the witch who ate my brain

Mexico never fails to find new ways to surprise me.

On Tuesday I was in Manzanillo for week number four of The Great Root Canal -- my own little miniseries.  Because I still have northern habits, I arrived a half hour early. 

Rather than sit around in the waiting room, I decided to look for an electronic shop in thought was near -- because I want to turn several thousand of my hard-earned dollars into a sparking heap of rusted metal in the tropic humidity.

The shop was closed.  So, I wandered around the Santiago neighborhood.   Everything was new to me.  But I never expected what I saw in the distance.  Up on the hill above the bay.  A flash of color.

I spent the full half hour trying to find a good angle to -- well, I guess, figure out just what the structure was.  Colorful it was.  But what was it?

I suspect that this type of thing is exactly the setup used by the brothers Grimm to snare unwary children left alone in the woods by scheming stepmothers.  It looked like a Disney set for a production of Hansel and Gretel in Mexico -- directed by John Waters.

But it made me laugh.  I suspect it is the creation of some half-crazed artist who works in kitsch the same way Donatello worked in bronze.  If the word "camp" does not appear somewhere in the name of the house, the owner's artistic license should be revoked.

Remember that night in college when you looked across that smokey, dimly-lit restaurant and saw the face that has ever since haunted your sense of self-completeness?  Well, this house has turned into my one enchanted evening.

I want it.

Of course, it is not for sale.  At least, there is no sign that it is on the market.  And I really do not want to buy a house.  Especially, in Manzanillo.

But we all make compromises in our search to escape existential gravity.

Or maybe I just want to live in a small house that looks as if Bozo would answer the doorbell.