in the garden of babs

It is a pleasantly hot day in San Miguel.


Well, “pleasant” and “hot” for me.  It is 75 degrees with 38% humidity -- a really nice day in my book.   

Right now in Melaque, it is 90 degrees and 66% humidity.  I think I chose a good time to escape to the mountains.


Something is afoot in the town this afternoon.  There has been the usual volley of rockets.  Now the church bells are apeal.  And I am not certain what is up because I have snuggled myself into this pleasant house for the full day.


For those of you who have wondered if my failure to post over the last 36 hours might have something to do with my scorpion sting -- it didn’t.  I was simply out enjoying myself.  And enjoying myself in.


Yesterday I joined a few other residents of San Miguel at the last episode of the Harry Potter film series.  In a modern, tidy cineplex at the shopping center I mentioned the other day.  And I saw it for 46 peso -- about $3.92 (US).

 

The Harry Potter books and films are obviously addressed to pre-teens and young teens  But the story is as old as all quest literature.  Odysseus would have fully understood what he had to do if he had been wizardly spelled into Harry Potter’s loafers.


I also bought a new book for my Kindle based on some dinner conversation at Billie’s welcoming party.  I have enjoyed the two books I have read by Erik Larson: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America; and Thunderstruck.


 

I knew he had just published a new book, but I had not paid much attention to it.  The advice of my dinner mates and my experience with the two earlier books tipped me over the edge.  While I was waiting for the movie to start, I simply ordered up the book on my Kindle.  In a cinema theater.  In Mexico.  Great world, isn’t it?


The book is In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin.  Larson tells the story of the early, vulnerable years of Hitler’s rule when nations (often for understandable reasons) took no action to hem in Nazi power.  Rather than mere history narrative, he tells the tale through the eyes of the newly-appointed American ambassador to Germany and his family.

 

According to my Kindle, I am 60% of the way through the book.  I should finish it tonight.


It does not matter that the reader will know what happens to some of the major characters.  Larson has the pen of a novelist -- a novelist who can conjure up believable dialog that cannot possibly be historical, but has the feel of authenticity.


Will Rudolf Diels, the first head of the Gestapo, survive his political games?  Will Ernst Röhm seize control of the German Army?  Will President Paul von Hindenburg (a blimp of a man) dismiss Hitler at the request of the army?  Will the ambassador's daughter betray the United States to the Soviet Union?


I suspect most of you know the answers to those questions.  They are all part of our past -- part of who we are.


But it doesn't matter that we know the fate of each of the characters.  The book is a good read.  Larson is capable of pulling us out of our anachronistic view of history and putting us in the position of the people who had to live their lives in that milieu.

 

Speaking of milieu, the photographs that grace this post are of Babs’s lovely casita.  It bears her decorative touch in each room.  A decorative touch that makes me feel as if I know San Miguel without setting foot outside the door.


But I will tomorrow  Set foot outside the door, that is.


Babs has a treat for me – and I intend to share.