high speed at a price

Thomas Sowell tells us: “The first of lesson of economics is scarcity; there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it.  The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

It must also be the first lesson of fancy hotels.  At least, when it comes to the internet.

When I check into a Best Western or a Motel 6, I can always count on a decent internet connection.  In my room.  As part of the tariff.

Why is it then when I book into a 5-star hotel with a mock French name, where even the chambermaids effect a Pepé Le Pew accent, and lay down five Franklins for my nightly stay, that the only internet is either in the lobby or in the room for an additional fee -- a fee that comes close to a full tank of gasoline for my truck?

Yes I know, almost everything in these hotels costs a lot.  Like breakfast.  Eggs Benedict for $17.  But, it tastes a lot better than the Grand Slam at Denny’s.  Money well-spent in my opinion.

But the internet?  That is about as fungible as you can get.  Unless the hotel supplies commercial grade speed -- which it doesn’t.

I suspect the answer is the same for a lot of things in American life these days.  If someone else ultimately pays the bill (such as employers who reimburse businessmen for these inflated prices) or federal aid that inflates college tuition, suppliers will do what the market bears.

At least, with the high internet fees, I have the option of going to the competition.  In a world with free wifi in coffee shops, there is no reason to pay big bucks to the big hotels.

I suspect Thomas Sowell would like that solution.

did you ever wonder --

who designs bathrooms in expensive hotels?

You know the places I mean.  You spend $500 a night for a place to sleep.  You would think hotel designers would spend most of their time working out the best sleep formula for weary travelers.

Then you wander into the bathroom.  And it looks as if a Japanese artist with a good deal of taste and an advanced case of OCD was turned loose in there.

Little bottles of lotions are lined up like backup singers with a bevy of soloists -- the pleather ice bucket, the hair dryer in a canvas bag, the plant being tortured in near Arctic midnight conditions.

But those little bottles always catch my attention.  So tiny.  So artistic.  And so dysfunctional.

Nancy tells me that the unprofessional French-sounding brand of lotions I have been offered are very high quality.  I wouldn’t know.

The bottles look pretty.  But they are made of such hard plastic that it is possible to get only little one drop of shampoo out during a full shower cycle.  Physics is apparently a course not taught in designer school. 

Trying to squeeze thick honey through a pin hole simply does not work.  I found myself looking for the artfully-designed ballpeen hammer.

Here’s a suggestion.  Why not just have a big bottle of Head and Shoulders in the shower?  And just leave it there.  Like most people’s bathrooms.

And let the artists get back to designing women’s shoes. 

too rich to be poor

I have always loved San Francisco.  It may be the most beautiful city in the world.

But, like many beauties, San Francisco’s assets get a bit skewed.  Almost like a monarch who is never thwarted.

And I am not talking about the low-lying fruit -- the city’s politics.  Where good intentions result in unintended consequences. 

Street people are a perfect example.  San Francisco wanted to show its compassion by repealing trespassing laws -- and ended up with streets that look as if touring companies of Les Miserables are stranded in town.

But that is too easy.  What fascinates me about San Francisco is the contradiction you will see at every corner.

And nothing could be more symbolic than the statue that stands in the courtyard of the old ferry terminal building.

That is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi -- in the photograph at the top of this blog.  The very symbol of inner peace.  He is there because every liberal (and many conservative) Americans would like to believe their soul is one with his.

But Gandhi was also a proponent of self-sufficiency.  And there his statue stands in the midst of food crates and stalls overflowing with food that none of the buyers produced themselves.
 

And at prices that would make Bapu weep.  A pound of these beautiful greens cost more than a poor India family makes in a week.

But they are beautiful.  The city is beautiful.  We are beautiful.  And the day was beyond beautiful.  One of the nicest I have spent in San Francisco in years.

My friends, Nancy and Roy, drove me around town for an hour or two.  We then headed over to Sausalito to dine on clam chowder and mahi mahi tacos while watching the sun light up our bright Babylon by the sea. 

I often mention how nice it is to dine slowly in Mexico.  To get the rhythm of the culture.  And that is what we did today.  No rush.  Just eating in the sun and chatting about our lives and their part in this great world.

Driving back across the Golden Gate bridge, we decided to take a detour to the ocean beach on San Francisco’s western shore.  It has been a long time since I was there.  In fact, the last time I was there in the 1970s, I camped on that beach.

As some of you know, I like collecting photographs of signs.  Especially signs with odd communications.  This one falls into the blunt message category.

If it had been posted in Mexico, it would most likely have included a pictogram of a series of swimmers sinking immobile to their deep dooms.

But later this morning, we leave behind the particular beauty of this city and its contradictions to hunt for new signs in China.

See you on the other side.

dog days of dining

The great mascota civil war has once again broken out in my little fishing village by the sea.

For some reason, something happens each year to upset one of the visiting tourists when some blue-haired lady finds pleasure in bringing her little Muffy Maltese to dinner at one of our eateries.  Dog and companion look lovingly into the other’s eyes and often share bites of the pollo mole off the same fork.

The offended party gets a bit overstimulated and starts venting on the local message board (because these are the type of discussions we can never have directly with one another) comparing the scene to Chapter 17 of Revelation.  Or, at least, of the end of culinary hygiene.  Terms like “dining with livestock” are launched like ICBMs. 

To be answered with a barrage of “NOB fascism” and “go back where you came from.”  (Though that last one always causes a good deal of confusion.  Not unlike those lewd comments that are more confusing for their physical impossibility than their reflection of a rather stunted social maturity.)

I usually do not get involved in this annual round of fun and games.  Not only because the tone of the conversation has devolved to school yard insults (and everyone else has used all of my name-calling phrases) by the time I notice the thread.  The big reason is simple: I don’t have a dog in this fight.

I once did, of course.  The good Professor Jiggs.  Or, at least, the late Professor Jiggs.

When I first moved to Mexico, I often brought The Professor with me when I dined out.  I almost always picked an outside table and PJ settled underneath to sleep.

Back then, I never gave much thought to taking him along.  It was more like taking an elderly, dying relative to dinner.  And no one ever said a thing.

Of course, I was beguiled by my own ideology.  Even though Mexico is politically about as far from libertarianism as a soul can be, the philosophy seems to be lived out each day in Mexican society.  At least, on the beach.

It finally occurred to me one day to ask the owner of the restaurant I patronized if he objected to Jiggs’s presence.  At first, he was reluctant to answer.  In true non-confrontational Mexican style, he said: “I would prefer you didn’t.”

Over the years, as I have come to know him better, his reluctance has disappeared.  He now refers to dogs in his restaurant as the equivalent of bringing in a goat.

So, why doesn’t he say anything?  For the same reason he says nothing when smokers light up.  He needs the income from tourists.  And, for him, dogs do not top the list of tourist eccentricities.  Some of his stories are hilarious.

I will not enter the doggy fray.  The tourists can fight their own Antietams with one another.  I am happy in my own private Switzerland.

flying food

You all know him.  The guy at the Christmas party who has just one more story before he will turn loose of you.

Well, that guy is me.  Because I have one more tale before I climb into the airplane to San Francisco.

Yesterday a bit of exotica came into my life.  A local friend called me and asked if I would be interested in some bite-size pieces of adventure.  Having long ago adopted the advise of the Sondheim song that “I Never Do Anything Twice,” I decided I had to try almost everything once.

My friend dropped off the ziplock bag you see in the photograph at the top of this post.  Anyone who has lived in Mexico very long will recognize the gift: chapulines.  Grasshoppers.

Well, a very specific grasshopper prepared in a very special way.  Grasshoppers from Oaxaca   Collected when they are young and tender.  Toasted in clay ovens.  And flavored with chili and lime.  (Of course, chili and lime.  They are Mexican snacks.  No pickled onion crisp flavors here.)

I took the bag.  Examined the oddly-red corpses of the grasshoppers.  And decided there was only one thing to do in a situation like this.  I grabbed the fattest bit of my new fast food.  Took a quick look at it.  And into my mouth it went.

I can now say I have eaten a grasshopper.  It was soft on the inside.  But without much flavor other than the overwhelming taste of chili powder.  And crunchy on the outside.  Just a bit too crunchy.  Like eating bougainvillea twigs.  And just a bit stale.  After all, the grasshoppers are gathered fresh in the summer.

The rest of the afternoon and evening, I did my best to act as a chapulin pusher.  To a person, Canadians, Americans, and Mexicans refused my very kind offer.  The young Mexican woman who cooks at the restaurant around the corner had never seen them before and was shocked that anyone would even think of eating them.

I think I now know how some of the cooking show hosts feel when they try to get people to try something new.

I understand that chapulines can be (and are) used as fillings in other foods.  So, who knows how many of us have actually tried them in Mexico?

Maybe I actually do some things twice.

But that is the end of the story.  You can now head off and talk to that far more interesting woman by the punch bowl.  I think she has a few food tips of her own.

pushing my luck

When I moved to Mexico, I chose the beach because I like to live by the water.  Just near it; not in it.

But I had several friends who love to snorkel and swim.  So, I had this dream of hosting guests while they enjoyed the wetter pleasures of our local beaches.

And pleasures we have.  One of the nicest is beach in front of the little village of Custacomate -- just over the hill from Melaque.  But its beach seems as if it borders on a different ocean.

Navidad Bay is large enough that its beaches present enough faces to please Sybil.  But none of them are as calm and idyllic as Custacomate. 

The waves are almost Caribbean.  The waves near my house pound the sand.  In Cuastacomate, they lap.  Best of all, the beach is usually free of the usual tourist crowd.

For snorkeling, it is next to perfect.  Shallow incline.  Mixtures of sand and rock.  And a small coral reef.

My friends, Lou and Wynn, arranged to my house guest and me at the beach this morning.  I was looking forward to joining them in the water.  But an odd sleepless night and an unusually persistent cough kept me on shore with Lou.

But it was nice just to sit in the shade and watch while the snorkelers have a good time.  Even though the water was cold and the fish were few.  (Probably not a coincidence of circumstances.  On the other hand, the fish may have been in mourning for the bodies of their comrades littering the beach.)

It was a nice last day in Mexico for a couple of weeks.

As I write, it is nearly 11 PM and I still have not done much packing for my flight tomorrow.  So, I best turn my attention from pen to packing.

Next entry -- San Francisco.  Maybe.

death on the beach

Nope.  Not mine.

In fact, I am doing quite well, thank you.  My throat does not ache.  The sneezing has stopped.  My sinuses are clear.  A dry cough intrudes now and then.  But I feel almost normal.

And my doctor agrees.  My blood pressure and heart rate are back within the acceptable range.  If a bit high.  However, it was good enough for her to wish me a great trip to China.

But not before I took my house guest to one of Melaque’s beach restaurants.  I confess that I am rather tired of beach restaurant food.  This one was not a terrible experience.

The real reason for the outing, though, was to see what I have been reading about on our local message board.  For the past week or so, large numbers of fish have been washing up on the Melaque beach.  It is as if an eleventh plague was being served up on Egypt, and the target went a bit astray.

And fish there were.  Of several varieties.  Most of them small.

There are probably as many theories as there are inactive minds around here.  I would not have been surprised if the Knights Templar (the imaginary ones in Europe, not the rather nasty real ones in these parts) had been blamed for the kill.

The more rational theories are red tide, temperature changes in the ocean, or simply the residue of garbage fish discarded from a trawler’s nets.

I am rather partial to it being another of the Maya 2012 end of the world omens.  Not as dramatic as Exodus quail falling from the sky.  At least, it would be good for tourism.  For a few more months.

But the solution will require the services of another Hercule Poirot.  Because this particular one has a bit of trip preparation to complete before Friday.