eat and meet

Tuesday was a day of relaxation.  And what better way is there to relax than to socialize and eat?


I started the day with breakfast.  A group of expatriate men in Pátzcuaro (and the surrounding area) meet every Tuesday morning at a rotating list of restaurants.  No agenda.  Just a bunch of guys getting together and talking about guy stuff.


I missed last Tuesday’s breakfast.  I thought it was at 10.  It was at 9.  But I joined a group of them at a coffee shop, La Surtidora, for coffee and conversation.  (La Surtidora has now become my backup internet connection.)  And I ran into several of them around town during the past week.


As a result, I did not feel like an outsider when I set down to eat with them on Tuesday.  And eat I did.  Scrambled eggs with ham.  Beans.  Muffins.  I usually eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast.  After my paella the night before, I felt as if I could be the main course at a Thanksgiving dinner.


We finished up around 10.  That gave me time to walk over to La Surtidora to post my blog.  Even after I write it at home in the evening, it still takes me just over an hour to post the draft, revise the formatting, and insert the photographs.


Late last week, I has set up a lunch with a fellow blogger, Pat.  She lives in Ajijic, but is currently house sitting in Pátzcuaro.


So, back to Lupita’s I went for lunch.  I had been looking forward to meeting Pat.  She is originally from southern Oregon -- just over the mountains from where I spent the earliest years of my life.  We had also exchanged email on the intricacies of Oregon tax law before I moved to Mexico.


I limited myself to a bowl of tarascan soup.  But I was not there for the food.  I was there to hear the Mexican experiences of another expatriate.  We both agreed that my beach life and her lake life in Ajijic are quite different -- and that both of our lives are quite different from the lives of expatriates in San Miguel and Pátzcuaro.


They are all simply different places with their positives and negatives.  And there are joys to be had wherever you choose to live.  I know, it sounds vacuous, but I have found it to be true wherever I have lived these past 62 years.


And that was about my day -- with the exception of a much-appreciated siesta and a trip into town to do a bit of research on a piece I have been drafting for about a week.


In the evening (the point where I am writing), I warmed up a bowl of spaghetti from a huge pot I cooked up early last week. And watched one of Mel Brooks’s quirkier comedies -- The Twelve Chairs.  Dining room chairs, of course.  Just keeping with the day’s theme.


If all goes well, I will head out to one of the archaeological sites tomorrow after I post this.  If not, there will be something else to see.