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.

.