I am still experimenting with the Surface.
But I now know it will be a great traveling tool.
We are breakfasting at Rooster's -- one of my favorite morning haunts. Or it was before I started my walking and revised dining routine. Restaurant breakfasts are simply no longer part of my life.
But my family is here, and today is the day Dora comes to the house to clean. So, we needed to do something else. Like eating strawberry waffles, eggs, fruit cup, and sausage muffin. I won't tell you which was mine.
In the summer time, the place is filled with middle class Mexican families enjoying the thrills of the beach. In the winter, it turns into a Canadian diner.
I come here to talk with the waiters. Whenever I test drive my Spanish, it helps to have an extremely critical audience to keep me from swerving into head-on traffic. In the process, I provide them with cheap amusement.
So, here I sit listening to Chubby Checker twist and shout.
Not a bad day to start the day with my family in Mexico.
There is no reason you should have noticed, but Mexpatriate has introduced another blog tool to the cast.
Yesterday's essay (bearding the goat) was tapped out on a new device. When I moved to Mexico, I abandoned the world of desktop computers. I had long been a laptop user, but only as a travel convenience. Desktops had been my mainstay for over two decades.
Since 2009, I have had five laptops. Some have died natural deaths. Two were stolen. The fifth, a nifty, thin-line Samsung suffered a hard drive failure a month ago. I bought a Lenovo (a Chinese up-and-comer) to use on my trip to the highlands at the end of October, but it did not really meet my needs -- for reasons that are a bit too embarrassing to reveal.
Each time I have replaced one of my laptops, I have looked at the possibility of becoming truly mobile by buying a tablet. After all, the reason I want a light device is to make it more convenient during my trips -- around town or around the world.
But I always rejected the idea because tablets had their own limitations. They were either not secure enough for my financial transactions, could not multi-task, or could not run the software I needed.
About two laptops ago, Microsoft released its new tablet -- Surface. It performed like a personal computer. I liked that. But the keyboard was a bit too clunky to produce essays.
Microsoft fixed that problem. The new keyboard is as comfortable as the keyboard on my Samsung ultrabook.
My brother brought this little beauty down with him. And you now have two essays to prove it works just fine. It will accompany me on my trip to Australia and New Zealand this winter, to Copenhagen in October, and to some jaunts through Mexico this summer. My mobility has been restored.
And it is a speed demon with an Intel core i7 processor, 16 gigabytes of RAM, and 512 gigabytes of storage on a solid-state hard drive. It is the Ferrari of tablets.
I suspect Microsoft, or some other manufacturer, will soon produce a computer so mobile it can be lodged in the left side of my head. It will probably be the only way my memory will ever be restored.
Until then, I intend to run this handy, little tablet through its paces.
The sound of machinery woke the household this morning.
Or, should I say, the sound of one machine. That would be more accurate. But the sound of any prospective construction in the neighborhood always brings out our hidden Gladys Kravitz.
My next door neighbor has been building a casita on top of her house. I thought the rumbling reveille might be associated with her project. It wasn't.
When I opened the front door a front-end loader was scraping a scar in the middle of what had been the local goat refuge. I thought the French Canadian-Mexican architect who built my house and owns the lot had decided to build another house or two across from mine. Once again, I was wrong.
She is clearing the space to provide some occupational therapy for the people who own two of her other houses. It is going to be a vegetable garden.
And what about the goats? It sounds like a great opportunity for them. But she had already thought of that. She is building a wall. No, not that type of wall. A chain link fence to let the goats graze where they should, and for vegetables to grow where they might.
The French often say that deep in the breast of any urban Frenchman beats the heart of a farmer. That may be true. French farmers have a lot of natural allies whenever liberals talk about cutting farm subsidies.
Over the past two years, the empty lots across the street have provided me with a wealth of entertainment. Watching vegetables grow -- or not -- will simply be the next act in this on-going theater we call life.
Our rains are just about over for the season.
That is what I told you in reflections in the rain. That was early December. I knew even then that my announcement of going dry was a bit premature. We will often have rogue rains that dampen the adoration of our Lady of Guadalupe or even wander through during Christmas week.
That is why the rain we have had the last two days was not so much a surprise as a personal nuisance. I am preparing for my family's arrival later today. And inches of rain were not part of my to do list. Some maintenance items will stick around until my sainted brother arrives. See? There is a silver lining behind every cloud.
The nuisance is only personal to me. The Mexican tourists in town were not bothered in the least by the change in weather. Raining? Let's get in the ocean. Wet is wet. The northern tourists were not quite that stoic.
And the local farmers can use the rain. It has been a dry season for them. That is a mixed blessing after two years of fields so wet that they could not be cultivated. Several farmers were plowing last week. This rain should help their crops get a head start -- as long as the small plantings are not washed away.
My family is leaving snow in Bend. Rain will not be a deterrent to them -- even in this house that is designed for a sunny tropical climate.
For today, the rain seems to have subsided. So, up goes the painting in the stairwell, and off I go to the florist to put the finishing touches on the house for the arrival of my family to their new home.
It is a good day.
I usually save photographs I like to lead my essays.
Not today. I have no commentary. But I took several photographs in early November on my trip to the highlands that have not fit into any of my essays. But they tell tales of their own.
If you would, let me be so bold as to share them with you. Partly as a tribute to the late Jack Brock.
Last New Year's Eve, I took my white tie outfit out of the closet for a one-night stand at dinner in Papa Gallo's.
White tie is not the best choice for the tropics. But it was a celebration. And our winters can always benefit from a bit of dress-up.
Everything was just as it should be. Trousers. Tails. Plain-front shirt. Tie.
Well, almost as it should be. Somehow, my waistcoat (or "weskit" as my snobbier British friends would have it) had adopted a far too diverse look. Half was formally white. The other half was an odd yellowish-brown. About the shade that book pages take on as they age.
I had no idea what had happened. The waistcoat had been hanging in the closet since my last outing. And there was no local shop to pop into for a replacement. It had been made by my tailor in Mexico City.
So, I sucked up the expected ribbing at dinner. But no one seemed to notice. Low lighting and alcohol-blurred vision (and a bit of Canadian reticence) kept anyone from pointing out my calico appearance.
I tossed the waistcoat on my day bed with every intention of getting to Mexico City to have a new one made. But that just did not happen. Primarily, because of Barco.
Earlier in the week, I picked up some dry cleaning in Manzanillo. Because I am an optimist with overtones of realism, I took the waistcoat with me -- fully expecting I would still have to buy a new one before I flew off to Australia in February.
When I showed it to the woman I deal with at the cleaners, she examined it skeptically. I babbled on in Spanish that I had concluded it could not be cleaned and I needed a new one.
After examining the attached tailor tag, she started writing a receipt for me. And off it went into the back room.
When I retrieved it yesterday, she brought it out with a big smile. It was just as white as the day I put it on for my first fitting. She had worked a miracle.
One lesson I keep learning here in Mexico is that when something needs doing, there is always a worker who is positive she or he can do what needs to be done. And, most times, the result is exactly what needed to happen.
And what was the cost for avoiding a flight to Mexico City and shelling out the cost of a new white piqué waistcoat? $40 (Mx). About $1.94 (US).
Just another reason why I love living here. Even formal disasters can be remedied for pocket change.
It is a gray morning.
Well, it was when I started writing this essay. The clouds that made the previous night's sunset memorable were still hanging around. But, since they had no rain to offer, they moved on.
But it was still a gray morning on my courtyard table.
On Tuesday, I made a quick trip to Manzanillo to get my tooth implant re-tightened. It has had a tendency to come loose.
While I was there, I stopped at Walmart and Sam's Club. I have known for months that my family was coming to stay with me. And, there I was four days before their arrival, and none of the bedrooms had yet been outfitted with the things that make a bedroom a bedroom. Sheets. Mattress pads. Pillows. Towels. Bath mats.
I have forgotten just how expensive it is to outfit a house. That load cost me just under $11,000 (Mx). The only saving grace is, with the current exchange rate, my cost was only about $535 (US) -- give or take a dollar or two. The downside of the exchange rate is that several pieces made their way down from The States -- and were selling at a premium in pesos.
I do not yet have everything I need for them. The usual accessories are missing. Soap dishes. Toothbrush holders. Water containers and glasses for the required bottled water. And, of course, flowers.
I will make a trip to Manzanillo today or tomorrow to fill out my requirements for their Saturday arrival. It feels good to finally start moving on turning this house into a home. My initial thought was that gray would be a great complement for the lines of the house. It turns out I was correct.
Now, on to the more difficult choices of finding furniture to complement the house's art collection.
