I miss the Ed Sullivan Show -- and the Ted Mack Amateur Hour.
They were the only outlets for my very particular talents. Well, there was the Gong Show.
This morning, when I returned from walking Barco, I did my best Bobby May impression. While opening the front door, I had to juggle a bag of dog poop and another filled with wiener bits while trying to get one dog on a leash through the open door while simultaneously preventing a dog not on a leash from getting through the same door.
Actually, that performance was not just this morning. I usually provide four similar shows each day.
I feel a great accomplishment when I end up inside the house with the correct dog and without dropping my utilitarian bags. This morning, I was successful.
It was time for Barco to get his monthly treatment at the veterinarian to protect against ticks, fleas, and heart worm. Even if the calendar had not told me that, I could tell by the infestation of ticks that had taken up residence in Barco's coat the past two days.
So, I gathered him up along with his leash, and started to leave the house. Except, I couldn't. I could not find my ring of house keys.
Not to worry. I had only been in the kitchen and my bedroom. They had to be there. They weren't.
And they were not in my track suit that I was still wearing. But I had an idea where they might be -- the only other place they could be.
During the past two weeks, I have been distracted by dogs and bags while opening my front door. As a result, I have regularly left my keys outside hanging in the lock while I go inside. But not today. When I opened the door, there was the lock, but no keys.
If that was the only place my keys could be, it meant I was living one of my personal horror stories. An unknown person had walked off with all of the keys to the house.
I would say that thoughts of Mau Maus hacking me to pieces, in my bed, with machetes danced through my head. They didn't.
I am not that paranoid. But I was concerned that I no longer had control over the front door. In theory, other than me, only the woman who cleans my house and the pool guy have that authority.
When I moved into this house in 2014, I had the local locksmith change all of my locks. Hence, I invited him back for a reprise. This time he brought his son and his grandson. I had obviously interrupted their Saturday.
Barco was impressed that I had magically caused a 9-year old to magically appear in my courtyard just for him. But the boy was there to work. I took Barco to my bedroom and started to close the door. When I saw them. My keys. They were in the house all along.
But I didn't stop the project. In the time I have lived here, several sets of keys have gone missing. It was a good time to start anew.
The three locksmiths spent most of the morning and afternoon switching out eight locks and making copies of keys. I have no idea what that would cost back in Salem. Here, it was $1,410 (Mx) -- or about $79 (US). Not bad for all of the hardware and the time.
Locks and walls merely create the illusion of security. I learned that last January when I watched a Mexican contractor get into my house and walk through the door in three minutes. At best, they are topes on the highway of life.
I almost feel as if I have just moved into a new house -- and life.
They are few, but they happen.
Connections between Barco and Steve.
Professor Jiggs and I had a rather odd relationship. We were like room-mates. He tolerated me as long as I would keep feeding him.
Barco is heading down that same path. Everyone, but me, gets a huge Barco welcome to the house -- complete with puppy wiggles and a mouth leading the new friend to whatever is the special toy of the day.
Me? He seldom gets up or lifts his head. If I am lucky his eyes will follow me to see if I am headed to the kitchen. Then he will get up and come along in the hope of feeding his food Jones. Otherwise, he maintains his prone position.
Recently we met on the same level. I was in the kitchen cutting up three jalapeño peppers for an egg dish. When I sliced the top off of one, it fell on the floor -- right in front of Barco. Before I could grab it from him, he had it his mouth and ran out the kitchen door.
Even though I am no fan of B.F. Skinner, behavioral aversion therapy seems to work. But not this time. I thought he would immediately spit the pepper out once he got a heavy shot of capsaicin.
When he bit into it, he had a curious look on his face. He then picked up the pace of chewing and ate the whole thing.
About a week later, he picked up an intact jalapeño in our street. He insisted on bringing it home with him. At first, he treated it like a ball or a stuffed toy. Until he tired of playing with it, and ate the full pepper.
He is now officially a member of the Cotton clan. My mother, my brother, and I all like spicy food. The spicier, the better. We can now add Barco to that honor roll.
When Professor Jiggs was a puppy, he could not keep his nose out of the trash can. My research suggested using Tabasco sauce around the rim of the can. That night I found Professor Jiggs obsessively licking the rim. He loved the taste.
It must run in the family.
Note -- While I was writing this piece, Barco got into my sock closet and took every pair out in the courtyard in a very neat pile. No peppers were harmed in the performance.
All over the protestant world, those three words from John 19:30 were the anchor of many an Easter morning sermon.
From a theological standpoint, they matter to me. But, as a homeowner, they have new meaning.
On 15 October 2014, I thought I was a homeowner. That is the day my house closed. I paid over the purchase price, and I moved in.
But, other than the keys, I received nothing in hand to show I owned the place. No closing documents. No deed. Nothing.
My realtor repeatedly assured me over the next sixteen months there was nothing to worry about. The deed would soon arrive.
And it did. Sixteen months after closing.
Idle northern minds conjure up horror stories. I convinced myself if I had died between closing and receiving a deed, my heirs would have no legal right to the home.
It turned out that was nothing more than another fevered conspiracy theory populating the internet. And I was responsible for that one.
When the deed arrived, it made clear that I had owned the house from the date of closing.
But the tale was not yet done. In moving to mexico -rendering unto caesar, I told you about paying my water and sewer bills along with my property taxes. I also attempted to pay my bank trust deed fee that was due the previous October.
For those of you who may not recall my explanation of what a fideicomiso is, let me reacquaint you with the concept. The Mexican constitution forbids foreigners from owning property within 100 kilometers of Mexico's borders and 50 kilometers of its coast. There is a long history for the clause. Suffice it to say that foreign ownership of property was one of the causes of the 1910 Mexican revolution.
When Mexico started looking for foreign investment, that clause got in the way. But Mexicans have a way of making things work. The government enacted a law creating a legal fiction that if a bank held a piece of property in trust (that's where the fideicomiso comes into play), foreigners could have a 50-year interest (renewable for an additional 50) that would mimic a fee simple interest in the property.
For the honor of doing next to nothing, the homeowner must pay the bank a substantial annual fee. I paid the first year's fee during closing. And that is the last thing I heard from the bank, Bancomer, that holds my deed.
In January, I tried to pay the fee at our local Bancomer branch. But none of the paperwork I received from the notario contained the six digit account number the bank required to accept my payment.
An executive at the bank gave me a telephone number and an email address to get the number on my own. I called at least twenty times. There was no answer. I suspect the number is used by all Mexican institutions when anyone demands the number of the office for lodging complaints.
Not surprisingly, my seven emails went unanswered. So, here I sat, with a wad of pesos in hand, to pay the bank for its great service of doing absolutely nothing -- and there was no one to give it to. (Kafka could have made a career with that plot setup.)
That is, until this past weekend. On Saturday, I opened an email from Bancomer thinking that the long-unanswered email was going to give me my account number.
I was wrong. It was a notice from Bancomer that went something like this.
Esteemed customer (Mexican institutions are always polite, even when they are about to slip you the shiv.) --
That's a very nice house you have there. It would be a shame if something awful happened to it or your dog.
You owe us money. Pay it. Or start thinking up nice things you would like said at your memorial service.
Well, it might have not translated quite like that. But you get the idea.
Bancomer was informing me I was severely late in paying my 2015 administrative fee and that the 2016 fee was now payable. If I wanted to avoid the addition of penalties, I need to pay the total by -- 15 October 2016. Now, that is giving adequate notice. I was impressed.
I was more impressed that the email included the Holy Grail of my account number. I could now take the money to the local branch and pay up, rather than being the deadbeat I have been.
That is, I could if, by sheer coincidence, on the same weekend both of my ATM cards had not failed to disgorge pesos from the maw of the Grendel cash machine. That will be resolved at the end of the month when my traveling friends the Millers come for a visit -- with a new card and PIN in hand.
So, it really is not finished. I will need to wait for the end of the month to make my payment. At least, I can see the end in sight.
That, of course, is usually when the bottom drops out of everything.
My self-imposed project of reading at least one biography of each American president is on course.
That is, if you can claim a project is on course that has no deadline and no particular order.
This personal goal came about as many do -- without much premeditation. I had been reading recent biographies of the presidents as they were released over the last two decades.
I suspect it all started with David McCullough's excellent biography of John Adams -- a relative. Or it may have been Joseph J. Ellis's biography of Thomas Jefferson (The American Sphinx) -- not a relative, but a political idol. It may even have been Richard Bookhiser's sketch of George Washington's moral rectitude.
I know it was one of those because the early presidents were an emphasis of mine during my undergraduate history courses. And one of those three books would have been juice enough to fire up my interest in the rest of the presidents.
Up until recently, I had been jumping all over the list. The last three before I started getting serious were David McCullough's Truman, Amity Shlaes's Coolidge, and Robert W. Merry's Polk biography (A Country of Vast Designs).
My choice of biographies has been rather anachronistic. I have simply chosen the most recently released biography for my night reading table. As a result, a large hole had appeared in my list between James Monroe and Abraham Lincoln -- with Xs appearing next to only Andrew Jackson and James Polk.
During the past couple of weeks that has changed. I have now added John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan to the "have read" list. I have now bumped off 27 of the 43 presidents -- and there will be slim pickings of the last three presidents for some time to come.
But I need to confess something. Because most of the 9 presidents added to my list have not been the subject of several biographies, I have relied on a series edited by Arthur Schlesinger (that should have been warning enough) called, not very originally, "The American President Series." They are the Cliff Notes of presidential biographies. They cover most of the facts, but the analysis ranges from pure hackery to adequate.
As the old saying goes: "Beggars can't be choosers." I am on a roll here, and these books, which could rival Classics Illustrated for brevity, are speeding me right along.
There will be more thorough biographies in my future -- such as Robert A. Caro's multi-volume set on Lyndon Johnson. But that will be a bit down the path.
For now, Andrew Johnson (only one of two presidents to be impeached -- and we all know the other) is warming up in the bull pen.
This afternoon, I was sitting on the lounger beside the pool. (When I was eight, or even 58, I had no idea that I would be writing about owning a lounger next to a swimming pool. And never in Mexico.)
I had just started reading the biography of the fifteenth American president when I glanced up to see this bit of Edward Hopperania.
And I thought you might like to share in the experience with me. I won't bore you with the Buchanan part of my day.
Life here is grand.
Certain days are blog fodder. Tomorrow is one of them.
For those of us who live in Mexico, our clocks will magically jump forward one hour as if they were characters in a Gabriel José García Márquez novel. If your home is not imbued with the shimmering crystal power of magic realism, you may have to do a bit of temporal reset on your own.
This is the point where I usually start grumbling about the insanity of the whole idea. I think it was D. Kevin Mano who said most people like communism in theory, but not in practice. He disagreed. His notion was that communism was evil in theory and even more evil in practice.
That is close to my opinion on daylight saving time. It is a terrible idea in theory and even worse in practice. The fact that The States moved their clocks forward three weeks ago while Mexico waited until tomorrow is evidence that something is not quite right here.
I have often thought Cnut's advisers must be involved somehow with this idea. Having been defeated by the sea, they decided they could modify Old Sol's rhythms.
But I have dug up Mussolini's corpse to drag it around the public square far too often. My sole remedy (other than compliance) is to refuse to change my clocks and to live as if daylight saving time was just another urban myth. If I am late for dinner, you will know why.
Having done my duty to remind you, I will leave it up to my dear readers to decide their own course. After all, this is a libertarian page -- not a socialist one.
Mexican and American leaders announced a major development today to improve the bruised relationships between the United Mexican States and the United States of America caused by this year's presidential campaigns.
Paul Ryan, speaker of the American House of Representatives, and Jesús Zambrano Grijalva, President of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, signed an agreement that their respective legislatures will pass legislation in the next three weeks making Spanish and English the official languages of both countries. Both leaders praised the core of the proposal that includes an aggressive program to make both countries fully bilingual within the next three years.
Speaker Ryan and President Zambrano have been friends since meeting at an international conference for legislators held in Germany last year. Realizing that a comprehensive immigration package was not going to pass Congress, they started discussing other ways to build diplomatic bridges between the two countries.
Ryan, who is fluent in four languages (including Latin and Political Jargon), said: "Language was the obvious place to start. If you cannot understand one another, how can you build a constructive, free-market society and economy? Mexico is a major trading partner. If we want to increase American jobs, we need to be able to talk with our customers."
Zambrano concurred. "It is time that we taught English to someone other than our social elite, snooty waiters at expensive restaurants, and our valiant workers who return from the north."
When asked if they expect resistance from their respective constituencies, Ryan responded: "We are building a society of opportunity. When Americans see the value that will be added to their paychecks by learning Spanish, no compulsion will be required. For people who cannot clearly see their own self-interests, we will build incentives into the legislation to assist them in making their free choice."
In response to a followup question whether those incentives would include penalties, Speaker Ryan responded: "You might say that, I couldn't possibly comment."
President Obama was caught unawares that the two leaders had been meeting. He issued a brief statement: "No other country in the world does what we do. On every issue, the world turns to us, not simply because of the size of our economy or our military might -- but because of the ideals we stand for, and the burdens we bear to advance them."
Press secretary Josh Earnest added, "If the legislation passes, the administration is drafting rules that would immediately require all signs, labels, conversations, and other public communications to use Spanish. After all, immersion programs are the most successful." He added that during that year he would be on sabbatical in Scotland."
Rosetta Stone, and other language programs, tripled the price of their Spanish language programs upon hearing news of the proposed legislation.
This piece is dedicated to the spirit of Jack Brock.
