the new gate

 The gate has been hung and painted and looks quite spiffy.  The whole thing makes the street look less like it's been abandoned.  Ours is the only house on the block.  There is a large vacant lot to the southeast, a walled-in vacant lot to the west, and only a small house on the corner to the north.  Now our lot at least looks cared for.  It is painted what we thought was the same color as our garage and front doors.  We ordered two liters of what we thought was the same color  but when Fernando opened the cans they contained two different shades.  So he just mixed them together and this is what we got.  It's a bit more red than the other doors but I like it better.  Of course we could never get that same shade again so I hope we don't ever need to repaint or touch up!

Opera tomorrow is Donizetti's Elisir d'Amore, live from the Met at noon, my time.  I am looking forward to my Dago's shrimp salad!

And speaking of shrimp,we made this delicious shrimp and pasta concoction for dinner Wednesday night.  We used an old recipe for clams but substituted shrimp since we can't get clams here.  It is loaded with garlic, red pepper flakes and roasted cherry tomatoes ~ also impossible to find but we came across these at WalMart up in Colima and paid a pretty peso for them.  Extremely yummy!