a visit to the Mexican DMV

It was time to reregister our car for 2018-19 which meant a trip to the local DMV office.  It's not really called that but you know what I mean.  At first I was told I had to go to Tecoman but Fernando assured me I didn't, that  I could go to Armeria instead.  So this morning he picked me up and we set off on this little chore.

There are plusses and minuses to this endeavor. The minus is that you cannot complete this on-line; you must show up with all your car papers and pay in person.  But the plus, and the best thing, is there was NO ONE there.   The office is located on a side street of the Presidencia and  is about the size of my kitchen; enclosed cashier's cage in front, one (extremely efficient and competent) staff, an ATM machine, a computer and printer, some client chairs, loudly humming fluorescent overhead lights, and that's it.  I presented my papers, she tap, tap, tapped, handed me some other papers, I went to the cage, paid my 900 pesos, returned to her with the receipt, tap, tap, tap and I had a new registration and was out the door in 10 minutes.  No "Take a Number and Take a Seat and Pray for ONLY a two hour Wait".

It may be a manaña kinda place but the DMV was an ¡HOY! experience!

more progress

It's not that there hasn't been life going on on the other end of this blog, it's just that I haven't felt like writing about it.  But I've come to a point that if I don't get back to it now I never will.  So let's do a quick recap of the past month (!!).

Last you heard we were still waiting for our new screens.  They finally arrived about a week after we were told the group would be at our house the following day.  But in the end, it was all worth the wait.  Here's what it looked like when the workmen removed all the windows and screens from the living room.  I LOVE it like that but, you know, bugs will be bugs and insist on doing their bug thing. The group showed up mid-morning one day and were 99% done by about 6 PM and returned the next day to finish up.  I couldn't  be happier.  Those sliders glide so easily, the doors stay closed, there are no gaping or sagging door screen. Ready for sale!

I wish we didn't have to have screens in the sala but it's a choice between bugs and screens and, well, not much of a choice.  So now that big project is done and we must move on to something else.  That will  be remaining the kitchen/living room and the front and garage doors.

The good news, on the other hand, is that all continues to move along with the usual manaña speed of the tropics.  The weather is perfect ~ warm and sunny during the day, cool and dry at night.  The skies have been so clear that we have not had any spectacular sunsets for several weeks.  We did go down to Dago's for dinner on Friday night and caught a pretty glow in the sky as we ate our usual fare and drank in the seaside setting.

That doesn't seem like much for an entire month, does it?  Christmas was lovely and quiet, not too crowded and noisy with beach-goers.  Weekly market is as usual, filled with glorious things to eat.  Fernando heads up to Colima next Wednesday for knee-replacement surgery and he will be mighty glad to get it over.  He has been limping and waiting for over a year for this relief and it has finally, hopefully arrived.  I spent a few days sick bay with some sort of bad headache/upset tummy from which now I have completely recovered.  A nice bouquet from Mr. C helped tremendously.  Daughter
Alex arrives on Feb. 11 for a 2+  week visit during which we will make a trip to Patzcuaro, one of our very favorite spots.  We've rented a house for a week.  Great shopping ~ fabric capital of the region ~ and lots of interesting little towns around, each of which specializes in a craft like leather, stone, wood, pottery.

You can see that nothing too noteworthy happens on a daily basis so it's hard to write very often.  However, to stave off worried inquiries from my few and several readers.  I'll do better.  Seems like I promise this a lot.

Adios from a pair of huge (about 5' tall) Colima dogs that turned up in front of the Armeria Presidencia at Christmas as part of its big crèche.  Enjoy!