Slowly Using up the Rubble Pile

Buen dia! Here is one of our lovely plumerias, covered in cinnamon sweet pink flowers and Christmas tree lights.

I was not a happy person on crutches. On Sunday evening I decided I had had enough. My ankle is still very swollen, bruised and tender, but I can walk on it and more importantly, I can get to work on a few things in the yard.

In case you are curious about how I spent my sedentary days, look below. I went into my talavera paint mode. Weeks ago I bought a napkin holder at the Navajoa market. It was plain wood, so I painted it. I am planning to paint the white box as well, but that is on hold as I am on the move again. The candlestick is a work in progress. Senor continues to believe it is something he would have done in kindergarten, but I am inspired and think it will come together.

Notice the chosen drink to work with, also found at the market in Navajoa.

So, I am thrilled to be slowly back to doing some things outside.

We have a new worker, Chuey, a young kid who is busy diminishing the size of the rubble pile while Senor and Umberto work on the roof beams.
Chuey is cleaning cement off the old ladrillos in the pile and moving them to the location below. We will be using these old bricks to make our raised winter garden bed. Did you believe me when I said we are trying to reuse everything?
He is also making a stack for me and I am then breaking them apart into smaller pieces and creating borders around some of the plant beds.

Yesterday I was getting bored with doing that and I suddenly realized I had not gone anywhere in almost a week. So Senor kindly drove us to Navajoa and we came home with three new palms.

In the evenings we are still finding ourselves outside. The West Wing will be used more, I think, when the rains come. For now, we enjoy the view and light the citronella candles and spray ourselves with mosquito repellant and rub gnat lotion all over our faces. Fortunately, we are having nice breezes and neither of the two insects are attacking us on a regular basis.

You can see the rubble pile of old adobes is still being moved below where it will continue to be broken down and used for the portal floor foundation.

It is still quite early in the morning and the sun is not too hot, so I think I will go out and make certain we are still using up rubble in as many ways as possible.

Accessories

Buenas tardes. This was Tuesday morning's lovely sunrise, accessorized with blue and seen through the new leaves of some of the trees.

We have been here, for almost two years now, and in that time I have noticed alot of accessories.

Some people have white casts on their arms, some folks get a blue one. A Mexican man I know got a white cast and his daughter covered it in Cinderella wrapping paper. He was cleaning a neighbor's pool and trying hard not to get the paper wet.

A foreign lady I know had a cast that went from her ankle to above her knee and she had a brand new pair of crutches that someone went and picked up for her at the Obregon Wal-Mart.

Sometimes people have on neck braces. A lady that I worked with a DIF had on a neck brace one day and she was still managing to hold her two little babies, one in each arm. Another woman from DIF, was outside the Palacio one day and she had a cast on her left foot and a large wrap around her right ankle. I asked what happened and I am pretty certain she said she did not know.

A foreign man broke his wrist and his arm when he was looking up and should have been looking down. He only recently got his cast off after two months.

There is a man that I see frequently, early in the morning. He is usually on his bike. Lately he has been on a small horse and his left foot is wrapped in a bright blue handkerchief.
The little boy up the street was skateboarding with his friends and sprained his collarbone. He has on a little white neck brace..........


In our yard we have lots of ups and downs, lots of places where one must be looking down and not up. Mainly they are little tiny hills where Umberto has piled dirt up on either side of cement so he can get the wheelbarrow up and over the cement. I always look down when I go up and over these little hills of dirt, which are always hard, but slick with tiny pebbles.
I do not want an accessory.



On Tuesday evening, I went up and over one of these hard little dirt hills, just like I do every day when I water plants. The new bouganvillia shoots and brilliant purple flowers caught my eye. I looked up when I should have been looking down. It was not comparable to a Disney thrill ride.


A friend went down and got these, on loan, from the Bomberos.

Only an ankle sprain, but I have been accessorized.

West Wing

Hola! Hola!
It is a warm sunny day here and rather quiet as Alamos celebrates Dia de Madre. There were quite a few loud parties Sunday night and now, on Monday, families trek to the Panteon where they will pay respect to deceased mothers and grandmothers and aunts and sisters. Graves will be swept and flowers and wreaths will be placed among lighted candles, very quiet and personal.

Later today, music and laughter and the smell of carne asada will fill the air as the fiestas celebrating this special day begin again in earnest.

I have my own little celebration going on today. I am celebrating the fact that I am finally over my ridiculous mini state of depression after losing the Hilton Garden Room.

Below you can see the destruction, the rubble, the mess. The lonely fan left to spin in the afternoon breeze. The wooden beams which are home to termites, the dead branches of the bouganvillia to the left of the portal columns. The edge of the tinnaco which was emptied and moved to the good roof. Above, the old wall which is adobe and possibly over one hundred years old, meets the ladrillo wall to the right.

Now, come with me and we will walk through the door straight ahead and turn right through another doorway. We are going to see the new room. It is the room which will eventually become the master bedroom, but for now, it will be where we spend our time in the evenings and it is where we will sit out the spectacular thunder and lightning and rain storms that will start in late June.

Somewhat bohemian, don't you think?

Welcome to the West Wing................adios! linda lou

My Cinco de Mayo

Buenas Tardes! Another pretty one last night. I went to Navajoa this morning around 8am. As I drove down our street I could hear the band gearing up, the drums and horns practicing for the 9am parade that would most likely begin late. I saw a few school kids in their parade school uniforms getting off a TBC bus and alot of horses and riders heading to town. I had not planned this little get together in Navajoa and really did not want to miss the celebration.



I went to Navajoa to meet with Juan, our accountant and to file our taxes with SAT. Their offices were closed because it is a holiday, but Juan was able to return to his office and file online.



I knew I would miss the Alamos parade and horse dancing, which is my favorite. But I had high hopes there would be a larger event in Navajoa.

Alot of people do not like Navajoa, it is very dusty and driving down from the mountains, it appears to even have a cloud of dust hanging over it. I don't mind it, it is the closest thing I can come to for decent shopping and now that I am more familiar with town, I enjoy going there.

Navajoa, however does have one drawback, its absurd traffic rules. These are simply rules of the road and driver. Cars are parked, sometimes 2 abreast along the curbs and cars from incoming streets often pull right out into the intersections in order to block traffic so they can cross.



This has caused a few stressfull close calls for me and from what I hear, quite a few other folks as well. So this morning I developed my new driving plan for Navajoa. I now drive on the center line of the 2 lanes going my direction. It was very simple today this way.



No one tried to pass me, no one honked, no one seemed to care. I felt like the leader of the pack. I could easily see vendors if they should try and push their carts across the road. I could see all the pedestrians as they ran across the street in between cars. I could quickly see the window washers and they stayed away from me.



I was stopped at a light, in the middle of both lanes and an older woman tried to cross as the light was changing. She fell in the middle of the road, in front of my 2 lanes. The world stood still.



Every car door opened and before I could even get out of the truck at least 20 wonderful people had surrounded her and were helping her up and across safely to the other side. The light changed again at least 3 times before we all began moving. I was still straddling both lanes and I liked it.



I liked it so much that I rode all the way north through town that way and then, back south.



Hoping to find the parade, I drove around the plaza, for the 3rd time, on the line between the 2 lanes, but there was no band, no gathering, no horse dancing.

I finally parked, legally, at the plaza and a sat on an iron bench for awhile. A nice policia came up to me and asked how I was. I told him fine, but where were the Cinco de Mayo festivities?

He said.......en Alamos.

I got in my car and drove home. It is indeed very festive here.

Que tengas buen noche!

The Hilton Garden Room

Buen Dia!
Over the weekend we had a lovely fiesta at the house. There were twelve of us and we spilled out of the Hilton Garden Room onto festive tables and feasted on grilled shrimp, fresh salads, roasted vegetables and fruit.

What a wonderful time. But today I am in a mood. It is not a bad one, but it is not a good one. It is a quiet one, one that says, okay, whatever, I give in, if we have to...............

As I write Senor is removing the fans and the lights from the garden room. The furniture has been moved. The plants are not there.

The roof is coming down today. I think I am sad.

We are going to be in here now for who knows how long. It is not a depressing room. It will one day be our bedroom. It will be painted then, new floor, lovely Mexican light fixtures, the beautiful kiva Senor built, lovely room. But it is not the garden room, where we have sat for two years, enjoying lunch or dinner, reading books, listening to music, talking about our casa, marveling at our view, taking in the smell of the flowers we have planted.

So, it is darker, mustier, dustier, and there is less breeze. As Senor is quick to point out, it does have a roof.
Sunday we went to the beach. It was very relaxing, very breezy, beautiful sunny day.




I am listening to the roof crashing down onto the garden room floor. I think I just want to go back to the beach.............................

It's a Flanperfect day

buen dia!
Ah, it is so beautiful here this morning. Wish you could be here!
The temperature is already rising, but we still have very little humidity, so a ninety degree day like we had yesterday only seems like it is eighty. The sky is slightly overcast and it is just very pleasant.

I just came back from my trip to the track, where there were quite a few folks walking or jogging. I always enjoy my track conversations with the Mexican women and men and their dogs.

When I returned home, I found this little fellow, dead on the table top. Cookies spends most of the night out now, and I imagine he threw this up in the air, thought he could catch it, and it landed on the table top and Cookies lost interest.

So we asked Umberto about it. It is a little thing, only about eight inches long, and skinny. Umberto called it a name and pointed to his arm and pantomined that a bite from that means a trip to the hospital and a shot in the rear end. Umberto solves alot of problems, I think, with a trip to the hospital for a shot in the rear end.

Grippe? shot. Nail in foot? shot. Scorpion bite? shot. Fall off ladder? shot.

So I hope this guy's mother or father is not around nearby. I would imagine they would be a bit larger.

I rode to the Panteon the other day. Here is Jesus' grave and some plastic flowers I left for him. The marker says he died April 9, but the weekend I returned from Texas, the seventeenth, someone old with white hair was back in the casa watching a boxing match on tv. I even commented to Senor.........wow, Jesus really has the volume on his tv turned up.

Senor says he drove by the sister's house just yesterday and there was a new old man sitting out front in the chair that I had photographed. So we are confused, well I am confused. Senor says he is not the confusable type. But so far, the little casa remains empty and we do not even see any signs of Jesus' cat, the white one.

I went next door to learn to make flan. I have always had a recipe for it, but it's one of those things that is better done with a person who has done it before. So, I had the opportunity to do that.

I don't blog recipes or food too much, mainly because I have difficulty even following recipes.

But this one was worth it. i think you can make it easily.

You need:

8 eggs

2 cans sweetened condensed milk

2 cans water (use the milk cans for measurement)

1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/3 cup water

2 T kahlua

1 t vanilla

and you need a flan pan, a round baking dish with a hole in the middle

Over low heat, toss the sugar in a pan, add 1/3 cup water. Stir this Forever! It will get dry. It will get lumpy. It will get clumpy. You will think you need to add more water. Don't. You are just carmelizing the sugar and it will take forever. Eventually it will get dark dark brown and bubbly. When it does this, pour it into the flan pan and coat the pan and sides.Tony, our flan instructor, asks me if I washed my 8 eggs. Wash the eggs....... i said...........i never wash my eggs. He tells me I have to always wash my eggs, so I wash my 8 eggs. We crack them into a bowl and add the milk and the 2 cans of water. He says his favorite dessert is condensed milk on crackers. I tell him that when I worked at DIF some of the women there drank the condensed milk right from the can.........yum, he says.

We add kahlua and vanilla and beat all of this with the mixer. It gets too foamy so Tony holds the mixer just under the surface of the liquid and it gets creamy again. After a few minutes we pour the mixture into the coated flan pan.

The flan pan then is put into a larger pan, filled halfway with water and put into the oven for 1 1/2 hours at 350 degrees. More water is added during the cooking time to keep this water bath halfway up the flan pan.

The flan comes out of the oven and sits on the counter for several hours while Tony shops and my friends and I go off to buy art supplies at an art sale in someone's home.

At the art sale, I hear that La Victoria, which is Carroll O'Connor's Alamos home, has been sold, along with eight other proerties in town. Baby boomers are coming, says someone.

Indeed, on the way home, the front door of La Victoria is open and I snap a few photos. La Victoria needs a lot of love and care, so I am glad someone has bought it. I want to ask if I can go inside, but there are workers milling around and the flan is waiting on the countertop.

The flan is ready to come out of the pan. A knife is run around the edges and then, the pan sits in another water bath, this one warm with tap water. Tony jiggles the flan until it starts to move around in the pan.
Then in a very swift move, the pan is turned upside down.




And, we have flan. Isn't that pretty?

Gotta run, need to be over on Loma Gudalupe by ten o'clock. I am doing some custom glass tiles for someone there and we need to discuss the plan.

Que le vaya bien!......which when translated, means roughly, may you have an interesting life or may all things turn out well for you. Linda Lou

Too Much Whiskey and Bad Knees

Buenos tardes!
Yesterday's evening sky was almost completely without color, just a huge bright sun obscured momentarily by the clouds. Then during the night the sky turned a dark luminous red and it has been overcast and very windy all day. Senor got the pump back. The bearings had gone out and the man who drives the little red train fixed the pump for less than five dollars. While we were without the pump I had to fill buckets with cistern water and hand water all of the plants. So naturally I was very excited when Senor returned with the pump and reinstalled it. It meant the hoses would work.

However Senor was also excited to get the pump back and he decided he would water. He spent around two hours doing this, after dinner, well into the dark. As we went to bed a thought occured to me.

I said, as he was dozing off.......................you watered all the planter pots, too, right? you know, roses, petunias, geraniums, palms............? No................i forgot about those...........he said, as he fell asleep.

I had to get up and go outside and water all of those in the dark. Only a little problemo. The next morning I did tell him he is no longer allowed to be the water person.

If you recall, the original Jesus seemed to think I was his water person. He had some moments of great thirst, I guess.

Something big was going on back at his place several days ago.

His sister and her son came into his little casa and removed many things. My guess is these were Jesus' things that became new old Jesus' things. Then her husband came and removed many more things.

Soon it looked like everything that had been in new old Jesus' casa was out in the yard.
I was a little worried.

Then the husband and son came and pulled down his tv antennae and put it and all the other stuff into the back of a pick up and drove off.
I was very worried then because Jesus loves his television. He listens to his telenovas and boxing every afternoon and well into the night.

Yesterday our friend, Ramon, confirmed what we suspected. New old Jesus has died.

I was compelled to photograph what I can see that still remains at this little casa, which was originally inhabited by the first Jesus.

Below, the tv antennae is gone.


Through the coyote fence the door is slightly ajar.

His favorite chair is still on the porch.

This is his old toilet, surrounded by plastic flapping in the wind.

I feel sadness about it.

Of course, I felt that way when I first realized a new old Jesus was living in old Jesus' casa. I wondered what happened to the first Jesus. I still don't know. But Ramon says that new old Jesus went into the Panteon very quickly.

When I turned away from the coyote fence I thought about how dark and quiet it will be back there now. No sounds of men boxing, no women crying over lost lovers, no six pm national anthem.

So looking back to our casa and our ongoing projects, there is much racket. The tile saw is grinding away at adobe bricks, Senor is screwing something into the wall and Umberto is slapping mortar on the new wall. So much activity. In two months the rains will come and the yard will be emerald green and lush with unwanted plants and vines. We will not need to water.

Manana I am going with friends to the Panteon. They are going to adopt a grave and I have the list of names that are available.

I also plan to take a bouquet of plastic flowers and a candle and look for a fresh dirt covered grave.

Ramon says his nickname was Charro and he died of too much whiskey and bad knees.