roof in the road

I thought I had missed a disaster here in town.  A wind storm or an earthquake.

It appeared that one of my favorite restaurants (the Red Lobster -- not the abysmally mediocre north of the border franchise -- but the local trademark-infringing Mom and Pop operation in Villa Obregon) had suffered some form of mishap.  What had once been the palapa on the top of the building was now in the street.

Or, rather, the palm fronds that once formed the roof of the papa on the top of the building (not of the house that Jack built) was now in the street.

That is one of the odd things about renovation.  Whether it is done by nature or by owners, the result looks the same.  Like a disaster.  And that may be one reason so many people are afraid of change.  It simply looks disorderly.
 

But if I had looked closer, I would have seen the pile of freshly harvested and split palm fronds piled in their Niles Crane anal retentive orderliness next to the avalanche of soon-to-be-discrarded dried fronds.

I love the smell of freshly-split palm fronds.  It reminds me of a cross between mown grass and crushed Sitka Spruce needles.  Almost as if a bit of the Pacific Northwest had been re-packaged in a tropical bundle.

One of the nice things about palapas is that there is little waiting for "out with the old and in with the new."  By that afternoon, the project was done.

What had been so fresh and green on the ground had already started to fade into Tiki Lounge brown.  A day later, there is no green.  The palapa looks as if it has stood there in its eternal shade of tan.

By the way, the name of the restaurant really is just the Red Lobster.  Despite what the sign says.  It is not "to the Red Lobster."

When the owner had the sign made, he wanted the title in English -- to lure in language-handicapped northerners.  Like myself.  But his sign maker spoke only Spanish. 

So, the owner gave him a copy of a menu with the phrase "Welcome to the Red Lobster."  How only a portion of the phrase was transferred, we will never know. 

It is just another of those mysteries of Mexico.