To Ask Senor or Not......That is the Question

Buen dia!
Yesterday morning I rode new old bike out to the arches and beyond. I don't think that's more than a round trip of eight miles but when I got home I had to take a long siesta. That route is all about up and down and finally the bike shop has installed two new handle bar shifter thingies that activate the derailers. I just went out and asked Senor what those things are called..........are they called something special, i asked. He was up on the ladder, not happy with my question..............oh, are you thinking........i asked. Not happy again.....well, can I just call them gear shifter thingies...............sure, can i get back to work now, he asked. When Senor is working, especially up on the ladder with a tool in his hand, and I know this, he does not like being distracted.

I try not to bother Senor when he is working, but well, sometimes it is hard not to, even if it a dumb question about new old bike. This does not mean we don't talk to each other during the day, of course we do, I am referring in particular to critical times when it is obvious he is immersed in his work. But sometimes those times are not so obvious to me. Besides, by nature, I am a multi tasker. I can talk any subject Senor wants, answer any question thoroughly while totally concentrating on an entirely different topic. Easy as making an apple pie and thinking about which plates to serve it on, whether or not to serve whipped cream and coffee, and yes, dear, I got your laundry from the cleaners and don't forget we have dinner with Harry and Sarah on Tuesday and teacher's conferences tomorrow at two.

I should have learned my lesson long, long ago when we bought our very first house, a small little craftsman bungalow on the edge of a ravine. He was building a rock wall. I was sitting on the grass, waiting for him to assign me my part of rock wall building. I began talking to him about the other things I thought we should do to the yard as he carried huge gorst rocks by wheelbarrow from the alleyway to the wall. Oh, I thought a fence on top of the wall would be nice, a grape arbor, a few new rhododendrons here and there, oh, and could you make us a bird feeder and when are we going to drive out to the lake and get that old wooden hot tub our friend said we could have..................

If my memory serves me correctly, he stopped working, went inside the house and turned on a football game. He just left me sitting there in the grass.

Later, while we were playing a game of croquet, I mentioned how he left me in the grass there................so, he said, this is my only complaint, when I am working on a project, I am really concentrating on my work, it is hard to talk when I am carrying huge heavy rocks..............

So the shifter thingies work and I was able to get up in that gear............is it high or low that gets you up hills? I would go and ask Senor but, ouch. It must be high.

The bike man went to Tucson for over a week and came back with boxes and boxes of stuff, all new looking. I am pretty certain my shifters were in that box and I was very worried about what it was going to cost me. Forty-five pesos, that's what it cost, not even four dollars. So after my siesta, I rode to town. Then again, later in the day, I went out again. New old bike is working like new. On one of my trips I went to buy bird seed at the feed store over in La Capilla barrio and saw this little calf. There were some men sitting on the wall there and they said they were waiting for a key to the courtyard of this casa so they could graze the calf. They asked me to stay and have coffee, but I told them I was off to town.

I took the long route to town and crossed over the new bridge. It has been completed now for over six months, but we still call it new. The two pictures following this one will show you what happened to the original bridge when Hurricane Norbert hit. That will be three years ago on October 11. If you want to refresh your memory about Norbert, you can see the posts and photos by clicking on the Norbert tags to the right. It's still pretty clear in my mind, so I only pulled up the two bridge photos and did not look at anything else. I find that I cannot look at too many photos of Norbert, it's certainly still very clear in my mind.
So, this morning I left new old bike alone to rest and mowed the lawn. I was able to complete it in one hour and forty three minutes and two tankfuls of gasoline. I swear I will have this whole yard covered someday in concrete. I had to take a siesta when I was done and I would have slept for two hours, I am sure, except Senor started using his saw and that woke me up. See the freshly mowed lawn below.



More vigas and beams are going up on the portal. Every day I think this portal is bigger and bigger and I wonder how I will ever fill it up to make it look lived in. Sixty feet, I think that is correct. I would go and ask, but................
Of course, we are still planning on the dipping pool and that will be under the portal, or would that be called on the portal. Not going to go find out.

Below you can see some of the electrical tubing Senor has up there. He has a map of all that, what is in each tube, where it goes, the location of it in the wall and what it goes to. Yesterday he was studying that and I asked him if he would buy me a topochico mineral water next time he went out and could he also get me some pesos from the bank so I could pay the electricity...............and do you want shrimp or turkey for dinner................... Evil eye.
Senor is using his saw. I am going to go take a picture, be right back.

He is cutting barro blanco for the roof top.



The other day I was reading through one of my house magazines. This particular magazine is one I purchased several years ago at El Nicho, an antique store here in Alamos. I flipped through an article about remodels and how romantic it can be if approached correctly. The author clearly stated it is important to communicate as you work. The wife should consider staying on top of making sure she is doing the job given her correctly. Especially if there is no general contractor and a couple might be doing their project together. Asking questions of the person, husband, in charge is critical to the continuation of the project and the author went so far as to suggest that contrary to what one might think, bedtime is a very good time to bring up thoughts and ideas about your project, for example, try snuggling and then tell him how you think the refrigerator should go on the wall opposite the one where the electrical wiring was installed. Woman's Housekeeping, 1969.

Oh, one of these days I suppose I might discover that I have learned not to talk to Senor when it is obvious he is concentrating on his project. I might stop and think to myself, is this a good time or a bad time to ask that question. Or maybe I will never learn because after all, if that's his only complaint.....................

On This Day After the Day

Buen dia.
I woke early on Independence Day to check out the parties. The music woke me at five and when I stepped outside I could hear the sounds of fiesta from all directions. Once on foot, I discovered the party goers still going were young, in their mid twenties hanging out at their cars, music blaring, hanging out at the bus stop, hanging out on the portals of various hotels, again, all listening to music and the music, I was delighted to hear, was all Mexicano. Some romantic, some ranchero, ballads, rock, quite a variety and all good. I am a lover of Mexican music, there is no bad music here.
I continued my walk and saw very few people other than all of the young people still hanging on, very unwilling to give up what must have been an eventful night for them.

We were awakened the night before the day by the fireworks and shouting and screaming which seemed to last for hours. Finally, after watching bursts of gigantic flowering red, white and green fireworks for half an hour we were back in bed drifting off to the sounds of Ivan's party back at new old Jesus's casa.

Senor and I made it down town early for the parade. This year instead of standing in the hot sun at the Alameda, we chose to follow the back of the parade for awhile and then hurry around to catch the beginning while standing in the shade near the Paulita school.

Below are a few of the men and horses from the Ganadera, the Cattlemens' Association waiting for their turn to enter the Plaza. I think that the photos which connect me most to Alamos are the faces of the children. Their beautiful expressions make me wonder what they are thinking. The little girl below does that to me. I cannot help but wonder what she wonders.


And what must he be thinking..................
Soon he will grow up and march with one of the schools.

One day he might march with the military.
This was the first time we have seen the military march in a parade.
Most of the young children were on the floats this year.
As always, the boys play the trumpet and the girls play the drums.

The twins below have carried their school flag for four years now. Another set of willowy twins has carried their flag as well. We have watched them grow taller. We see some of our friends' children marching with their schools. We wave, they nod and smile and keep marching in the dreadful heat because it is their duty. By the time they reach Calle Madero, friends and family will be tossing them water bottles and they will have time to rest in the shade.




I recognize the young girl on the right. A quick smile breaks her serious march and just as quickly her head snaps straight ahead and she marches to the sound of her teacher.............uno, dos, uno, dos...one, two, one, two.....and at a pause when it is time to salute the flag as it waves from the Mirador...........izquierda, izquierda, izquierda, left, left, left..............
When the Ganadera brings up the last of the parade, a sea of floating and bobbing white hats capture our attention. They are very handsome men on their huge horses and many of their children ride with them. They are beaming, smiling, all very proud.


Back at the Plaza, the ladies bring out their tres leche cakes, the three milk cakes, bags of snacks and cotton candy and balloons are on every corner.



At the arroya, empty soda bottles have been placed on the exposed rebar of the new stone wall to prevent accidents and the grand stand is up. When evening comes, there will music on the bandstand, dancing, and horse racing, and horse dancing in the arroyo.
It's never too early for a vaquero and his caballo, a cowboy and his horse, to get in line at the Tecate or Pacifico Light tent.

After a carne asada lunch on the Alameda and an new assessment of how hot the day was getting, we marched home and turned on the mini split and did not go back outside until six pm. Senor grilled our favorite chomorro, which is shank, and the evening turned nice and cool and the air was filled with music from the arroyo. We stayed up late listening to the sounds of the fiesta, but not once wanting to join the crowds.

This morning, the day after the day, Senor was downtown early to buy a coca cola. When he came back he said he saw only three people on the streets and they were all under the age of six................it is very quiet this morning.

On This Day Before the Day

Yesterday's storm came late in the day with these beautiful clouds billowing against the setting sun. I had to pull out the fleece again. It was cozy and warm against the cold wind of the storm.

This is the day before the Day of Independence. I went downtown around noon to see what activity I could find. And there was nothing. You could have heard a pin drop in the Plaza....no people, no cars, no wind, nothing. The big wooden doors to the Palacio were closed tight.

I drove up to the Mirador. There was enough breeze there to keep the flag waving.



The roof tops of all the houses below are gleaming white, all freshly impermeabled, coated with rubber sealant to keep out the summer rains.




You can see the Palacio in the center of the photo, big and brown, silent, taking a siesta before it awakens to welcome its loving people later tonight.

Below I could see the distant clouds churning to the west, but not too threatening and the sun was bright and hot.

Back inside new old car, a quick check on the time told me I had twenty minutes before Senor would need the car so he could get to the ladies for bridge.

I drove west, past the Tecate store, where I finally saw people and activity. Men stood, laughing and talking, waiting their turn to buy. I stopped in the OXXO and stood in line for five minutes to get a frozen coffee drink. The shop keepers were bringing in huge bins filled with ice and Tecate and the Tecate was going out the door as fast as they could get it in. Farther up the street school kids were walking, blowing trumpets and banging drums. Dogs were running in and out between their legs. A few girls watched the boys playing basketball at the sports complex. A girl sat at the bus stop waving her plastic Mexican flag.

A quick turn around, speeding for home, a toss of the keys to Senor and a retreat to the coolness of the bedroom. After relaxing for a few minutes under the mini split, trying to decide how to spend the afternoon, the power went out for over an hour and a half. I moved outdoors to the portal where a cool wind picked up, thunder roared and a heavy rain began to fall.

I went and got my fleece.

Now I hear town coming alive. The delivery trucks are rambling up and down the street. Ivan, new old Jesus' nephew, who inherited the little casa, is trying out some new opera tunes on his stereo, the kid several streets over is playing his pan flute, still only one song, El Condor. The cow bells are tinkling over in Rancho Colorada and it is almost time for Senor to return.

We will be wide awake when the activity begins at midnight, listening from the portal to the excitement from the 'grito' and the fireworks and then, on the streets for the parade in the morning. Until then, on this day before the day, adios.......

More Sunlight, More Firewood, More View

Buenos dias. In the night we woke to a huge windstorm, the sounds were very reminiscent of the ones we heard almost three years ago during Hurricane Norbert. The only thing missing was the constant wail of the sirens. Several times I said to Senor...........what's zat....... Senor, not having being raised in the south, said several times.......what in the hell was that. When I went out at the crack of dawn I saw that all of our ladders which had been leaning against the portal had fallen, all of our plastic furniture was out in the back of the yard, the plastic white tables legs flung like broken stilts to the side, the gleaming flat tops leaning against the coyote fence. The yard was littered with branches and several ten foot tops of tecoma bell trees. And we had a new view of the mountains because most of the plumeria trees were on top of the asador.


Humberto spent four hours this morning sawing the plumeria trunks into firewood which he says need to age for a year. As the morning heated up we realized just how much shade we actually lost. In return, our mountain view which has always been spectacular, is even more spectacular. With Norbert, Mt Alamos got eleven inches of rain in two hours, we only got one half an inch with last night's storm. Thank goodness, the thing we never want to see again are any of his relatives.


I was very worried about downtown and all the banners and flags and pendants and drapes, but a quick tour of town on new old bike showed everything looked normal and one of the city workers told me there was very little wind in town. Soon the kids were on their way to and from school, delivery trucks were at the Mercado, the vendors were setting up their food stalls and the newspaper guys were on the corner. Just normal as can be.


The city worker was busy filling the cans with kerosene and inserting long wicks. The blackened cans will go out on the tops of the homes and businesses on the fifteenth, and will be lighted before the grigo at midnight. More shop owners were busy hanging drapes and flags. The Oaxcan artisans were coming out of their tents after a restful sleep, the music man was putting on a good mix and the shoeshine stand was ready for customers. Yes, just normal as can be.After talking with a few people about the storm, I have learned that the hill tops are the ones that really got hit and that would include us. A few folks out farther in more open barrios also lost a few tree limbs here and there. But overall, no real serious damage anywhere.

Next year when the hot summer sun beats down on us, we will not miss the thick lush plumeria trunks that were broken off last night because the portal will give us shade. The birds who had their homes in the tecoma bell tree tops will find new places to live and as the long hot summer fades into autumn and then to winter, we will most likely toss an aged plumeria trunk into the outdoor fireplace, and sit back and enjoy the view.
adios.............

Preparing for Independence Day in Alamos

Hola............... just a few photos today. I want you to see how Alamos is preparing for Independence day which is on the 16th.

September 16th, marks the anniversary of the day the War for Independence from Spain began. The parade will be grand but the real activity begins on the 15th, when the Mayor, on the second story balcony of the Palacio, gives the cry, or grito for independence, at midnight. It is the reenactment of the proclamation of war, given in 1810, by Father Hidalgo, in the state of Guanajuato, that everyone wants to hear.

That is, everyone who can stay up that late and make their way to town to hear it. We have never been and I understand it is a huge crowd that gathers and in order to get near the Palacio you need to be on your way there several hours early. We have always chosen the luxury of staying home and listening to the crowd break out in waves and waves of accelerated whooping and hollering and screaming and yelling and then, boom, the fireworks light up the sky. While we do not get to hear the proclamation, we can hear the aftermath just fine and we also see the fireworks from our casa.

Senor is snoozing, Cookies is snoozing. Time for me to join them.

que le vaya bien! linda lou

It is So Senor

Hola, hola, hola and all that good stuff. I am so excited to tell you that my wonderful friend, Trish, who reads the blog, emailed me over my photo distress and informed me that Blogger is updating its format and I should read all about it to figure it out. I did that and decided at the risk of not figuring it out on my own, I will just keep the old blogger.

However, she sent four emails of fabulous, inventive ways of solving my problem. In one she suggested copy and paste and just move the photos that way. Good grief, it worked!
Thank you, Trish! And thanks to everyone else who commented or personally emailed me to solve the problem or like Senor who can be So Senor, suggested "does this really matter in the grand scheme of things?"

I loaded the four photos below, and you know, for me, four is dinky. I usually have many more, especially if Senor is giving me great photo opportunities. I mean, the hair dryer? Priceless........ Poking on the beach........Priceless, again. I could go on and on, but in case I get to 'publish post' and the copy and paste should turn out to be fake, and that would be a real catastrophe, I will have not sat here tediously uploading many photos for no purpose.

Plus, I have major things to accomplish this afternoon while Senor is bridging a few streets over with the ladies. I am in a serious cleaning mode.
Company is coming........KD and Novio.
We are going to meet Novio.

I am dusting the ceilings, sweeping the Glasspondstudio workshop, painting the vigas in the West Wing (for the second time), washing the Obregon Wal Mart sheets with the new Ace soap that smells like lime and rinsing with the newest Svuarte, called Elegance. Squishing all the mealy bugs in the fake kitchen's cupboards and tossing the bad flour, keeping the coffee can lid on the shower drains so the pinacates can't come up the pipes, ordering Cookie's flea medicine from El Coyote, mowing the yard (for the third time this week) and looking for my friend, Martin, to come and help me weed. He comes by every week looking for work we don't have and now, when I need him, he is not to be found.

I measured the beds. Seventy-four inches. Novio is six-two. In case you don't know, that's seventy-four inches. KD is five-two on a good top knot hair day. At first I did not think that is such a big difference in size. But if you release one foot out on your tape measure and hold it straight up in front of your eyes, a foot is a lot taller than you'd think. I guess I can put my newly covered bench at the foot of the bed, for his toes.


The doors that enter the West Wing are seventy-four inches. He isn't going to fit, especially not with shoes on. He will duck or go barefoot. Then I will worry about tarantulas and scorpions under foot, spiders over head. I am really not a worrier, but I am worried I may become one.

Senor and Humberto have their own projects to complete. Their goal is to get the eight feet of roof done, varro blanco'd in, cemented and impermeabled over, so we can have a dry place to sit and eat meals providing the wind is not blowing over ten miles an hour in which case we will just need to grab the cat and all go sit in new old car, where I doubt Novio is going to fit. I want to be able to eat under the dry portal, but Senor is just being So Senor. He says that is a work zone, not a dining zone. I plan to go into whine mode and see if there can't be a small space cleared and cleaned out for dining for four.

The final columns for the north end of the portal have been poured. Humberto had to take out most of the left half of the big tree there so the last column would fit. We have lost our shade from the tree, but gained a considerable amount of mountain view that we usually only have in winter since the tree is deciduous.

I have weeded this three times this week and the space, which was thigh high with grass several weeks ago, is looking good.







The plan is exciting. We will drive to Mazatlan, where KD and Novio will fly. We will lay around on the beach for a few days and then drive north to Alamos. Senor says it can be done in six hours. We dilly dallied last time and it took seven. I really do think Novio is barely going to fit in new old car, so I hope it will not seem like six hours to him. We will be in Alamos for a week and then drive again to Mazatlan where surprise! we will hook up with Ian and his friend!!!

We will lay around on the beach for several days with Ian and Friend and KD and Novio. Then KD and Novio are off to Denver, and we will drive with Ian and Friend, six hours north to Alamos, where we will stay for a week. Then, back to Mazatlan, to lay around the beach for a few days and then see them off to Seattle. I told this to someone and she said............jeez, just put them on the bus, that's too much..............i replied, the bus ride from Mazatlan is almost twelve hours................i would self destruct just waiting for them to get here. Besides I like to go and I am pretty excited to be going south instead of north.

KD and Ian could not get the same days off from work, but the overlap of several days in Mazatlan is a great surprise and I can hardly wait to see them all.

It is thundering outside and Radio Sonora is playing Lady Gaga tunes. Time for me to hustle back to check my list and find out what I am doing next.

Before I go, I want to show you my favorite photo. I am planning to blow it up and frame it and hang it in a very prominent place in the casa. It is So Senor.


Que le vaya bien! Linda lou

I Need Help with Blogger

Buenos tardes. A very cool and mysterious morning. Shrouded in fog, none of the mountains were visible. A little breeze for my walk and by the time I got back home at six thirty, I was highly motivated to weed the lily garden. It remained cloudy most of the morning and I was further motivated to mow and weed around some of the palm trees.
Now, late in the day, the sun is out and as it stretches across the sky, the mountains are green and bright as sparkling emeralds.

I put turkey tom on top of the dead eucalyptus trunk that sits in the lily garden. I know he will rust, but it is much better to have him here than inside the West Wing where I have received a fair number of cuts by backing up into his sharp tin feathers.

The lilies are night bloomers, pink and white with speckled rosy centers, on long thick stalks that fall over first thing in the morning. They are also very fragrant, but you have to be out at midnight to catch the scent.



Senor and Humberto switched gears this morning and began working on the columns again for the portal. The wood form is filled with cement. They need to do four more of these and the portal columns will be done.

I am very frustrated with blogger, again. I posted on this once before and I am hoping someone has discovered a solution to the problem by now and can fill me in. Blogger simply will not let me move my photos around. It makes it difficult to connect word content with the photos. Even when I try to upload them in precisely the correct sequence I need, blogger changes it on its own.
The last time I brought this up almost all the comments were from folks who said they had given up on blogger and were switching to wordpress. I am not sure I could move this whole blog to wordpress. I would be pressed for the knowledge to do it and I am not sure my mom, HI MOM! would ever find me again.
So I hope someone has found a solution and can tell me about it so I can stay here with blogger. I have tried accessing the blog through numerous browsers and same problem each time.

So, Help is what I need! All information received will be considered.

I am off to the fake kitchen. I cooked a mango meatloaf this morning, just a regular old meatloaf with a cup of chopped mango added. I will slice it for dinner and top it with a cold sauce of brown sugar, ketchup and one minced habanero chili and another half a cup of mango. I think Barcelona is playing tonight and we might sit in the bedroom, in the Pier One chairs and watch a little soccer.
Que le vaya bien! linda lou