess we are younger than we really are, so we must be doing something right.

We zip-tied the mesh up on the gates at the front of house. No more little dogs can come into our yard and we can leave the front door open for kitties to look out safely. The entry door itself is solid wood and the hinged gate just outside it is open bars, and it is not possible to window screen it because of the way is attaches to the wall. We have rarely seen mosquitoes or flies here, so no problem that way. The cats promptly took up positions just inside, examining their new vista our work has provided to them.

Carmen finished off this week with putting together a puzzle – though not finished. Dan spent time with his computer, struggling with some javascript that refuses to cooperate.