the universe rejoices

The most fabulous young woman I know just celebrateed her 25th birthday.  That would be g'daughter Emily.  This is not a particularly good photo; she took it as a selfie and sent it to me to show, in the background, the flowers we sent her, all the way to Boston, MA!  Happy Birthday to our precious Em.

the great tile hunt

It is time for the downstairs guest bath to get a facelift.  We  have lived here for almost 20 years without refreshing it and it's looking pretty shabby.   It needs some repairs to the ceiling, a new sink, new shower floor, and just a general spiffing-up.

But first, I need tile.  Lots and lots of colorful Mexican bara (clay) tile.  And where better to shop than in the tile mecca of San Miguel de Allende and Dolores Hidalgo.  And so we packed up and made our way to the beautiful state of Guanajuato, about 350 miles to the southeast of us.  Fortunately, daughter Alex was here to act as my design eyes.  It's a long drive but there is a new and VERY welcome road that skirts Guadalajara and knocks off probably a good 30-45 minutes from the trip.  I rented a house in SMA via VRBO  and off we went.

The house was big, airy, lots of light, 3B/3/BA, comfortable and convenient.  (I have learned subsequent to our visit that the owners are selling it.  Too bad for future stays!)  The gardens, although small, were meticulously cared for by the genius gardener, Fernando, to whom I offered a job at the beach at our house, but he declined politel.

We made two trips to Dolores, bought 5 boxes of tiles, new TP/soap holder/towel rack holders. spree random decorative tiles just for fun, and decided that was enough.  Actually, I don't think it is but I will rely on my contractor, Everado, to make it work.  He can do ANYTHING with tile.  You will have to wait to see what I bought.

We also celebrated Alex's birthday at our favorite restaurant, Hecho in Mexico.  A delicious lunch with her annual Birthday Margarita.

And I found a project for next year!  The house down the street had a really fun and charming tile border around the front and sides.

When in Mexico, you can never have too much tile!

We went to the lovely library, sat in the courtyard and enjoyed the peace and quiet in the midst of the city..  Alex found some English language books for Fernanda (age 5) who is learning English.  Then we ambled on to lunch at a tiny hole in the wall called Juan's Cafe.

Passed this house with a great roof garden.

I have this in mind for our 3rd floor.  Mr. C groaned when I mentioned it.

And of course, no trip would be complete without a look at the iconic pink cathedral in the town square.

This is a lousy photo but you get the idea.

And then  it was time to head back to the beach with all our treasures.  Eve is supposed to start the demo of the bathroom this week but as of now, Tuesday noon, not a word.  Maybe manaña.

into the trees

Yesterday, Fernando brought a band of happy coconut harvesters to clean out our palm trees.  This is always a treat to see but scares me to death that one of these nimble climbers will fall.  But not this time, either.

You  can see the rope dangling down the trunk.  The climber's compadre ties the machete onto the end, the climber hauls it up and hacks away at the coconut clusters, then lowers the bunches down to the ground and the whole thing starts again.

Here's the loot:

Fernando will use the nuts in this puesto.  Put to very good use.

market treasures

If it's Monday that means it's off to Armeria in search of good things to eat in the coming week.  Sometimes Ricardo has these little beauties.  He did today.   Goodie for us.

this tree deserves a post

I am going to ignore the silence of the last year and turn over a new "leaf" and talk about this beautiful tree that had to be sacrificed to our gas and water lines.

About 15 years ago Mr. C found a little plant struggling to survive in our front patio garden.  He dug it rip and moved it around to the back side yard, stuck it in the ground and basically forgot it.  Now, all these years later, it had grown to a huge tree, about 30' tall .  The roots had invaded our gas and water lines.  The cement and surrounding garden area had to be dug up and the cleared out.  And the decision was made that the tree had to come out.  Meanwhile, it had grown up to act as a lovely, tropical screen between us and the garden next door.  I was NOT happy with this turn of events and your can see why.

And that's just the trunk!  Here's a picture of the upper part, taken  from the second floor.

The leaves made a lacy bower across the big opening on the stair landing up to the 2nd floor.

This was how it looked on the day it was cut, but it once had fewer limbs and more leaves.

This is the view out of the kitchen window.  You'll just have to imagine how wide this tree was; probably a good 20'.

First cut.

All done.  Wide open.  Yes, the light is nice but I miss the "secret garden" aspect.  The view is not bad .  I should be thankful because it could have been a lot worse.

And here's what's left

So there's my brief but spectacular report on the demise of our tree and my resurgence as a blogger.

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!