Let's Try This Again

I am having a long moment of frustration. I just spent over an hour posting and then, was unable to publish. I know it's because I don't close a picture tab or something, but knowing that doesn't really matter because I don't know how to close it in order to fix the problem.


Now that makes sense to me.


There's a nice breeze this afternoon and some clouds rolling between us and the sun. It truely feels like fall here, but it is hotter than heck.
I just want to show you some stuff quickly and then try and publish this if it will work.....

This is street side, and of course, the new wall. About the 3rd brick section down will be our front pedestrian gate and our front door will be directly across, about where the 2nd window from the right is now.
Why not put in a gate while building the wall? don't ask....

Umberto, our helper has dug a long trench along the wall, to keep rainwater from eroding the bricks. Eventually a pipe will carry rainwater away and around the house to a new 12,000 gallon cistern where the dead tree is. ( later photo)

I am desperate for fast growing, tall trees and vines here. It is very hot on this west side....any suggestions? The front door will have a covered walk which will connect to the gate. Ladrillo pathways will be laid (sidewalk will be gone) and a small fountain will go in here as well.

working on the asadero..the barbeque grill....why a barbeque grill?....we will not have a cocina for at least a year. Bill likes to grill....you will have to come for grilled shrimp.I say WE are building this asadero...it is my job to bring the ladrillos from the area near the gate to this location. I hand carried 20 ladrillos before I remembered we own a dollie.....Ijust realized there is my lost sock, hanging on the clothesline. Look at all those ladrillos I have brought over here. There are 150 of them to complete this asadero.
Now we are at the Hilton Garden Room. Palms.... chairs and coffee table from the storage unit and free mosquito spray come with rental.....

This morning I made limonada with limes from our tree. I also made lime and chile drop cookies..very tasty stuff.....I sent Umberto home with a bag of them..he brought us a bag of peppinos ( the hottest peppers you will EVER taste in your life...do not even think a habanero comes close). He also brought us a squash from his garden that weighs as much as fat Cookies does.
Then I cut some 96 COE glass. I'll fuse these pieces together and they will be flat. Then I'll slump them downward and the piece will become a bowl...more of this later after it gets fired.
Then I made chilie and avacodo peanut butter...also very tasty stuff. I crushed the peanuts with the mortar, which I almost GAVE away at our garage sale and then thought, maybe I will actually use that for something other than potpourri.....yes, that is a plastic pumpkin. As long as we can all remember we have kept the cats' food in this pumpkin. Of course, it had to come with us.Here you can see the dead eucalyptus tree........where the other cistern will go.

Bill is not peeing on the tree, he actually has the chain saw going and is almost completely through the trunk.
But, it would not fall, so he tied a rope from the truck to the tree...tree came down but Bill almost drove through the fence on that side of the house.....
Umberto, who is deaf, but communicates greatly with Bill by hand gestures (Bill loves hand gestures, you always want to be on his charades team), is digging trenches for electricity. We will run it out to the stable, we will run it out to the asadero and will hang some lanterns in the trees as well. Bill is playing with the water hose. But, see the cement mixer??? It is great!!!

Around the mesquite tree I have planted small rose bushes. You can't see the flowers, but remember this and we will look at the roses again in the spring time.

This was a late night visitor................Bill said, don't move, be very quiet, but look down at your shoe. The little guy was traveling along my shoelace........on his way to the screen door.....
Good Night....

This Post is For You

Good Morning! Buen Dia!

I took the following two photos right before I left to go down to the soccer field track...at 5:30am. The sun was still behind the hills, but the sky was beginning to disclose that beautiful vermillion, pink and yellow glow. It's not unlike the pre sun sky back in Washington State, when we could see it...and that is the true difference, this glow can be seen every morning.

I took the top photo through the branches of our limon (lime) tree, which is so full of limes, we cannot make limonada fast enough to use them all. In the photo below are some of the silhouettes of the gorgeous palm trees here and of course, a tv antenna.

I want to start this post by saying thank you to all of you who have been following this blog....patiently....and not so patiently...

I want to say thank you to my friend, Emily, who continues to click and check for a new post daily even though she emailed me and said... your blog sucks! you never post anything.

I want to say thank you to my little brother, Paul, who said on the phone the other day, well, it is sorely lacking...

Thank you to Jim who checks it in the morning and evening and said, have you moved again?

Thank you, Mom, I know the last time I posted was September 12th.

Thank you, Carol, no, we are not just sitting around drinking margaritas all day and as a result are unable to find the computer and post new information....

And I could go on and on. And, if you're wondering how to get my email so you can email me about this also, it is on the glasspond studio website.

BUT, STOP!!! Don't email me about my duties as a blogger or the fact that you aren't getting as much information as you would like about what we are doing.

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE!

AND, guess what!!!!! We now have internet in our casa!!! at least yesterday and today we have it.....

So, now, I will be able to post more often, unless our internet goes away and aren't you excited? I am so excited, I can't tell you how excited I am to be connected to the world again.

So, I want to tell you how this came to be and then afterward, you can check out the photos from the Independence Day celebration in Alamos.

Back in late June, when Eduardo and Perricio began construction on the adobe wall (which, if you recall, is made of ladrillo bricks (fired adobe bricks, not solely adobe, because adobe must be plastered or it will break down in the weather), we had to have water. In particular, to mix with the cement to make the brick mortar. And so Eduardo and Perricio could have something to drink.

So Carlos, who had helped us clear the brush from our property took us down to the Palacio and told them we needed our water turned on.

PRESTO!!! we came back to our casa to find city water running all over the yard.

When it began to get very hot in July, we could not stay here unless we had electricity that would enable us to install some ceiling fans where there weren't any and get the old fans working in other rooms of the casa. Ignacio called CFE (the electric company) and PRESTO!!!! we had electricity.

We wanted to begin receiving our mail from the Earth Class Mail system we had been using in the States. We went to the post office in the Palacio and asked for a postal box and PRESTO! in seconds we had a box and our very own number and a key for it.

At home, I realized that Earth Class Mail had shipped our mail DHL. We new the closest DHL office was in Navajoa and we were told by several people that DHL would not deliver to Alamos. We decided we would never see all that mail from the IRS and the banks and other assorted places like the college the kids attend, the housing they are in, the last bill the doctor's office sent, the refund from Comcast. What the heck, we don't need that stuff, do we?

On one of our many trips to check our postal apartido for mail, there they were! PRESTO!!!! Two huge fat packets from the northwest delivered DHL from the US all the way to Alamos.

After receiving a few Cingular wireless bills it became imperative, in August, to get a local landline telephone. So, we drove to Navajoa, went to Telmex, paid $300 pesos (roughly $30 US) and were given a phone number and told that our service would be on in ocho (8) hours.

So, boy, were we excited. All I could think about on the drive home was how I could call KD and give her our home phone number and tell her to use Cingular for emergencies only.

We went to Koppell ( a large furniture and appliance store in Navajoa) and bought a $400 peso phone, went home and charged it up and got the jack down off the roof and made sure all the wires were connected correctly and waited for the dial tone.

And waited..and waited...and waited...and waited.

Two weeks later we returned to Telmex and were told that service would be connected on September 1st.

Two weeks later our neighbor, who speaks fluent Spanish, went with me to Telmex. She explained the situation to the office manager, Ricardo, who told us Telmex would come to the casa on Saturday, or on Monday, to connect the lines, and we would need to be home to let them inside the casa. I stayed home Saturday....I stayed home Monday.....I even stayed home Tuesday.

On Wednesday, a huge storm came and rain got inside the room where the phone was charging and shorted out the base charger. Bill went back to Koppell on Thursday and paid another $400 pesos for a new phone.....our neighbor called Ricardo and said, where is Telmex? He said, they came, but could not find the house.....they will come again next Saturday or Monday. Our neighbor suggested we put out a sign with our casa number since we do not have one. Not only did I do that, but I put out a huge sign that read...TELMEX....ALTO AQUI.....we waited and waited.

On Wednesday, my neighbor happened to be near the Palacio when she saw a Telmex truck drive by. She flagged down the driver and he agreed to come to the house. He strung a new phone line from the telephone post across the street and put the line down through a hole he drilled in the roof and then attached the line to a phone jack he installed in our bedroom.

And we had a dial tone.

It was very exciting. Right away I called KD and the phone actually worked. Once the phone was up and running we were told by Ricardo to return to Telmex and get our prodigy internet modem and all that other stuff that goes with it. We did that and brought it home and had alot of difficulty installing it. We have free wireless for up to four phones, which we don't really have because it won't work. We have DSL which is what I am on now...and today it is working.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Returning now, mom, to my last post of September 12th. We were coming home from a storage unit trip across the border, if you recall, and we were excited because of the huge upcoming celebration across Mexico on September 15...Independence Day (from Spain).

We were up early to get to the alameda to watch the parade. This was a more serious parade, in that it showcased the municipal workers of Alamos and every child in town. Children in Alamos go to school either in the mornings or the afternoons and they wear a class uniform. Every uniform is different in color, or style or plaid. In the parade, each grade marched in uniform, silently and proudly, with the exception of the drummers, who were obviously proud and loud.

It was just very exciting to see hundreds of school kids of all ages, involved in the parade. The first line of walkers held large, decorated banners describing their class and grade. Many of them also carried large Mexican flags. And there were alot of proud families standing on the sidewalks. In fact, this parade was so popular, it went around town twice. After the parade, crowds of onlookers gathered at the Plaza de Armas, to watch the Municipal employees have photo sessions and then, to watch the horse dancing begin. If you have not seen this before, it is fascinating to watch the riders use body and reign signals to make their horses dance through the streets. And when the mariachi bands strikes up, the dancing gets faster and more exciting.
In the above photo, the crowds have opened up to give room to the band and the horse dancers.

The municipal workers, below, are wearing red on this day.

After the dancing is over in the streets, everyone moves out to the arroyo. Because it is filled with running water now, the dirt roads along the arroyo are blocked off and there are music stages and grandstands along the road. Later in the day, riders will parade their horses in front of the grandstand, the music will begin and the horse dancing will begin again for hours and hours. There are Tecate stands everywhere and long, long lines of men waiting to get their celebration beers. There is alot of drinking on this day. Someone told us that the horse dancing that goes on into the long hours of the night is done by some of the men who can barely stay on their horses. We didn't see this, but from our casa we could still hear the music and loud whooping noises at 2am......

For the families and folks who don't sit in the grandstands to watch the dancing, there are trampolines to romp on, games to play, typical parade souvenirs to buy, tons and tons of food to eat. Kids played in the running water of the arroyo, lots of Tecate drinking drivers of pickup trucks got stuck trying to drive through the arroyo water and lots of Tecate drinking drivers of other trucks spent hours trying to pull or push these stuck trucks out of the muddy waters. It was very entertaining........

You can just barely see the arroyo flowing in the foreground of this photo. Lots and lots of families gathered along the arroyo for food and drinks. In the photo below you can see one of many foot bridges that have been built across the arroyos. This allows for foot traffic during the rainy season. You can see Bill in this photo. He and others on the foot bridge are watching a truck try to pull another truck out of the water.

This a fairly easily crossed section of the arroyo. Cars and trucks do not tend to get stuck here. It is where the water gathers momentum and rushes down (lower left) into the muddy bottom of the arroyo where trucks and cars get stuck. For many people, crossing the arroyo in their vehicle is the only way out of their barrio to get to town or the homes of other family members or friends.So, with this last photo I will say adios...and thanks to everyone who is still reading the blog.

Tomorrow I am going to catch you up on the things that have been happening here around the casa.........

Headed for Alamos

We weren't able to make it to San Carlos and the Tetakawi last night. We had planned to be there around 6pm, but we forgot to include the border crossing delays in our plans.
So we have spent the night in Hermosillo at the San Sebastian. Before falling asleep last night I flipped through the 75 channels on the television one last time. And there was The Little Mermaid on the spanish Disney channel.. I watched the last 15 minutes of the movie. It made me teary eyed for that summer long ago.

This morning we are watching the weather Channel and the news coverage in Galveston. It does not look good. we will probably not hear for several days what will happen in the gulf.

Back in Alamos, the town is busy preparing for Dia de Indepencia. The largest celebration in Mexico, it is the celebration of Mexico's freedom from Spain, I can't remember the exact date of Independence, but the celebration will be across Mexico on september 15 and 16.

Flags have been hanging from homes and cars for the last 2 weeks, flag banners have been strung across the streets, and there have been new food and variety vendors popping up along the Alameda.
There is a flurry of activity throughout the town. We are eager to get back today and see what has been happening while we have been gone.

Alamos is also busy preparing for another event which will occur in late September. All of the governors of Mexico and the president of Mexico will be coming to Alamos for a meeting. Alamos has been receiving a huge sprucing up due to the upcoming visit.... new paint throughout town on the businessses surrounding the Alameda and the Plaza de Armas, the inside of the Palacio has new paint and it looks like a huge dance floor has been put down, new flagstone has been laid at the Alameda as well as a new wooden gazebo. Most of the electricity in the downtown historical area has now been placed underground.
The gardener down the street say that this event will bring over 5,000 visitors to town. Just the other day when we came out of the Palacio after paying our water bill, there was a huge tour bus from Arizona parked at the corner.
Around 50 American seniors were standing in the hot sun, holding their water bottles with one hand and fanning themselves with paper brochures with the other, while listening to an American tour guide talk about the colonial architecture of the Palacio.

So the activity has already begun. We understand the foreigners who come for the winter should begin arriving soon. The people we have met here say this summer has been very quiet, very sleepy, but that is about to change.
The Dia de Indepencia will bring dances, fireworks, horse races in the arroyo and much more. Hopefully I will be able to share some of this with you when I am able to get online again and write a new post.
Until then, we are off and going home to Alamos....adios.

Bells, Whistles and Red Lights

This is a photo of the border wall between the US and Mexico. We can see the wall only briefly at the Mariposa border crossing.
In the photo below, Bill is tying down our IKEA load outside our storage unit in Tucson. I just noticed there is similar type of wall behind our concrete wall surrounding our unit.....

We just made border crossing #4..............

At the Mariposa border, we thought we were going to sail through and then a guard came out to pay us a visit. He asked us to pull over and stop. He wanted to know what was in our truck and where we had been and where we were going. His attitude was extremely serious, so Bill answered all of his questions and he waved us on.

Of course, we were very relieved and sighed thankfully. We briefly talked about all the blogged horror stories we have read about border crossings and commented about how lucky we have been.

At KM 21 not only did we get the BIG red light, we got a loud buzzer, a ringing bell and I think I heard whistles. I was jumping out of my skin.
Bill said, #*%$ *^#*.
I said, just move forward real slow and maybe it will stop. I think we moved one inch and more buzzers went off and a huge aduana came running to the truck. He made us pull over and looked at the IKEA load in the back of the truck.

Where are your tickets, he said........Bill and I looked at each other, tickets?....what are tickets?.......your tickets, he said again........I handed Bill our visas and passports...maybe that is what he wants?.......
What is in here, he asked.........house things, Bill said....what do they cost, he said........cost? we asked........
What is things worth, he asked.............$500?...$400....$300?......
no, oh no, said Bill, it is all old junk, from our old house , 30 years worth of stuff, junk, we are taking it to our house in Alamos......
It is not worth $500, he asked....no, no, said Bill, it is ALL old...

I think, THE LIST!!!!
Give him the list, I say, here, here it is....

Bill handed him the list.
This is it, aduana asked, only one page?....I say, Bill, here, give him the list in Espanol....now he has 2 pages..

Bill handed him the list in Espanol.......same list? asked aduana..........only worth $100?
Oh, even less than that...old, old, old, junk, said Bill.
Aduana looked at our IKEA load again, shook his head like he did not believe us for one second .......but then, he waved us on.

My palms were sweating. Bill handed me back the lists and I carefully folded them up and put them in my special book for safe keeping for some reason or another...

Bill said, good job, List Lady.......

Living it up in Tucson

Well, here we are. ....back in the USA.
It has occured to me that I have not ever really discussed how it is to return across the border into the US. ...
The car lanes are always busy with vendors; some are aggressive, especially the young men who want to climb up on our car and wash the windshield. One of our guide books says to take your middle finger and point it at them and wag it back and forth, while shaking your head from side to side. I tried that in Navajoa and it did not work, and I felt very embarrassed and stupid doing it. So just we shake our heads and say, no gracias, and they don't listen....so we lock our doors and yell, no, gracias!!!! And by then they are on the hood of the truck trying to wash. So we turn on the wipers and usually they get off and go to another car.
At the border there are many women selling huge plastic maps of Mexico, and plastic brooms and dust pans, plastic toy drums and tom toms. Lots of food vendors want you to buy what they have. Then there are several people that look like they might be gringos, begging for handouts. This is very unnerving to me. I think, why are they here, begging? One man wears dirty, old Banana Republic looking clothing and is barefoot. If someone gives him food, he shares it with other Mexican vendors.....I don't understand..... Bill says I should bury my head in a book or take some dramamine......

The border crossing is a busy place but drivers seeem to be patient. We have encountered 2 long waits of around 30 minutes each and one crossing with no wait at all.
Of course, I always have the passports and visas ready, laying on the console between us. Only during yesterday's crossing did the customs agent ask to see them. She asked about our place of residency..... Alamos, and where we were going...... Tucson, and why....... to visit.
She took a flashlight and shined it into the truck and walked around the truck. She then went in the booth with our passports, and I am thinking...did we pay all of our old parking tickets?
Then she told us to have a good trip. As we drove on through we noticed that customs agents were holding the arms of the lady who had been in a Missouri plated van in front of us and steering her into the customs building...we drove straight to Carl, Jr's.

Now going for a burger immediately after crossing the border back into the states is not something we do. We are not burger food freaks, but we are looking for a restroom stop before we continue on to Tucson.
And the Nogales, US, Carl, Jr., has an okay restroom.

In Mexico, when we stop at a bathroom, the first thing I do before I get out of the truck is stuff napkins in my pocket. I put 3 pesos in my pocket with the napkins. Then I find the bano. Sometimes an old senor or senora wants my 3 pesos. He or she will give me toilet paper in exchange for the pesos. Once inside I am looking to see if there is any toilet paper available, so I can save my napkins and the paper I was given for another day when a senor or senora will not be there...... a waste can is always in the stall.....paper goes in the waste can.....never in the toilet.....I would not want to be the gringo who puts toilet paper in the toilet and then flushes the toilet, causing it to overflow onto the floor, thus making the old senor or senora come into the bathroom with the mop.......if the toilet does not flush, there might be an old empty bucket to put faucet water into the toilet tank so I can flush by pulling the float thingy up.... which I know is what I should do because there is no cover on the toilet tank and there is the empty bucket.....

Before we go into Carl, Jr's, I grab my 3 pesos and my napkins. I go inside and look for the bano. There is toilet paper in the stall, there is no waste can in the stall, there is a lid on the tank and no empty bucket on the floor.....I put my paper and pesos back into my pocket and remind myself where I am......

Overnight in San Carlos

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we are overnighting in San Carlos, at the Tetakawi Best Western. The top photo shows the pool as it is this morning and the second photo shows the pool as it was, full of dirt, rocks and slush, after tropical storm Julio came through here in late August. We arrived here that night in pouring rain, thunder, lightning and high winds. Last night there were strong winds, but no rain and a very clear, sunny morning now.

In the lobby this morning I met a group of divers on a tour from Phoenix. They have been here for a four day dive in the Sea of Cortez.

As I am telling Bill about meeting them, it prompts a quick discussion about one of our great all time trips...

When I was a flight attendant, one of our most memorable personal travel trips was departing Seattle during a snow storm in January. We got the last two seats available on a Delta flight at $13.00 a piece. After a rather long delay in Miami we arrived on the island of St. Croix, where we stayed at the Hotel on the Cay (where they used to film a portion of the old Starsky and Hutch series) for about $15.00 a night.

Bill and I were very excited about snorkeling, but after being in the water for about 30 seconds, I panicked when I saw all of the fish swimming around me. I gulped and gurgled, could not breathe, and I flailed ridiculously in the clear water. I thought I was going to drown and die then and there. Bill is now reminding me that the water was only about 3 feet deep. I don't remember that. I'm not sure I could touch bottom. He is saying I jumped up and ran screaming out of the water. I don't remember that either. Well. It is a darn good thing I am telling this story and he is not.....

ON TO TUCSON WE GO......

Feeling hot, hot, hot

Isn't that a tune from The Little Mermaid?

I should know.... one summer KD and Ian watched The Little Mermaid 37 times. Sometimes they watched it with Lisa, from across the street, sometimes with Xan and Wes, from next door, but I always seemed to get sucked in..... it was one of my favorites...

One Disneyworld vacation highlight was seeing the live version of The Little Mermaid. I brought this up recently.....KD said she did not remember the show......Ian said he hated that show....

Am I a terrible mother for letting them watch it 37 times, and yes, we did keep track and 37 is accurate....maybe we only watched it because I liked it, I can't remember now. In fact, that really sounds strange, that I would even allow my children to watch anything that many times.......
The movie obviously made different, but hopefully harmless impacts on them. I mean, they both like the ocean, they like fish, they aren't scared of ursula monsters or dogs or storms....

So, anyways, it is hot here.

It is much hotter, I think, than it was in June, July or August. I am very surprised. It was hot and humid during the other months, but I was still able to get to the soccer field and the gym and even later in the morning, to the mercado. In these 8 days of September, I have only been able to get to the track if I am up and on my feet by 5am. Then I am under a fan by 7am, reading or getting something ready for the crockpot, again under a fan. We cannot get far from a fan.

And it brings up discussions of air conditioning. I am not a fan of air conditioning. However, Bill is. He is pushing for one room with air conditioning. I will see how the rest of September goes. Fortunately we have 2 overhead fans in the outdoor living room area. Bill installed these and they are fabulous. Each of the bedrooms has a ceiling fan, which Bill was able to get spinning, so we are fairly comfortable in those rooms. But, if we are not under the fans, we are dealing with the heat in a variety of ways......mostly by getting in the truck and going somewhere.

So, that has precipitated another trip to Tucson to the storage unit and then, to Home Depot to buy a chain saw which would cost us over $400 in Mexico......
What this means is that we will make some purchases and get things from the unit in all this heat and once the weather changes and cools down, we will be tackling the roof of our casa and putting on a new one.

We were just in Tucson around the 1st of September and we made that 3rd border crossing. Honestly, there is nothing exciting about that crossing to report. HOWEVER, aduana actually walked over to our truck.......do you have any guns, he asked...no, no, no guns, just household things, Bill answered......and he waved us through. That was it. Before we crossed, we had been sitting in a US supermarket parking lot near the Mariposa border for an hour so I could translate the list into Spanish. Bill was very impatient, it was early afternoon and we needed to get to San Carlos by dark. He said that I could work on the list as we drove to the border. I said, what if we get there too soon and the list isn't complete. He said, does it matter...well, you can only imagine what I said.

Below are a few photos of the border crossing at Mariposa, which is called the truck route crossing. It is the alternative to crossing the border at Nogales centro (downtown).





We never follow the arrow to the left, we just keep going straight. Sometimes we wonder if we ARE supposed to turn left...but we only wonder.....
In the photo above Bill is checking the IKEA load after we have gone through the crossing. While the load doesn't look huge, we actually brought alot of things back with us. The truck cab is stuffed to the ceiling. In the photo below, the road curves downhill into a spectacular view of the Mexico mountain range, the Sierra Madre Occidental. And, just like that, we are across the border and heading back home.....