No Gracias

Hola, what a day of rest this has been. Town was very quiet last night, which is unusual, Thursday and Saturday nights are party nights, but either we were too tired to be disturbed by it or there was no party.......

It is also very cloudy today, but not a drop of rain has fallen. There is the persistent cloud over Mt Alamos, but no rain.


In the photos below you can see how things are greening up, especially along the hillsides. A few more monsoon rains and the hills will be sparkling green and thick with jungle vines and other growth.

I cannot say thank you enough to the folks who offered to take care of our furniture for us, Chrissy and Keith, of 99 reasons we will move to mexico, offered from Phoenix and Margaret (whom I don't even know at all!) emailed me from Scottsdale. We would certainly take you up on it if we only could. But the matter of getting a storage unit key to someone is a big issue in itself.

So, we are planning to head north as soon as the moving company calls us and get there as quickly as possible and get back as quickly as possible. They say they will call and let us know twenty-four hours before they arrive in Tucson.

I don't trust them to do that. My bag is still packed. The trip will take us about ten hours if we can do it in one day. I am ready to go.......... and, by the way, my need to go is certainly being fullfilled.

Crossing the border lately, to go north, has proven an emotional challenge for me. The hawkers at the Nogales Mariposa crossing seem to grow in numbers each time we go across. The men who want to wash the windshield have gotten younger and it is alot harder for me to tell a nine year old little kid to get the heck off the hood of the truck than it is for Senor to tell them.

All he has to do is look at them and they are gone...............

Sometimes I want to just pay them to wash the windshield and get it over with, except we tried that and when you say yes to one, that means yes, to about ten and suddenly you cannot see out the window because there is an army of windshield cleaners all over the truck.

You cannot just pay the one you said yes to ...............

They seem more and more persistent and sometimes get angry when you don't oblige them, or at least open your window, neither of which we do. If you dare to open your window, the food or the little guitar or the seat cushion...........whatever it is they happen to be selling will suddenly be in your lap and it is yours..................So we do not make any friends with the hat sellers, the mop and pail sellers, the map and cd sellers, when we are crossing the border. I try to smile and say no gracias, but that is bad, because it is seen as encouragement. Then they will tap! tap! tap! on the window until you have driven far enough up the line that they become bored with you.

It raises my blood pressure if senor is driving.

It raises senor's blood pressure if I am driving.

He says I should take a dramamine before we get to the border and just sleep through it.

I say we should flip for the driver's seat before we get near the border.

Whoever wins gets to drive.

Fair is fair.....................

Maybe I will suggest that when we go back this week.......

Or maybe I need a baby shade so I can just pull it down across the window when we cross. I think I will paint on it, NO GRACIAS.........