Oh my gosh....I can´t tell you how frustrated I´ve been!! John and I went to the Telcel ( the local phone monopoly ) office recently and got ¨banda ancha¨- a broadband stick for the computer. For a few glorious days we had internet at OUR HOUSE!!! Wow, talk about being rocketed into another galaxy! How surreal to be sitting on my cocnut plantation listening to the grackles and sending e-mails and skyping! But alas... a few days into the deal, troubles began to rear thier ugly heads...slight abnormalities turned in into major gliches, major headaches then....frozen! AAHHHRRGGG.....so, I tried this, tried that...won´t bore you with all the details but the bottom line is, i think I have a bad, bad virus. As in anthrax or bubonic plague or some other hideous affliction you can only run from....I´m taking it into the shop Thursday...everyone send out positive computer vibes cuz I´d be really upset if they couldn´t fix it. A new computer is definately NOT in the budget.
Speaking of hideous afflictions, last week i was doing some yard work. There was a little pile of dead leaves and dried coconut husks in my otherwise pristine , sandy terreno so i raked them up and scooping them up with my hands, threw them over the fence ( I have no neighbor...its a vacant lot of jungle growth ). By the end of the day, my left hand ring finger was...well, it felt sticky. it was bugging me so much i took off the band with the diamonds and left on the thin gold band. By the next morning, the ring finger and the fingers on each side were itching like CRAZY. Oh man, i couldn´t dig at those babies long and hard enough to be sated. By the follwing day, the ring finger was so fat it looked like it should be smothered in kraut and served at Octoberfest and all three were covered in waterfilled blisters AND it still itched. There was absolutely no way to get my ring off my ever expanding digit and we were a bit concerned the poor thing was at the point of bursting so Dr. John attempted to cut off the ring with something out of the tool box. After all the greasing, mashing, twisting and attempted ring amputation my poor finger was purple. the blisters had all filled with , what i can only surmise, was blood. Sounding cute yet?I was given various suggestions and medicines but I had a pretty good idea it was one of those things that just needed to run its course. I´ll tell you the one thing that actually did seem to help and that was after spending time in the pool, the clorine seemed to dry it out a bit. After almost..what?...eight? nine days? I am happy to report the ring is intact ( Johns attempt only succeeded in hurting me, not the ring) , the blisters are gone and all that remains are dark spots where the worst of the blisters had been and patches of skin that resemble an old baseball mitt.
This morning the guys came by. They brought a bowling ball sized cantaloupe they had bought from a farm down the road. They came to take a rock collecting trip with me. This area is atop a shelf of limestone. There are rocks everywhere. They are incorporated into walls, houses, the bottom of my pool (under the concrete) hecne the trip to get more. They had brought a load over and thrown them out of the truck when they were working on the pool. They looked so nice where they landed, and one was perfect for a stepping stone to the pool, I asked them not to use them, to go get more. well, then i left for a week and John was in charge...wont go into that but we went to get more today. While we were all standing around eating this delicous melon, i told them about and showed them my hand. They began a search of the property and soon showed me the culprit. A large shrub\ tree sort of thing with little berries. They made it clear that brushing up against it was bad, touching the leaves-even when dead-was bad. This I knew from experience........so, i have learned a bit more about the flora and fauna of the Yucatan....After we finished the melon, we all piled in the truck and headed up the road in search of the perfect rocks. I pulled over at a spot they pointed out, turned off the truck and we all got out. The guys, Chu Chu, Abby and Manolo, all spread out and started looking. there were rocks everywhere but they knew i was looking for something in particulr. they all stopped around one large , flat stone and Manolo stuck in the pry bar and starte dto push...óh! ay! they all backe dup quickly, grabbed rocks, threw them, shuffled about then Manolo stuck the pry bar in again...áy!´more movement and at last the beast was slain...they pulled out a four foot long rattlesnake and threw it into the road. i was watching all this from my new vantage point- standing up in the nack of the truck!....they went back to hoisting out the rock and I watched the snake move ever so slightly in its death throes. I felt bad. really, there he´d been, minding his own business, chillin´in his house when ¨BOOM!¨loud noises, banging stomping rock throwing and the ultimate smashing with the pry bar...one more time, even for a snake, it just goes to show you none of us know what´s just around the corner....could be a horrible computer virus, boils on your hand or a prybar to the head....or, it just might be a visit from a friend or someone bringing over a delicous, fresh melon...so, stay aware and appreciate the good times. And if someone pries off your roof...RUN!!!
Monday, May 16, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
lets see...
You'll have to bear with me today. I've been up since 5 am (it's 8:30) so i'm a little scattered. I've been waking up periodically obsessing about some aspect of my daughters' wedding. Strangely enough, about the same time I started experiencing this, I developed a rash on the ring finger of my left hand. I actually had to remove my wedding band. It has now spread to the finger next to it and some nights I wake myself up digging crazily at my own flesh. Enough on that topic....
Before I go any further, let me update you on a couple of things. First, the trash. As you recall, ( at least my regular followers..) the president, Alvaro, promised garbage barrels for Semana santa. I'm happy to report that he followed through on that. And it's a good thing because that 2 weeks, we were FLOODED with people. I was in Portland for the first week (luckily) but on the second, I was having tea one morning and staring out the window at my lovely view. Before my tea was half empty...(or, half full..) I had counted 8 bus loads of people. thats busloads of people coming IN to town...and that was in 10 min or so. That gives you some idea of the volume of people that come in. Think spring break. Thats what semana santa is. So, the barrels were delivered then taken away. Too bad because there is still the problem of local trash. ( speaking of local trash- i see Sam Adams is trying to push light rail down the throats of lake oswego-ites who don't want it...and how much will that cost?) There is nothing new happening at the dump either. Same old swarm of vultures, fish carcasses and plastics strewn around and flying in the ever present ocean breezes. One thing at a time I guess. Alvaro tried to blame the garbage situation on the "culture" of the local people saying they needed to be educated about littering ( he lives 10 miles away..) politician talk for "I'm probably not really going to do much of anything.."
I will say though, judging by my neighbors ( it's the first time we've ever seen anyone there), i'd have to say he's right. They just opened the back door and let it fly. well, in all fairness , it WAS in a vague pile and they burned it before they left. Well, most of it...what hadn't blown out into the yard...
Second update...i think I mentioned the circus being in Cabsahcab? It has now arrived in Dzidzantun. We went in to get some groceries and saw a yak tied up at the corner of the vacant lot ( where rodeos, bullfights, lariet competitions and apparently circuses are held). There are several garbage barrells there....
Before i forget, I want to share with you a pondering of mine. As the guys were slugging around buckets of cement the other day and doing finish work on the pool in the blazing sun, I was thinking about ...how shall I put it nicely....misinformed people who throw around phrases like "lazy mexicans". Now, since i only live in a small (but safe )corner of mexico i can't speak about an entire population. What i CAN tell you is they are extremely hardworking when they work. They sweat so much and do such backbreaking work, i don't know what keeps them from dropping . They seldom eat much during the day and seldom have tools that could make the job easier. They are willing to dive for octopus or walk through the mud flats for hours digging up little shelled creatures then spend hours shucking for a thimbleful of meat. After a day of that, they may make the equivilant of $7.00. The difference that i see, is they work for what they need not for the sake of working. they may work a few days or weeks then take a break. I think I've touched on this before. i'm not saying they don't have ambition, they are easily satisfied. I'm curious about how many people have ulcers.... Sorry, this is becoming one of those lack of sleep tangents.....
On to flamingos- they are coming back. Now, we haven't had rain here in months so the manglar- the shallows where the birds feed- are bone dry. I hear the flamingos flying over every morning, honking as they go like Canadian geese. When the rains come back, the swamp will fill and they'll land. May 1st is the official start of the hurricane season so the rains can't be too far behind. we were discussing hurricanes with the guys the other day. Isadore was the last one that hit here about 8 years ago. It flooded everything all the way into Dzidzantun. The houses, all the houses actually, withstood the winds but 5 ft of sea ( with shells, crabs, fish, seaweed, sand) washed through all of the Santa Clara dwellings. What kind of a clean up will that be?! Good thing we got our hurricane insurance. It cost us about $173.00. You have to get it by May 1st or you can't get it.
Lastly, a number of folks we've gotten to know have left or are leaving. They will return in Sept. or Oct. They find it too hot here in the summer. We can feel left behind or more like we are holding down the fort. We stick to our routine of coming in on Thur., doing city things like going to the library, shopping, going to Home Depot, out for pizza. on fri. we go back to our peaceful home at the beach with the birds in the yard and a little pool out back. Thanks to home depot, that yard will include a fabulously fragrant magnolia. Should Mr. Iguana decide it's his new favorite, he may find himself on a one way trip to the realm of fish carcasses and burning plastics.....
Before I go any further, let me update you on a couple of things. First, the trash. As you recall, ( at least my regular followers..) the president, Alvaro, promised garbage barrels for Semana santa. I'm happy to report that he followed through on that. And it's a good thing because that 2 weeks, we were FLOODED with people. I was in Portland for the first week (luckily) but on the second, I was having tea one morning and staring out the window at my lovely view. Before my tea was half empty...(or, half full..) I had counted 8 bus loads of people. thats busloads of people coming IN to town...and that was in 10 min or so. That gives you some idea of the volume of people that come in. Think spring break. Thats what semana santa is. So, the barrels were delivered then taken away. Too bad because there is still the problem of local trash. ( speaking of local trash- i see Sam Adams is trying to push light rail down the throats of lake oswego-ites who don't want it...and how much will that cost?) There is nothing new happening at the dump either. Same old swarm of vultures, fish carcasses and plastics strewn around and flying in the ever present ocean breezes. One thing at a time I guess. Alvaro tried to blame the garbage situation on the "culture" of the local people saying they needed to be educated about littering ( he lives 10 miles away..) politician talk for "I'm probably not really going to do much of anything.."
I will say though, judging by my neighbors ( it's the first time we've ever seen anyone there), i'd have to say he's right. They just opened the back door and let it fly. well, in all fairness , it WAS in a vague pile and they burned it before they left. Well, most of it...what hadn't blown out into the yard...
Second update...i think I mentioned the circus being in Cabsahcab? It has now arrived in Dzidzantun. We went in to get some groceries and saw a yak tied up at the corner of the vacant lot ( where rodeos, bullfights, lariet competitions and apparently circuses are held). There are several garbage barrells there....
Before i forget, I want to share with you a pondering of mine. As the guys were slugging around buckets of cement the other day and doing finish work on the pool in the blazing sun, I was thinking about ...how shall I put it nicely....misinformed people who throw around phrases like "lazy mexicans". Now, since i only live in a small (but safe )corner of mexico i can't speak about an entire population. What i CAN tell you is they are extremely hardworking when they work. They sweat so much and do such backbreaking work, i don't know what keeps them from dropping . They seldom eat much during the day and seldom have tools that could make the job easier. They are willing to dive for octopus or walk through the mud flats for hours digging up little shelled creatures then spend hours shucking for a thimbleful of meat. After a day of that, they may make the equivilant of $7.00. The difference that i see, is they work for what they need not for the sake of working. they may work a few days or weeks then take a break. I think I've touched on this before. i'm not saying they don't have ambition, they are easily satisfied. I'm curious about how many people have ulcers.... Sorry, this is becoming one of those lack of sleep tangents.....
On to flamingos- they are coming back. Now, we haven't had rain here in months so the manglar- the shallows where the birds feed- are bone dry. I hear the flamingos flying over every morning, honking as they go like Canadian geese. When the rains come back, the swamp will fill and they'll land. May 1st is the official start of the hurricane season so the rains can't be too far behind. we were discussing hurricanes with the guys the other day. Isadore was the last one that hit here about 8 years ago. It flooded everything all the way into Dzidzantun. The houses, all the houses actually, withstood the winds but 5 ft of sea ( with shells, crabs, fish, seaweed, sand) washed through all of the Santa Clara dwellings. What kind of a clean up will that be?! Good thing we got our hurricane insurance. It cost us about $173.00. You have to get it by May 1st or you can't get it.
Lastly, a number of folks we've gotten to know have left or are leaving. They will return in Sept. or Oct. They find it too hot here in the summer. We can feel left behind or more like we are holding down the fort. We stick to our routine of coming in on Thur., doing city things like going to the library, shopping, going to Home Depot, out for pizza. on fri. we go back to our peaceful home at the beach with the birds in the yard and a little pool out back. Thanks to home depot, that yard will include a fabulously fragrant magnolia. Should Mr. Iguana decide it's his new favorite, he may find himself on a one way trip to the realm of fish carcasses and burning plastics.....
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