Name That Casa

Buenos dias. We got over two inches of rain last night. Quite a grand storm, lots of trelampagosa, lightning and truenos, thunder, right over our bedroom. It lasted for hours and hours.

Poor Cookies got caught out in it and during one brief lull, I was able to coax him inside, but before I could dry him off, he jumped up onto one of the beautiful yellow Pier One cushioned chairs, well, you can only imagine what that looks like now.

The good news is we used several very thick towels at the doorway and as a result we did not have any pinacates, the stinky, black beetle type bugs, in bed with us last night.

Even with all that racket through out the night, I slept well and was out on the street at five-thirty.
All of the arroyos are running. Here is La Aduana below. If you recall, during the last big storm the Chalaton and Escondida arroyos were running, but the Aduana was not. There was evidently enough water last night to kick the Aduana into high gear.These guys below just did not want the hassle of going up and over the bridge. Yet for the longest time they could not commit, bridge? water? bridge? water? Finally the one in the plaid shirt just walked through and the water was up to his knees. The other one shook his head, laughed and took the bridge. Almost all of the vehicles did not skip a beat and just plunged ahead.The dozer kept shoveling dirt into the arroyo, for what purpose I am not sure.

Here along the left bank, in the photo below, the city is building a tall stone wall and a lighted malecon that will go for quite some distance along the arroyo. It will be nice walking when there is water in the arroyo. I keep hoping they might find a river to divert. When the water is gone, I will go over and take a photo of what the finished malecon will look like. There is a construction board near the workers showing an artist's rendition.

My purpose for going out this morning was to get a few more photos of some of the lovely wall plaques around town. Many of these plaques just show the street address of the casa, but quite a few of the creative ones tell the name the owners have chosen for their casa.

Now I tried several years ago to convince Senor we should name our casa. We had a little turtle in the stable at that time. I suggested La Tortuga, House of the Turtle............no, he said..................Casa de los Quatros Vientos, House of the Four Winds, because we are one of the windiest spots in town.................absolutely not, he said.....................Casa de Las Campanas, House of the Bells, because we have so many dollar store wind chimes....................NO, he said.................Casa de los Limones, House of the Limes, three lime trees......how about Casa de Construccion, no need to say more about that.............no, he said, we don't need to name our house, we know what it is called, it is called our house..................Okay, I just let that go. No big deal, we do not need to name our casa.

Below are some of my favorite plaques, some I like because the name is pretty, others because they are more creative in style and even others because of where the owner chose to place the plaque.

House of the Tangerine or Mandarin Orange......................

The Beautiful House.....................

Robert's House.................

House of the Fourteen Little Angels......................

The Lovely House........................


I believe this is the House of the 'family name'.................

The Chocolate House........................

The Hummingbird House..................

The House of another family name.....................

And the House of Sucess or Victory.................

Imagine our surprise just a few days ago when we returned home to find that the telephone pole outside our gate had been named.................9.............and below it Humberto (I now know I have been misspelling Umberto's name).................next to the large H in smaller letters is umberto. So we are Durango 9, House of Humberto.....................jajajaja...............trust me, Senor is a funny guy but he found absolutely no humor in that at all. I am surprised he has not been at that already with a can of black paint.

No, I am not bored! I really thought you might like to see the wall plaques.

All right I am fixing to go and make crab cakes. Did I tell you the fish lady came by with bags of fresh crab? OMG, unbelievable, a kilogram for under fifty pesos. That is two and a half pounds for a little over four USD and it is all cleaned and perfectly good2go.

Then I am going to the bike shop. The gear shifter contraption thingy on the right handle bar fell completely off new old bike this morning. Plop, just like that in the street in front of the Palacio. The guard was not there to see it, thank goodness no one was there to see it. I got off and picked it up and threw it in the basket.

It will be my last visit to this bike shop. A friend sent me a link to fixing it all myself. He said I would probably need to read it through a couple of times. Well, after reading it for the 5th time, I said to myself........there is no way in heck i can do that............... but Senor can, he can do anything............except name a casa................gee whiz..............


Below is a very early in the morning photo of the church steeple, the fresh water covered streets and the green hillside beyond, very picturesque morning. Not many folks out and about, but the street workers were everywhere, sweeping up dirt and garbage that came with the rain. The vendors were wiping down chairs and putting up their tarps. The sweet smell of pastries cooking was on the air. Someone was whistling over here and someone singing over there, very nice. Que tengas buen dia! linda lou