Domingo 15-
Sábado 21 Diciembre
Sunday we insulated
our windows with foam backer rod, as a sort of temporary, later removable, weather stripping along the middle stile join, and edges where
there was space. Another cold front had swept down from the US. Also covered our
vanilla orchid again with plastic. That front did not hang around and it turned out that the rest of the week was delightfully pleasant, with nights only down into the upper 50s and clear sunny days that briefly broke into the 80s. However, cold fronts will come thru for a couple more months. Dan has been considering how to convert our very attractive but useless fireplace into a heat source to take off the
de vez en cuando chill when the temps dip and we need a spot of medium heat for several hours. 90% of the heat from an open fire goes up the chimney, and anyway, we do not have a source of
leña to build the large fires that would be needed. He has been researching "rocket-stove" and masonry heaters online, pondering possible variations and sketching designs. Unfortunately, most of the development work on such efficient heating comes from cold climates where much more heat is demanded from stove designs, and ambient interior/exterior temp differentials are much greater. A good look at the issues involved is in this
publication from the good folks at the Aprovecho Research Center, a group that traces it's history back to the 1976 Guatemala earthquake, and based in the Oregon Cascades.
Monday we met Ania
and her mother at Sam's Club warehouse store. We do not yet have a membership
there. Come next May, Ania's current membership expires and we plan to
go in together on her renewal at that time. This means we will share the MX$450 membership fee and each have a card, and if we shop together we can split the larger quantities that are mostly sold here, much better for two small households. This day we
bought a pressure cooker, and some other goodies. We had earlier seen
real fruitcakes there but they were now sold out, so sad. Actually, a just-before-Xmas fruitcake purchase was the
main reason we asked to meet Ania there, so we could make that anticipated buy. We both love fruitcake and they are not normally available in Mexico.
It's hard to believe it's
casi (almost) Christmas is almost here, what with flowers still blooming and plants to be watered and tended outside in the garden. However, Monday evening Mexican children started making their pre-Christmas
posada rounds to sing their song about Mary and
Joseph looking for a room. More likely around here, the kids sing about
La Rama (a decorated branch). In fact Sunday we saw Alex and his son traipsing back from the south edge of town carrying branches for this purpose. Here's more about this Veracruz
tradition, courtesy of John Calypso. We give them a couple pesos for the group and each a piece
of candy. They always have a bag for the goodies and can for the
monedas, usually with a slot too small to easily drop the coins into. One boy came with two others the first night, then the next three
nights with one of the little girls, and thereafter by himself. He
now gets only a piece of candy for his singing efforts. Thursday evening, everyone introduced
themselves. They always thank us. One boy, maybe 10 years old, asked if we
spoke english, and he proudly told us in english that he did too. We
invited him to come back and talk to us again. He seemed delighted.
Will he return? They mostly ring our door bell between 6 & 8pm, except for the two teen age boys who arrived one night at 10pm. Dan told them that
they should be home in bed that late.
Ania, Frank and
Wanda came for a turkey dinner wednesday. We have been unable to
find cranberry sauce in any of the grocery stores, so... We boiled up some aranadanos dehidratados (cran-raisins) with a bit of sugar,
then added some canned pineapple and fresh lime rind, all cooked down to a relish consistency.
Absolutely scrumptious! The turkey was overdone, par for the course as we are just getting used to our oven. Apple raisin
stuffing, mashed potatoes and giblet gravy, candied yams, baby peas, plus lime meringue
pie. Rosé wine from España, a good deal from Sam's Club at US$1.77 per bottle. The yams are different here. Not so naturally sweet, plus Carmen sauced them in butter with piloncillo (brown cane sugar) instead of
regular brown sugar. This sugar, sold in little grenade-sized cones or pylons, has to be cut or broken up and is
not as sweet as NoB granular brown sugar. After a very filling meal, we played mexican dominoes.
Carmen won the series, though we all had our turns winning games,
which makes for fun.
Thursday Carmen
made lots of Christmas cookies, with a bit of help from Dan. The eight varieties
are: Linzer schnitten, Chocolate chip bars (the recipe from Nancy
Clark), Sugar cookies (rolled, cut & frosted), Nutty balls, Carrot bars with lime and lime frosting (always used oranges before, but our
oranges had gone too soft to grate the peel), Blackberry jam bars, Chewy noel bars (a buttery nut bar), and Brown-eyed susans which are
almond flavored with a spot of chocolate on the top center. This is the first
week our oven has been used very much. Everything turned out good,
except for a few over-done bottoms because a tray was too close to
the edge of the oven. Lesson learned if you want perfection – bake
one tray at a time!
Friday Dan had to
go to IMSS to get his lab slip stamped in order to have the tests next
week. We hit several of the major food stores to check out their
special holiday foods. Still hoping to find molasses.
Walmart had it last year, but not now. Next was the Soriana hypermart. This
store is new and had little business, so perusing the aisles was
relaxing. We discovered that a Little Ceasars has opened in this new shopping center. Good to know that the closest LC pizza is no longer in
Veracruz! Next we headed for Chedraui and the parking lot was
absolutely packed. We will try it next week after Xmas. On to Home
Depot for more gardening supplies, and some copper pipe & fittings for the upcoming kitchen hot water heater installation. Lastly a stop at
Shattucks to deliver the Xmas cookies made yesterday. Met Ania's
daughter Milena and her children from near Puerto Vallarta. The whole family will have Christmas together at Kalina's home in Boca del Rio, near Veracruz city.
Over the course of the last few days of the week, we gave out 16 Xmas plates and three small bags of these cookies to neighbors and service/utility workers, and kept some for ourselves. We hope that these recipes from our traditions will be a rare treat for our Mexican friends So far Josefina has given us peach-filled empanadas, and Juanita's daughter came to our door with large pastries similar to elephant ears. Yumm. Oh yes, construction across the street has stopped for the hoilday season, and the crew there erected a temporary chain link fence to deter people from wandering in, falling into excavation holes, and perhaps helping themselves to some sand or gravel.
Gardi gave us
another scare with his wanderings. He is adventuring onto distant
jumps from one of our roofs to another. He also thinks it great fun
to ask us to get a ladder to get him down. When we are about to take
hold of him, he proves that of course he can jump back to where he
came from! Since telling
Carmelo that we wanted no more plants til mid-January, we now have
19 waiting to be planted. We are having problems with our large
orchid pseudo-bulbs shriveling. Apparently this can be from either over- or
under-watering – so what to do? Dan wrapped some spanish moss around the root tendrils of some of the mounted orchids, and we think this is taking care of the problem. Despite the cool weather, or perhaps because of it, we discover new orchid blooms several times a week.
