more of the same

Bright and early this morning Eve showed up for more demo of the downstairs bathroom.  I'm documenting the progress and will put up the pix  when it's all done.  He and I talked about some designs, colors, etc.  It's going to be fabulous!  Muy loco downstairs and a bit more refined upstairs, in a Mexican sort of way.

Next Fernando arrived to check on the progress of the pump installation.  No, Elias has not been back.  He called my attention to the poison pellets he brought, showed me how to seed the crab's mounds, and hurried off.  His surgery is scheduled for next Monday and he has lots to do before then.

Mr. C decided he was not imperative to the demo downstairs so took himself off to Armeria to pay the year's taxes and water delivery fee.   While he was off doing "important" work I bustled around in the kitchen preparing our dinner.  The first item was to make a mirepoix as a base for the pork loin roast.  A couple of weeks ago I got a message from one of my readers about my previous reference to a mirepoix:  "I don't want to look ignorant to all the people who read this blog but WHAT is a mirepoix?  Can you show me?"  Yes, here it is, a tiny dice of celery, onions, carrots.  I also added a dice of half a green pepper, a yellow banana pepper (medium hot), and some cilantro.

Is that a beautiful dice or what??

 Mr. C came home with the receipts for the taxes and water and also bearing a lovely bouquet of flowers for me.  They perk up the sala beautifully.  Upon his arrival I took off to go see G & K's pool with its surrounding mosaics along the lower edge done by Eve.  Fabulous!

The pool; sea in front, casita behind, main house to the right

 All these "scenes" are typical of life here in this seedy little Mexican beach town.  The whales and pelicans, the beach umbrellas, the volcanoes in Colima ~ one hot, one cold ~ that can be seen from the road into Tecoman.  He did a wonderful job depicting them all.

After this visit I went home for lunch.   Not half an hour later Elias showed up with the newly cleaned and refreshed pump.  For about an hour there was a whole lot of clanging and banging coming from the bodega where the pumps are housed.  I thought he was probably trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and wasn't going to give up until it fit!  But he eventually came upstairs and said (I think, because he's very hard to understand because he talks SO fast and really barks out his words) that it was all fixed, worked fine and that would be 400 pesos ($28) for basically two days' work.  Needless to say we paid him more and off he sped.  We believe in keeping people like Elias very happy; you never know when you're going to need them ASAP.

Eve and his workers finished up preparing the downstairs bathroom for its tiling.  They built a new housing for a smaller basin, completely stripped the walls and countertops of old tiles and laid down a sort of mottled finish that will hold the tile glue (pegamento), the tile and the grout (lechada).  We'll buy that tomorrow in Tecoman.

That was the end of today's commercial doings.  The pork loin came out of the oven after four hours, tender and juicy.  Topped off with some of Mr. C's strawberry ice cream for dessert.  Perfect.