Más Macetas, Más Flores

Domingo 17- Sábado 23 Noviembre   Dan updated some of our albums on DavesGarden, where he has put categorized fotos of the plants for which we have sure IDs and good pictures. We'll post more here as we work thru our master list of acquisitions, which we maintain on a spreadsheet. We have had comments about them from Colombia, US and Mexico, and answers to our queries about IDing plants from as far away as England. Sunday we drove to Ania and Frank's house to check things out while they are away, and to give their kitty some loves and food.

Lots more plants waiting to be planted, purchased over the last few days from Carmelo. He showed up again monday, bearing ten or so plants, which he peddles around the neighborhood. Despite Carmen saying no more, Dan convinced her to buy two we didn't yet have. Carmelo asked Dan for a loan, to “buy medicine.” No, we do not do that. We have several times given him pesos in advance for a couple of plants that we have not yet received, but that is our limit. Cosme was here about the same time, with a huge bag of orchid and other epiphytes he collected up north. Carmen said no more, but Dan felt he had to buy one, a unique large tillandsia from up by Papantla. A lady came by selling some smaller Hass avocados at a good price, so we bought three and she gave us another—they were very tasty. Now that valencias are coming into season, we bought another 40 pound bag of juice oranges, which proved to be much sweeter than the last bag we bought. Repeated frentes frios (cold fronts) are sweeping down from the states bringing cooler weather, but we see the sun most days.  The butterflies are still around when the sun warms up the air.  Here are two common ones we see often:  Diaetheria anna anna (Anna's 88), a brush-footed butterly, and the other one with iridescent silver/blue wingspots that we haven't yet ID'd.  hey both are about 2" across when wings are spread flat.

Dan has started burning CDs of our LP s and tapes. In Anacortes in the month before we came down here, he had copied well over 180 original recordings, using the shareware Audacity program, and stored the resulting aud files on his computer's hard disk, about 300GB in space that he really needs to free up. It did not make sense to bring the originals down here. Once converted to wav files (which can be burned to audio CDs), he wants to move the aud files into separate storage. We took advantage of the special seasonal sales, and went to Office Depot to buy an external hard disk specifically for storing media files for music, photos and such. A stop at Shattucks where we expected to see Manuel working, but this was a holiday (Dia de La Revolución) and he was not there.  

Tuesday we went to the IMSS hospital outpatient section for Carmen's cita with the ENT department. A nice Dr Cobos, who spoke some english, examined her and found no obvious cause for the dizziness. There is no swelling or apparent infection in the ear area, so the specialist feels the problem might be coming from her neck where she had surgery a few years ago to fuse some cervival vertebrae. Looking acutely up or down can stress her neck, perhaps causing the swelling which is affecting the blood supply to the inner ear. She is totally fed up with the head pain and dizziness! He prescribed a cortizone shot, with the hopes that her dizziness will disappear – there will be a followup with him in a month. The shot was interesting in that she was just given a prescription by the doctor. She had it filled at the hospital pharmacy where the clerk there provided a tiny bottle filled with injectible cortisone. She then had to find someone to give her the shot. Dan offered, but she preferred to go to our IMSS family clinic, where a nurse in the urgencias section used a syringe and gave it to her in the hip. Actually the nurse was a young fellow who looked to be in his teens. He did a really great job of very slowly injecting this thick fluid. We could have also gone to the clinic attached to the farmacia in Fortin, where it would have cost MX$30 for the doc there to do the injection.

From the parking spot near the hospital, we walked on into the center of the city where we went to the Waldos store. It finally has fig bars and those good oatmeal cookies again! Only place we have found them! Also we bought someattractive but inexpensive plastic macetas (flower pots) of various sizes;  we're sure to fill then as it seems we can't seem to have too many pots on hand. (Can't seem to turn down, each time, one more interesting flower -- this is Fortín de las Flores, after all!) Next door to Waldos is our favorite fabric store where we purchased, after much deliberation, the heavy upholstery fabric for the new bedroom bench seat, for which we bought the foam pad in Orizaba last week. Wondering when Carmen might finish this project? The fabric is rather exciting. It has the browns and greens of the other fabrics hanging over windows and storage areas, plus much rather country-ish looking patterning.

Of course, since we walked right past the main El Borrego store we bought a hunk of their delicious swiss cheese. Now loaded down, we walked the six long blocks up hill and down hill, back to our car. It is always a trick deciding which streets to walk on: where are the hills the least steep, where are there fewer steps in the sidewalks and where is the shade? We then drove to Frank & Ania's place and found the housekeeper tidying up and watering the outside plants. She said the uphill water tanks were dry. Dan checked them out, and turned on the water at the meter (Frank had turned it off before they left). The tanks had been full a few days earlier, so perhaps there's a leak, so we'll go back to turn the water off once the tanks are filled. (Dan later sent Frank an email to explain the situation and ask exactly how the water system was configured. Not a good thing for them to think about on their vacation.) Then home again, home again, jiggity jig.

This week a banana cream pie was made and devoured, plus a batch of chocolate chip cookies with oatmeal added. Our 5gal water garafon was delivered just as some came out of the oven, so of course a couple went to the delivery guys.  Across the street, the crew of albañiles are finished with the rubble foundations, and are pouring a reinforced bond beam along the top, a base from which they'll shortly erect concrete block perimeter walls.  We ran short of sand for our homemade potting mix, which needs to drain well to deal with the ample rainfall here, so Dan went across the street to buy two half-cubetas from the guys, from the huge pile they were working from.  This was way easier than driving somewhere to convince a building supply store to fill and sell us one bucket, when they normally sell it by the cubic meter.

Gardi cat finally had his outing and hike across the top of the narrow fenced ledge on the wall dividing our property from that of Valentin. He traversed out to the roof over the car entry into our backyard. He'd been studying this journey for quite some time. He crossed both slanted sides of this roof and onto the tiled skirt-roof above the west-facing bedroom window. Being a dead end, he went back and made the decision not to leap down into Valentin's property. This is the one place where he could actually get off our property, if he was brave enough to attempt the long, steep leap which would be required. We both did lots of calling to him, so he wisely decided he had had enough adventure, and returned to the terraza outside our bedroom. Now, until we get a barrier at this “jump over” place, kitties can not go out the bedroom door, which is really too bad since timid Smij cat feels comfortable there.

We needed to go to the Shattuck's saturday to feed their beautiful petite short haired calico cat. Our weather report told us that it was supposed to be light rain later, so we started our circle trip in the morning. First to the RG store to see if they had gotten our vacuum cleaner yet; nope. Office Depot for more clamshell CD cases. Next was Walmart, where we bought a Beatle's calendar and a tall flower vase, plus a few grocery items. Calendars are hard to find in this area; everyone stocks agendas (daily/weekly appointment books), but wall calenders big enough to make notes on are a rare item.

By now the weather was sprinkling on us. Off to home Depot to purchase the steel stock to create the fencing panel to keep Gardi where e think he belongs. Was raining hard by the time we left there. Still had to go to Shattucks. As we drove past their front gate, we saw a large branch from a palm laying just inside  on the driveway. We park and go in at the upper back gate. By this time the “sprinkles” have turned into a heavy downpour which kept us in our car a while. We found miss kitty under Ania's car, trying to stay dry. She does so love the cat food we take her. We also gave her a serving of her regular food, assuming she might save it for tomorrow? She is so very sweet and loves any attention we can give her. Dan dragged off the branch out front since it made the place look unoccupied, and checked that the water tanks are now full, and so turned of the main water supply at the meter.  ALl the plants on the terraza were well watered when we got home. Our cacti seem to be doing well despite the rain, as they are planted in shallow fast draining planters.

Dan indeed did sell our old hot water heater, for MX$300, about 1/10 the price of a new one, but better than scrap value. Our fresh cut flower man has not stopped this weekend and now we need them. The flower vase on the dining room table has drooping pink carnations from two weeks ago, but the pink anthuriums Ania gave us are still lovely. A wheelbarrow came to our front door loaded with ceramic cookware—turns out they were the very folks we had bought flower pots from streetside near the Super Ahorros grocery store in town. Carmen showed the two folks selling that she had some of their large pots. Their asking price was higher than we were used to paying, so we made a lower offer and the deal happened. We now have four empty large hand-painted ceramic tripod base pots longing to be filled with something beautiful.

Manos Verdes

Domingo 10- Sábado 16 Noviembre   A delicious start to this week with a nice dinner at Ania and Frank's. A celebration of Carmen's birthday with chayote soup and an adobo chicken with mexican rice course. We just love Ania's cooking, and she always takes so much care with presentation. We played four games of double dominoes. As we left Ania gave us some cut anthuriums that we put in the vase with the carnations we had purchased. She also gave us several stalks of a very interesting dried prickly plant from Veracruz. They are now over one of our living room windows, yet to be id'd. Also a couple of plant macrame hangers that her daughters had made. She does not hang items on her walls like we would, so she thought we could make use of them. And right she was. The hangers are in the living room with different types of prayer plants, which seem happy!

By Monday, Carmen had run out of the antibiotic to treat her arm, still a bit swollen, so we walked into town to buy another course of pills at a local pharmacy. We figured this would be quicker than going back to IMSS for a new prescription. Turned out that purchasing antibiotics takes a doctors prescription – can't just buy it over the counter like one used to be able to do here. Other than antibiotics and narcotics, all medicinal drugs can be bought over the counter on demand. The Similares (Generics) pharmacy has a small clinic, staffed with a doctor, attached to the store. On the wall is a list of services provided, with very reasonable prices. We explained the situation to the doctor, showed him the drug packaging we got from IMSS, answered some questions on how Carmen was faring, and he wrote out a receta (Rx) for another week of treatment. For this service we paid MX$30 (US$2.30). Next door, in the farmacia we bought the dicloxacillin, which here cost a tenth of what it would have been in the states. It was perfect weather for the walk, and we were happy to get the exercise!

Carmen spent most of this week exercising her manos verdes (green hands, ie "green thumbs"), planting new acquisitions and caring for them. This included potting up the little start of the Reina de Noche or Pitahaya (Hylocereus undatus, Night-blooming Cereus, Dragon Fruit) Celia provided, for which we have high hopes for fantastic flowers and delicious fruit. The plant is supposed to be a fast grower, which we will have to trellis against our south terraza wall. It seems everything here grows at warp speed, including not only wanted plants, but also weeds and insects. Dan spent some long hours perusing the internet, identifying plants we have growing here, and creating some online albums of plants of which we have good photos. There are links to our foto pages near the bottom of the navigation column to the right of this blog page. Frank reported that google maps just updated it's coverage in Fortín, adding street views of both the calle and avenida for the corner where we live. These are dated August 2012, the month before we arrived here with our furniture, so the house appears just as we purchased it, before any of our house renovations and painting.

Thursday, we picked Ania and Frank up at their house and took them to catch their bus in Orizaba, going to the airport in Mexico City, the first leg of their vacation. We are still wondering if they caught the bus for which they had tickets, since they got to the station only minutes before departure time. We had needed to go to Orizaba for foam for our bench seat in our bedroom. The foam shop was closed between 2 and 4, as many businesses are, and that was the time we got there after the stop at the bus terminal. To fill our time, we wandered about a bit in the downtown business area. Always an enjoyable walk in this beautiful old city. We also strolled the big mercado, which has hundreds of stalls selling about every imaginable item. Lots of interesting sights and smells, as markets of this kind are heaped with produce of all kinds, as well as raw fish and freshly butchered hanging meats, all mixed with cooking odors from many dining stalls.

Stores proffered large discounts for this weekend – “El Buen Fin” (the good weekend) is the third year of holding this mexican equivalent of the Black Friday weekend following Thanksgiving. Next Wednesday will be Mexico's Dia de la Revolución, but the holiday is celebrated monday, extending the shopping weekend into a four-day friday-monday affair. Yes, we just could not resist a good buy. Off to Home Depot to buy a small supplementary hot water heater to put in near the kitchen sink. We have been holding onto the old 38 liter storage-type heater we removed when we built the new bathroom, but realized we would be better served with a newer fast recovery de paso model (heats 6 liters of water almost immediately and continuously). Our main water heater is at the opposite end of the house and it takes long minutes to get hot water to the kitchen faucet. Being that Carmen is most impatient, and much extra water is used just draining the cool water in the lines before it turns hot, we decided to put this second water heater in. While at the store we also bought more soil and pots.

What a day saturday! Seemed like the whole town was stopping by to talk to us or sell us something. By 9am we had purchased 2kg of freshly dug red potatoes, an orchid in full bloom (Laelia anceps anceps) with an asking price of MX$120 (but Carmen really does not want any more orchids, so she firmly held out while the seller's price dropped over and over, until she relented and paid MX$50), plus more plants from Carmelo. We must have one of nearly every plant that Carmelo grows! Such a variety! Thruout the rest of the day there were folks asking for money and food or work. We never give money – only food. Our fresh flower man again had beautiful long stemmed flowers, but we did not need any this week. Our last week's carnations were still healthy. Folks ringing the bell included some with questions about the old water heater we now have for sale and people looking for some other address.

During a typical week, many vendors pass down the street, hoping to sell: unfinished small furniture, pillows, coconuts, fresh herbs, garlic bulbs, fruits, avocados and many homemade items like breads, tamales, desserts, pickles, etc. There's also the man with a bicycle cart selling fresh raw milk right out of the steel milk can (the kind that farmers in US used in the past). And services like the knife sharpener, the motorcycle-riding postman, and the guys that drive around wanting to buy scrap metal. Then add in the regular domestic deliveries of bottled water and propane (at least three brands of each have customers in this neighborhood), and commercial deliveries to the little house-front abarrotes (grocery-sundry shops), at least one in every block. On and on the list goes,and many varieties of just about anything one can think of, will eventually come to our door with the hopes of a sale. Not all of these sales people passed by saturday, but any typical week most of these vendors will be seen. And most of them just walk past hawking their wares, without ringing doorbells or knocking, depending on residents to hear them pass and come out if they are interested in buying.

Oh yes – there is the saxophone man, and occasionally a three-man conjunto of musicians. They come by playing a few bars of music, up and down the streets, hoping for an appreciative tip! Plus all the folks just walking past who have a smile and hello makes for a rich full busy life here. The weather has been delightful, the various cold fronts (we're expecting number 14 this next weekend as I am writing this) bringing in very sleepable nights (not so cool that the bedroom window isn't open all the time) and mid-70's sunny days.  Dan is speaking more extensively to folks, which pushes his learning (finding the correct verb tenses and using those pesky relational pronouns), making it that much easier to keep conversation flowing.  Vocabulary has never been much of a problem for him, but then there are those subjunctive tenses to stumble over too. All in time...!

Medicada

Domingo 03 - Sábado 09 Noviembre   This was Carmen's birthday week, and as usual (as she recalls) it turned out to be a bad week for her. The dizziness she had suffered has not gone away. Monday morning she woke up with a puffed up left arm, sore and red around the elbow. Fortunately, we already had a family doctor's appointment that day. Dr Rendon examined the swollen arm, which had no apparent insect/spider bites nor abrasions – simply no problem visible from the outside. He gave her antibiotics for the infection in the arm, and more meds to control the vertigo, dizziness. On wednesday Carmen had her six month appointment with the rheumatologist in Orizaba. Dra Estevez felt the arm was a complication due to scleroderma. She wrote out ongoing prescriptions for the year. Included was a course of a powerful antihistamine for the swelling affecting circulation for the inner ear, which is probably causing the vertigo. She gave us a referral slip to take to the Cordaba central IMSS facility, for an appointment with an otorrinolaringologo (ear, nose & throat) doctor there. Soonest this doctor could see Carmen is 19 noviembre. Meanwhile, a medicada (medicated)dosed up Carmen can seldom stay awake, and has napped a lot this week.

Our flower starts man, Carmelo, has been here several more times. Carmen worked hard at potting everything up, with most of the acquistions hanging either on the north end of the front porch, or in shallow planters (the succulents) going up on the terraza in shallow planters. Up there, we noticed that our little potted payaya tree, which we started from a sprouted seed found in a fruit, while it's only about a yard tall, is already starting to form real bark on the truck near the base, and has the smallest of fruits developing near the top.  Whether these will actually ripen into something edible, we're waiting to see.  We're running out of garden space for plants we actually want to put in the ground, so we think we'll have José Luís come back for a day or two, after the rainy season finally passes, and do a bit more work for us, including laying a pathway thru the north side of our front yard. We ordered the additonal 54 adoquines (concrete pavers) when we drove into Cordoba monday. We will then remove the tiny bit of grass we have and let it all become a flower garden. It seems the passers-by enjoy our flowers almost as much as we do.

When we went to Orizaba on wednesday, we visited the espuma (foam rubber) shop that we had found way back when we thought we'd need a mattress built for us. Parking spots are at a premium on the narrow streets of old Orizaba, but luck was with us, and we found a spot only two blocks away. We need a foam cushion made for the bench seat in the closet area Dan built in our bedroom. The ownership had apparently changed from father to son, and he no longer will make finished items. He recommended a few tapicería (upholstery) shops a few blocks away, but we never found them. Looks like Carmen will have this task – shouldn't be much different from how she made the futon cover. We'll buy just the piece of foam when we next have a chance.

Next we drove to the big Plaza Valle shopping mall which we had heard was in Orizaba, but had yet not seen it. The parking area was enclosed and gated. We drove up to the entrance and while Dan was studying it to figure it out, a person the next gate over told us to just push the button and take the ticket and drive on in. There were no explanatory words or symbols on the ticket machine. We walked thru the mall, a location for many expensive stores (Liverpool, Sanborns and the like) and a multiplex cinema. Back to our car, we now had to figure out how to exit. The bars across the gates are of course all down. We drove up and put our ticket in the most obvious slot, but the gate would not come up, and the ticket was ejected back out of the machine. There was no slot to put in any money. Meanwhile other cars were exiting as the bars raised and lowered. Hmm. We tried another gate. Still no luck. We backed out of the gated exit area to watch what others were doing to get the gate to raise. It looked like we were doing it right. Finally Dan walked back into the mall and asked a fellow near the door how the ticket could be used to exit. He was directed to a little vending machine under the stairs where he could put the ticket in, put coins in a slot, and receive a validation stamp on the ticket. We assume that there might be a way to get one's ticket validated if one were to make a purchase at one of the bigger stores, but otherwise the parking cost MX$10 per hour. As we drove out we decided we will never have a need to go there again – not our style or budget, thank you.

We had a late lunch at the Chinese buffet restaurant near Chedraui grocery store. We park in the store's sizeable underground parking lot. After lunch, Dan did buy a couple items there. Home before dark. The remainder of the week was pretty low key, with Carmen catching up on reading and a lot of meds-induced napping. Saturday was a busy day, with the frontgate buzzer ringing at least a dozen times as various itinerant vendors and others made their presence known.

So far, we have mostly been putting in temperature and currency equivalents when we post someting here about the weather or costs. As we get more accustomed to thinking in Metric, Celsius and Pesos, we'll probably do this less, so we have included some tools at the bottom of this page you can view to convert some numbers to make better sense of what we are experiencing.

Fieles Difuntos

Domingo 27 Octubre - Sábado 02 Noviembre

We have spent many frustrating hours with our computer, trying to identify the 27 new plants we have purchased from our “plant man” who we asked, is named Carmelo. The far majority of the new purchases are not identified yet. His plants continue to be very well rooted, gorgeous and inexpensive. We finally have our succulent and cactus garden of 15 plants, in planters on our terraza. Of course this meant another trip to Home Depot for pots so that Carmen could re-pot them all. Our north fence on the front porch, is becoming a plant wall. The plants will need a few more years to grow to complete it they way it is imagined to develop. Dan drilled holes in the pots and Carmen helped him hang them. Our orchids are starting to blossom! Carmen is still not convinced that orquideas are worth all the time they take throughout the year, as tmany of them are under the eaves on the porch, and so need regular attention to watering & fertilizing, etc. Plus they usually only bloom a few times a year (although when blooming the flowers last a long time), so there is a lengthy part of the year they just hang there being green. Her preference so far, are the many plants that blossom all year here.

We started to leave wednesday for a walk into town. We got thru our front door and found that the security gate there would not unlock! Luckily that lock could be removed from inside with the help of a screwdriver. The lock went for a walk with us. Thankfully it is not welded in place like most of our other gate locks. The lock got dropped off at the locksmiths and we walked on to pay our electric bill which was much higher this time! US$37 for two months. This is US$16 over previous months. Up to 280 kwh a month costs about US$0.07 per kwh, and above that, in the bracket we found ourselves this time, three times as much. The cause is that Carmen has been enjoying using her toaster-oven for baking petite desserts. Perhaps the big propane oven would cost no more to bake with but it seems such a waste, since it needs preheating too. However, we do not want to be put into a higher bracket for electricity, so we need to be a little more cautious. But, you know, baking only eight small cookies at a time is such a “waist line” saver!

Our lock would not be ready for an hour, so we, for the first time in a couple months, took the time to sit in the park. We must do this more often. With nothing else to occupy our minds, other than people-watching, we had a good time conversing about topics we rarely get into at home. We saw a couple in lederhausen-like outfits; they seemed to be mexican teens dressed up for the holiday. Several of the ofrendas for tte coming ay of the ead  celebrations were under construction in the open space in front of cit hall.On our way home we saw amaranth flowers for sale. We bought a bunch. They, along with huge marigolds are the main flowers for this weekend honoring the deceased.

Last week, getting into the spirit of the season, as it were, over a thousand of the living-dead, and pretenders to the zombie “lifestyle” paraded thru the streets of Cordoba. Some of the walkers (or is it “biters”) were quite convincing as they ambled along. A good outlet for those who wanted to appear in disfraz (costume & mask), as halloween is not a big thing here. The days at the end of october are special in that people who died from accidents or drownings are especially remembered, but the Octuber 31^st day itself is hardly noted, much different than in the US. No trick or treating, at least in our neighborhood, though some homeowners decorate a bit, prompted by the US-style seasonal paraphenalia imported by some of the big city merchants.

November 1^st, Friday this year, is Todos Santos (All Saints) day, honoring all the saints in the catholic canon, and those who are making claims to sainthood. Also children who died in youth are remembered this day. November 2^nd is the big celebration, a remembrance of all the fieles difuntos (faithful departed) on All Souls day, also called Dia de los Muertos. A bit like our Memorial Day, except the cemetery here fills to overflowing with family visitors. They take huge quantities of flowers and decor to adorn the plots, sing and play musical instruments while perhaps picnicing around the graves with foods the deceased was known to have favored. It is really something to experience Some days later the cemetery attendants clean up all the debris. Also, the parque central is the site of large ofrendas, altar-like displays honoring respected personages of the past, made here of thousands of flower petals, dry beans, corn and other foods along with sawdust and sand, all shaped into patterns and walkways on the ground, interspersed with votive candles to guide the way for visiting souls. Kids and teens, influenced no doubt by NoB halloween traditions, are taking more and more to dressing up in scary costumes and walking around the park to show them off.

November 2^nd people also honor and remember their forebears, with family meals created around the favorite foods of their loved ones. Do we by any chance know any favorite foods? Here are our guesses, since we really do not know – for the decdents in Carmen's family:  for her mother she would say popcorn with lots of butter. She really liked the butter that she got from a cousin's dairy. It was made with slightly soured cream, much like most of the butter here in Mexico. For her father, she would say fudge. She really has no idea about her sister, Judy, whom she feels she hardly knew. Perhaps we had best ask our siblings or be more aware on our rare visits? The best would be to visit with family more often, but that won't happen with much frequency, living so far away now. Dan's father loved a good sharp cheese, and sardines & kippers – in fact all sea food. His mother loved pistacio pudding, green seedless grapes and chocolate ice cream. Oh yes, they both enjoyed their 4pm coctail. Do Dan's brothers remember any other items? Now, Carmen's favorites are: salt cod gravy, rutabaga, and pastries of all sorts. Dan's would be sardines, sharp cheeses, sweet cherries, and oatmeal cookies. How about all of you who read this? Soooo many foods to choose from.

Since we had to go to IMSS monday to get vigencia papers stamped for Carmen's blood test on friday, we tried to get in to see our doctor. We arrived there at 7am. At 8:30 the receptionist told us that there were 20 people ahead of us and we should go down to urgencias (emergencies). We waited there another two hours. However, we need to say that a nurse always checks you in, asks for your symptoms, and does some basic tests (BP, temperature, etc) immediately upon arrival, sort of a triage exam to determine if you need to be attended to right way. Carmen is still having bad dizziness. The emergency section doctor gave her meds to get her thru until her regular appointment next monday. We also found the Brandt-Daroff exercise for BPPV on the internet to help with the vertigo symptoms. Carmen thinks she is a speck better. We have her monthly appointment scheduled for next monday, and if she is not better by then, the doctor will send her to a specialist. As we sit for hours waiting for medical assistance, we consider a private doctor. But, the IMSS is free, and what else have we got to do?

Actually while at IMSS, a lady asked us if we were German or English. She was delighted to find that we were from Washington state. She has an agronomist brother living many years in Oregon who works for a landscaping firm. She is an english teacher at the ESBAO, one of the technical schools in Cordoba. She and her daughter (to whom she has spoken english since a baby) are going to come visit us so that she can strengthen her english. Later, a lady sitting next to Carmen in the waiting area in Urgencias, started talking, so Carmen has had her first talk on her own with a spanish speaking person. The lady spoke clearly and Carmen could understand her easily. Just talking about the usual – why are you here, where are you from, are you vacationing here, why here? Easy, though later Carmen told Dan that she might have referred to him as her hombro (shoulder), instead of hombre (man).

Across the street the foundation ditches are still filled with rain water, stopping further progress until things dry out. Not much happening here at home construction-wise. Carmen did persuade Dan to create some special plant hanging gizmos for our epiphytes made of scrap wood, wire, and some shade cloth we bought for the purpose. The dark brown loose-weave shade cloth is stapled to the wood, leaving space for the plant, leaf mold and a little soil. Wire loops suspend the plant on a wall or column (lacking as we do many crotched tree limbs on our lot) – a perfect home for some of our bromeliads and orchids. As the weekend arrived, we could feel autumn in the air. The cooler nights have caused a few leaves to fall here, but daytime temperatures are still in the mid to upper 70's. Saturday was a day of thunders and HARD short rains.