#2 and #3 -- a mouse is not a home

Topic mixing time. Where topics may be mixed thicker than metaphors and water.


Old house. New computer.


Last August, I decided it was time to sell my house. The housing market was crippled and appeared to be headed for worse days. In new lamps for old, I talked about all the things I needed to do to get the house in shape for sale. I was in full navel-gazing mode, but I had decided the house needed to be sold. By October, I decided that what I had gazed at was lint. My house simply was not going to sell in this market: pots of gold; piles of trash.


So, I had a dilemma. Do I put the house on the market with very little prospect of selling it, do I wait to move to Mexico until the market improves (say, around November of 2025), or do I find someone to stay in the house until I can sell it?


I was lucky enough to find a friend who would house sit long term. Even with that arrangement, though, I need to replace several windows and a door, complete the replanting of my rock garden, and repair a section of my fence (that has been down for over a year). I also need to walk the house sitter through the house to describe its eccentricities.


Leaving the house with a sitter forestalls the decision on what to do with my possessions. I can worry about that when the house is ready for the market -- or when my heirs divvy up my goods following my untimely death.


The only possessions I am going to get rid of are my clothes. I have two closets of clothes that I will never wear again. Most will go to the Salvation Army. However, I will bring some to Mexico as packing material. Jennifer Rose wisely points out that good used clothing will be greatly appreciated by my Mexican neighbors. Good idea.


Very little that I own will head south with me, but I will need a new laptop computer. I prefer using desktop PCs, but I have received sufficient warning to know that there is a great danger that I will be charged duty on a desktop computer. Besides the duty issue, there is the question of portability. I want to use the laptop for more than merely writing pieces for work.


Specials on laptops have been as thick as beer cups at a NASCAR race. I have been looking at several of Dell's models.


My computer weakness is buying much more computer than I need. That weakness is exacerbated by the fact that any electronics I take to Melaque will have a very short life. Electrical circuits and humid tropical air are not your natural marriage material. I would like to buy the computer by the end of this month -- if, for no other reason, to get used to using it.


In addition to the computer, I need a portable printer and scanner. That adjective will add a few more C notes to the purchase price. But I would like the flexibility of having both available for road trips.


And supplies. If I have learned anything from blogs and message boards, I should take ink cartridges with me. I have even heard people say that good quality paper is not always available. I have seen plenty of paper sources in Melaque. No need to carry along the corpses of American trees when I can find them in Mexico.


One last computer-related item. MagicJack. I was going to try it out on my last trip to Mexico, but I did not take my laptop with me.


My brother swears by it. He took his setup to Mexico this spring, and had great telephone reception. He called me while I was walking in Portland. It sounded as if he were in town -- as opposed to Japan.


All of these items are simple. I just need to start the ball rolling on each of them.