sail away

For all the pleasure you gave me I am profoundly grateful. The lift of an eyebrow, the slight sniff, the shift in posture, the voice ~ you were the best!

We will miss you.  Truly.  Madly.  Deeply.

dry day, wet night

We went off to Tecoman yesterday morning, list in hand, to do some chores.  We decided NOT to go to TelMex because the lift-the-phone-to-reconnect, although a total bore, seems to be working.   Fernando came to check this morning and said he'd relay this strange set of circumstances to the company and see if he can get them to actually show up and check the lines.  ¡Que milagro!

The section of town we had to go to is in the heart of market streets adjacent to Cathedral Square.  I absolutely love this area, the sounds, the smells, the sights.  Ladies with their big shopping bags crammed with goods, sidewalk vendors hawking delicious looking tacos and tamales, stalls selling nopales  and strawberries, bolillos and taleras.   Lots of  interesting shops selling all sorts of things including this place which I call the Everything store.

The store goes way back and is crammed with everything you can imagine, including this huge display of cookware.  A pot for every need.

First stop was the warehouse to buy potatoes ~ 4 kilos of a variety that makes the best hash browns and papas fritas ~ to be divided among us, Blanche and Mrs. NN.  Next to the bacon and cheese store for said products.  Then on to the paint store to find a new color for our garage and front doors and lot gate.  I've never really liked the color I chose a couple of years ago; too brown.  I really wanted the red that ship hulls are painted but couldn't quite match it.  So the new color will be much more red but I think it will look just fine.  I'll put up a sample when I get the paint.   While we were there I asked the proprietor, a very delightful chap with whom we've done much business over the years, if he had one of his usual colorful calendars for this new year.  He gladly gave me one; here are a couple of pages.  It is a  beautiful addition to my desk.

Next stop was the vivero for a bag of soil.  What I saw, to my great surprise, was a SE VENDE sign on the gate.  The gentleman inside assured me that the nursery is not for sale, just the property it sits on and if it should actually sell he will move his outfit down the street a few blocks.   I was relieved to hear this as it's a particularly good nursery and the closest one to our house.  Otherwise it's up to Colima.

A quick stop at La Bodega and then on to the chicken joint in Armeria for a rotisseried dinner.  Back home for a quick lunch then off for the Tuesday domino game.  The day had started out warm and beautiful but was gradually getting windier and darker.  By the time I got home around 5 PM it was clear that some sort of weather was headed our way.

Sure enough, at 10 o'clock it started to rain but only for about 20 minutes.  However,  a really heavy rain began falling later and kept it up most of the night.  We had earlier taken down the lights in the front of the balcony but not the electric luminarios on the stairs.

Sometime in the  night Mr. C got up and unplugged them and gathered them up.  His opinion is that they may have been flooded might henceforth be unusable.  We'll try them out when things get dry.

Here's what we found in the living room this morning.

Right now, at 11 AM, it's not sunny but it's not raining either.  Earlier something ominous was heading our way from the southeast but it seems to have faded, although the weather report says occasional thunderstorms ~ of which there was a BIG one in the night with very loud thunder that set off the neighborhood dogs.

 It's a good day to stay in and read, I think.

how things work

I really have no idea how or why the internet does or doesn't work.  I know that if nothing is plugged in it won't work.  But why, when it is all plugged in and the modem is blinking and you get full bars on the screen, doesn't it work?  Then there's this:  yesterday when Fernando telephoned TelMex (yet again) to report the outage, suddenly everything lit up and we had a good connection.  That lasted several hours.  Then it went out.  Then someone called us and Bingo! we were connected.  The preponderance of evidence now shows that we can make the damned thing work by either placing or receiving a phone call.  Just a few minutes ago the light went off, Mr. C picked up the phone ~ didn't call or even dial, just picked it up ~ and we're connected.  As I say, I don't know how it really works but I've figured out how it works in our house!  Oops!  It's just cut out so I'll wait a minute or two, pick up the phone and see what happens.   Yep, dialed Jack, hung up and we're back in business.

Tomorrow we are going into Tecoman for several errands; buy bacon, cheese, spuds, some potting soil at the vivero, then some groceries.  But first a stop at Telmex to see if they can figure out what's going on and fix it.

Today's tiangues yielded up the usual goodies including three beautiful, shiny eggplant.  I also bought some zucchini and tomatoes to make a tian for dinner one night this week.  Jack has abundant basil just ready for the picking so I've got all the proper ingredients.  I wish we had a grill so we could pair this yummy dish with a nice steak but alas, no.  Perhaps b-b-q chicken from the superb take-away shop in Armeria.

But right now I am about to start a big pot of tomato sauce for various and sundry pasta dishes over the next few months.  It will all go into the freezer, ready for whatever seems right at the time.

i lied

OK, well not on purpose.  The internet was just humming along for about 45 minutes.  I got all sorts of things accomplished and then it was over.  I waited about 10 minutes.  It came on again for about 5 minutes, went off and hasn't been heard from since.  So it's off to Tecoman to find out what the heck is going on.  I have a tiny suspicion that it just might be the modem, so we'll take that in, trade it for a new one and see if that helps at all.  Meanwhile, I am sitting on the patio at Jack's bootlegging off of his service.  I'll certainly let you know what the upshot might be.

Meanwhile, yesterday we went off to Armeria to pay our taxes and water for the year.  On our way back we took the back road through Paraiso ~ really badly hit during Patricia ~ and then on home.  This is the old road that, 25 years ago, ran from Cuyutlán all the way to Manzanillo, before the toll road was built.  Marie and I would walk down the hill from the casa where we both were staying, catch the local bus and ride into the tinaguis along this jungle-fringed road.  The passengers, mostly women ~ many with babies and toddlers~ all knew one another so the entire 20 minute ride was one grand gossip/giggle/gab fest.  We'd do our shopping, lug our bulging bags back to the bus station and climb on and grab seats next to the windows.  By this time it was hot and we were sweating like mad.  Back in town we got off at the bottom of our street and slowly made our way up the hill.  It isn't a very big hill, more like a rise.  But you can't see the ocean from the bottom  About three quarters of the way up we could start to feel the breeze and, a few paces on further and we reached the top and the cool air and the sparkling sea lay  in front of us.  For some reason we both would start to laugh at this point, as though we had defied the dangers of the rickety old bus and survived yet another shopping trip.  Then it was on to the casa where she would immediately start cooking and I'd jump in the pool to cool off.  Such great memories.  Every time I drive up that street I think of her and remember the intense heat and the sudden cool breeze and the laughter and how long ago it all was. 

Dinner at Dago's last night was, as usual, delicious.  Mrs. Neighbor Nelson has arrived and NN is once more a happy man.

i'm back, live at the beach!

After a week of phone calls and a personal visit to the Tecoman office of Telmex by Fernando, we are back online today.  Even the scratchy phone line is clearer than it has been in 3 years.  I don't know what they finally did to make everything work and I don't really need to know, either.  I'm now back in touch, can catch up on NPR and PBS, get mail . . . all the important things in life.

Our trip to Colima yesterday was a complete success.  Got everything done and even had time for comida at our favorite spot, Cronos.  It's just such a lovely quiet oasis in the midst of a busy, bustling city.

We got home in time for a little nap.  Then  it was Margarita time and thankss to Mr. C's deft hand with the ingredients and the blender, this was the result.  Cheers!

Dago's tonite for shrimp in preparation for the opera tomorrow.   It's Donizetti's Anna Bolena.  It's not going to end well for her.

not today

Again, I am writing this in Word, waiting for a brief (1 minute) window when the internet is connected.  We were supposed to get this fixed today, but as of 2:30 this afternoon, no sight of Telmex.  What this country needs is a competing communications system instead of the Carlos Slim monopoly.  But this is not going to happen in our lifetime so we need to simply accept the idea that perhaps mañana connection may happen.

Meanwhile, the weather has cooled a bit and it is much more pleasant.  Life is going on as usual; Dago’s on Friday (it was mobbed with New Year’s revelers), no opera Saturday because of no internet, Fernando’s on Sunday for a wonderful comida of sopa de pescado, tianguis on Monday, dominoes on Tuesday, and now here we are.  We’re going up to Colima for some errands tomorrow, just to break the monotony!

None of this is very exciting so maybe I don’t need the internet for this post after all.  No news, political or otherwise.  Perhaps a blessing.

no internet

I am not neglecting you nor am I falling short of my (unpublished) New Year’s Resolution of publishing daily.  I haven’t had internet for three days.  I’m typing this in Word and as soon as I get a signal will post it.  I don’t know when that will be but I hope it’s soon.