We expatriates often go on and on about the things we miss up north. And, in my case, I often just assume that some services simply are not available in our little village.
Several months ago, someone asked me if the northern delivery services (FedEx, DHL) were available here. She needed to get some tax documents delivered to her house in Barra de Navidad.
I had no idea. It occurred to me that if someone had asked the same question of me in The States, I would have no answer. In Salem, I used certified mail for documents like that -- and packages almost always arrived at my house from Amazon through the good services of the man who drove the UPS truck.
Well, I now know the answer. Melaque is replete with choices.
When the FATCA regulations caused my Banamex USA account to go the way of the Rosenbergs, the certified check representing the balance in my account was delivered by DHL. It was just a matter of days after the bank dropped it in Los Angeles that it showed up at my house here.
On Monday of this week, I ordered a BritRail pass. When the sales clerk in Canada told me it would be shipped here within 3 to 5 business days, I chuckled. Only out of ignorance. I should have taken the DHL experience to heart.
The agency gave the package to FedEx on Tuesday, and it showed up in my hands just before noon yesterday. I was quite impressed. FedEx packages are delivered to an office in Manzanillo -- with deliveries to our area on Tuesdays and Fridays.
There is a point to this anecdotal rambling. Each February, I fly north to Oregon to execute tax documents for a trust. It gives me an opportunity to see family and friends. But visiting Oregon in February is a bit like seeing your girlfriend without her makeup for the first time. The state is not at its best in the winter.
If I can arrange receiving and returning the trust tax documents through DHL or FedEx, I can go north when the weather is better, and not in February. I need to do a bit of investigating on where to drop off the package in Manzanillo for its return. But I know the general area.
The Mexican postal service also offers a special delivery service called -- I believe -- MexPost. That is another possibility.
I am looking at as many alternatives as possible this year. Because, if every everything goes as planned, I may be on that long-touted road trip through Central America. And options are going to be welcome. I may even discover how those delivery services work in Nicaragua.
At least, I now know the answer to the question of how to use services I have never used in my life.
Who says that travel is not broadening?
There are many disappointments in life. A small one is that Sigmund Freud most likely never made the comment above -- that symbols often are nothing more than the thing they are. Making them, well, not even symbols.
That is too bad. The cigar quotation is about the only thing I find the least bit interesting in what Freud was supposed to have said and written.
Whatever its provenance, I thought of the pity observation yesterday as I was shopping my way through the delivery of fresh produce at Hawaii -- my favorite local grocery. And the pickings were good.
I grabbed a box of cherry tomatoes, a couple of onions, a brace of peppers (red, yellow, and jalapeño), and some incredibly aromatic garlic. Looking at my basket, I started thinking what I could whip together out of this vegetable trove.
Whenever I start this process, I usually have one default: pasta. I knew I had a packet of boutique spaghetti that I purchased a couple of weeks ago in Manzanillo. We do not get Italian pasta around here regularly, and I had grabbed it when I saw it - knowing that it would most certainly be gone on my next visit.
Pasta is not a good choice on hot, humid days. The boiling water adds exactly the same ingredients to the air that we have an overabundance of in the summer. But, for a good pasta dish, I will even put up with a spike in humidity.
It is fortunate that a recent rain storm has kept our humidity down in the 60% range. That is almost heaven for this time of year.
The great thing about vegetable pasta is that they are a snap to make. While the pasta was boiling, I sautéed the chopped vegetables (without the tomatoes) until they were tender. I then poured the drained spaghetti into the pan and added the tomatoes. Plus a couple of healthy handfuls of kalamata olives I had in the refrigerator.
The result was superb. The only thing that would have made it better would have been some Greek feta. And, because I have enough spaghetti to hold me until I fly to London, I will head to Hawaii later this afternoon to spruce up the pasta with a bit of cheese.
Last Saturday in what you dig is what you eat, I claimed to be an inadvertent "locavore" -- a person who will only eat food grown within 100 miles of the dining table. I was rather smug in the belief that I had fallen into a new trendy foodie category without even trying.
When I bought my produce, I asked Alex, the owner, where the vegetables were grown. I thought he was going to say around Melaque.
He didn't. He told me that they came from all over Mexico. Guanajuato. Zacatecas. The environs of Guadalajara. Other than the pineapple and bananas, nothing was local. Apparently, the summer is our "winter" season when it comes to vegetables.
In truth, I would not have cared if they had come from Huron, South Dakota. They were delicious.
One of my best discoveries here has been the cherry tomatoes. They are sweet and juicy, and taste like tomatoes once did. Unfortunately, the skins are a bit liked popped balloons. But we all need a little latex fiber in our diets. In this case, that there are no perfect tomatoes.
And, as far as that cigar goes: "No, thanks. I don't smoke." Not even, symbolically.
This is about as non-newsworthy as a story can get.
I have a photograph -- and I have no facts to go with it. Worse, I have a running stream of rumors, none of which can be confirmed.
Wherever I have traveled in the world during the past few years, if there are overhead utility wires, a pair of shoes, usually expensive running shoes tied together, will be draped over the wire. It does not matter if I am in a city or in the country, there will be at least one pair of flung shoes suspended in the air -- in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe.
My prime theory was the shoes were the proud trophy of some bully who, after divesting a bespectacled schoolmate of the mark's prized shoes, managed to get them out of the permanent reach of their former owner. Rather like the government's shakedown for taxes.
And I guess I am not alone in supporting that theory. But there are a lot more. The shoes appear to have dozens of potential meanings. Crack house or heroin dealer nearby. Boundaries for gangs. School children starting their summers. Almost any form of celebration.
Am I the only person who finds all of those explanations just a bit odd? What modern civilization could be that uncouth? Of course, we live in an era where grown women can whoop at a chamber music concert with as much gusto as if they had just consumed their seventh beer at the rodeo.
I shot the photograph about four blocks from my house. When I asked the clerk at the grocery store on that corner why all of the shoes were in that particular spot, he responded: "I don't know."
My guess is that he did know. I was simply not an interesting enough person with whom he wanted to discuss the topic. I get that now and then.
But I think I know where we can get an answer. And from reliable sources.
Over the years, I have learned that my readers are full of worthwhile information just waiting to be shared. And I suspect at least one of you can write The Truth of the Shoes.
It is a fitting topic.
Mexico is on the cusp of a major change economically.
That sentence is filled with several landmines. Any time a nation veers off of its customary economic course, there is political Hell to pay. Britain's industrial nationalization after the second world war. America's de-regulation of airlines during the Carter years. Red China opening its markets to western companies.
For Mexico, the issue is oil. I will write an historical piece on how the political issue of oil has become so explosive. That can wait. Suffice it to say that most Mexicans see their country's oil assets as a matter of national pride. Messing with it is like throwing a match on tinder. And there are plenty of politicians standing around flicking their Bics.
Mexico has long been an oil producer. But, after a major find in 1976, it became a major oil player. Sixth in the world. Second in the Americas -- after The States. And since 1938, the whole process has been nationalized and is now completely controlled by the government company PEMEX.
That 1976 discovery changed Mexico. By selling its oil on the open market and providing subsidized low-cost oil to its internal businesses, Mexico launched itself into the ranks of middle income countries.
The revenue from oil sales made up a large percentage of the Mexican federal budget. Without the sale of its oil, Mexico would now be a far more-impoverished country.
But oil, like any other natural resource, will come to end when it is used up. And that is what is currently happening with Mexican oil reserves. Less oil means less revenue -- and less taxes to run the central government.
Experts suspect that Mexico has vast reserves of oil. But they are in the deeper portions of the Gulf of Mexico.
That is where the dilemma comes in. Mexico does not have expertise in deep-sea oil exploration. It has never needed to seek that option. And because PEMEX is a government monopoly, it has no competition to make it innovative.
The Mexican government in that last year has passed a series of amendments to the constitution to allow foreign companies to assist Mexico in finding these deep-sea reserves. I will confess that I am a bit confused about what the amendments allow. The press reports are contradictory. And none of the politicians can be trusted to fairly describe what the language does.
But something big is happening.
You can tell that because the political opposition on the left has come to life. Not surprisingly. Opinion polls show that a majority of Mexicans are opposed to the changes. For Americans, it would be like tampering with the Second Amendment.
Last month I told you that San Patricio was visited by one of the favored leaders of Mexico's left (dr. lópez obrador has a cure for you) -- AMLO. He was here to announce his new party. Morena.
AMLO would like to be president. He has been running continuously for the position for at least eight years. And, even though the presidential election is still four years away, his party has already indulged in a political tradition here in Mexico -- painting the sides of buildings with party slogans. Think of it as Mexican muralism on the cheap.
If there is any doubt what AMLO is up to, the slogans make it clear. He intends to ride barrels of oil into the presidential palace.
And it will be a contentious fight. I showed this photograph to two Mexican acquaintances. The first said: "Finally, someone is fighting for the people." The second hissed through clenched teeth: "Communist bastard."
It appears that Americans are not the only people in the world whose political views are severely divided.
I am going to enjoy reporting this one from the front lines.
I do not like ice cream.
Well, that is not quite true. I am not fond of ice cream. With the exception of one flavor: Baskin-Robbins Cherries Jubilee is as good as life gets.
I have been eating the Bing cherry-bejeweled ice cream since the late 1960s when it was called Burgundy Cherry. I suspect that focus groups were then unaware of the classy moniker "Burgundy," at least when associated with things French.
Back then Burgundy was a jug wine made by Ernest and Julio. Thus, the switch to the festive Cherries Jubilee. A name to invoke linen napkins, silver eating utensils, and high octane flames.
Whatever B&R called it, I was hooked. Whenever I returned to Oregon from my travels abroad, I would always grab a double scoop. When I settled in Salem, I simply bought a 3-gallon container now and then to have my habit close at hand in my basement freezer.
I knew I had become a junkie when the young man at the ice cream store pulled out my purchase and asked: "Would you like a spoon with that?"
Or, at the same store, when my brother, while driving through Salem, walked through the door and was greeted by the clerk with: "Two scoops Cherries Jubilee. Flat-bottom cone. Right?" There was no way I could deny making regular stops.
When I left for Mexico six years ago, I knew ice cream would be a thing of the past. Some people love the ice cream down here. Not me. It is far too sweet. And there is no Cherries Jubilee.
Or, so I thought. Last winter two acquaintances from San Miguel de Allende were staying in Villa Obregon during January. They told me one thing we have here, that they do not have in the highlands, is a Thrifty ice cream store. I had seen the sign before, but I thought it was a hardware store.
I went inside with them thinking I would sit out this round of snacks. Then I saw it. The name was different (simply Black Cherry), but it looked like Cherries Jubilee. Better yet, it almost tasted like Cherries Jubilee.
A bit sweeter. Less creamy. But it was all there. Cherry-flavored ice cream chock full of Bing cherry chunks.
Black Cherry is now my occasional treat. No 3-gallon containers to take home. After all, my tiny freezer compartment would not be up to that task.
But once a month or so, I wandered in to talk with my pusher. Fortunately, my visits are not frequent enough that he knows my order. When that happens, I may need to switch to a different treat. Or, at least, to the Thrifty store in Barra.
After all, a guy has a reputation to uphold.
Yesterday I wandered through town looking for something to add a bit of spice to Mexpatriate. But nothing seemed to quite suit my camera.
Until I stopped across from one of our local grocery markets. We have had a small bit of rain over the past two days. That means lower humidity. But it also means standing water in the street.
Usually, that is a nuisance. I wear leather sandals. Wading through ankle-deep water is not a good match for my footwear.
But costs often creates benefits. As I stood looking at the obstacle between the store and me, I noticed something odd about the water. It was not an obstacle, at all. It was a mirror image of my little village.
So, out came the camera. Right next to me, an older Mexican couple were sitting on the sidewalk in front of their house. When I angled my camera toward the ground, her face took on the type of confused look I get anytime someone tries to explain the difference between sine and cosine.
I showed her the result and made the bold pronouncement: "It's beautiful." I may as well have added tangent to my list. She scrunched up her face and said: "Nothing beautiful here."
Her husband took a long look at the screen on my camera, and agreed with me. "Very beautiful," he said. Maybe a bit too kindly.
Which only goes to show that even though there may be objective factors for beauty, we can find its Platonic truth in some of the most unlikely places. My love of Donatello's Mary Magdalene, for example.
I am not certain what spurred me in that exchange to think of The Princess Bride. But that was my movie fare for the night on Netflix. I had hoped to watch the only Robin Williams's movie that I thoroughly enjoy -- One Hour Photo. But it was not in the inventory.
Instead, I spent the evening eating home-made chocolate pudding and re-acquainting myself with the Princess Buttercup, Westley, and Inigo Montoya. Without doubt, it must be the most quotable movie in Christendom. When Roy and I presented our periodic legal updates to our fellow employees, we would regularly pepper our performances with lines from the movie.
Such goodies as:
- "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father! Prepare to die!"
- "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
- "I just work for Vizzini to pay the bills. There’s not a lot of money in revenge."
- "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
- "When I was your age, television was called books."
With everything that has happened this past week, it was fun to watch a film as clever as this. I had almost forgotten that I have an acquaintance here who is a dead ringer for Carol Kane's character. When the credits roll, it always leaves me with a sense of joy.
In fact, let me share them with you. Try to remember, and smile.
"As you wish."
Living in the tropics is like being an extra in a road show of Little Shop of Horrors. There are nascent Audreys at every corner.
When I was out playing Sherlock Holmes in the compost pile the other day, I stepped back with my camera to get get a shot of my volunteer corn stalk, and nearly was toppled by the spike in this photograph. I thought the garden had been invaded by a gargantuan asparagus stalk.
The spike was not there a day or two ago. And now it is almost as tall as I am. Mind you, that is a bit like saying it is world-famous in Poland.* I do not hit the towering scale in height. Even though I am taller than most of my neighbors.
Unless I am mistaken, the plant is an aloe. It has some cousins on the other side of the garden that put up giant candelabra of flowers that are visited nightly before the spike and the plant pass on to the great plant composter in sky. For these plants, the act of reproduction is a climax without a second act -- just like being a male praying mantis.
I hope that I am going to get to see another tropical flower show before I head across the Atlantic to see the old country. With two weeks left here, there are undoubtedly plenty of goings-on to share.
I guess we will find out when each day gets here.
* -- Why do I always think of Rula Lenska whenever I use that line?
