did a minotaur just get out of that car?

The mysteries of the church often pale in comparison to the mysteries of Mexico.

The trinity is a snap to interpret; understanding the driving customs in my little village, just like comedy, is hard.

I have told you about the main commercial street through my neighborhood -- Nueva España, Mexico's married name when it was still part of the Spanish Empire. It is a street only in the most rudimentary use of that word.

Sure, it is paved and wide enough to allow parking along ts curbs and still permit two-way traffic. Vehicles then just need to be conscious of the various pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, skateboarders, baby strollers, boys chasing footballs into the street, goats, horses, and assorted dogs and cats with whom drivers share this main thoroughfare.

And if those were the only obstructions in the street, driving on Nueva España would be a pleasant, but adrenalin-driven adventure. But, there are other topes -- including real ones, at least 14 speed bumps -- on a regular day.

I do not know if it is true in the rest of Mexico, but double-parking seems to be an art form here. If you want to buy a plastic cup of agua fresca, why bother pulling two car lengths ahead into an open parking space? Turn on your flashers and stop in the street. Or to go to the paper store. Or the grocery. Or to have your hair cut.

The result is that the two-way traffic is often reduced to one lane requiring drivers to dig deep into their transferable skills bag. Now, where did I put my Theseus labyrinth map?

There are times when the vehicles are parked so close together that buses and Coke trucks back up like salmon waiting to vainly tackle Grand Coulee dam.

Earlier this week, I was driving my Mexican friend Alan to Melaque. (You remember Alan from cart of laughs. My friend who finds hilarity in foreigners displaying their national flags in Mexico.) Nueva España was humming along -- well, as well as it could hum along in its sclerotic mode.

I was just about to start my weave pattern when I saw a large pickup had already entered the maze. There were five double-parked cars that we both needed to maneuver our way around. Tennyson urged me on. "Half a league, half a league,/Half a league onward,/All in the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred."

But, because he was already on his way and the laws of physics precluded two vehicles from simultaneously occupying the same space, I pulled over to let him pass.

For some reason, that agitated Alan. He started yelling: "Go! Go! Go!"

When I pointed out I couldn't because of the pickup, he looked at me as if I had just arrived from Pakistan. "Go! Make him back up!"

By now, the pickup was out of the way, and we drove down the street. But, I was curious what had just happened.

In our own patois of Spanglish, he told me that what I had done was weak and all the people on the street now thought I was a weak man.

It did not placate him when I said I was merely showing courtesy and practicality; the other driver was there first. More importantly, giving deference to another person is a sign of personal strength, not weakness.

He was not buying it. "You were weak. You have to force people to respect you."

I have heard that last line from several young Mexican friends. One went even further in telling me that no one will respect you unless you have beaten them in a fight.

One of the weaknesses in deductive reasoning is that people tend to generalize from their own specific specifics to the general without having sufficient data to draw the conclusion. I am not going to do that.

But, as far as Alan and some of my other friends are concerned, that incident on the street has given me a template to try to understand why the occasional standoff occurs on the street when neither vehicle will yield to the other.

Of course, it does nothing to help me understand why the traffic labyrinth is created in the first place.

But that is the theme for another essay. And I just may write it if I can get past all of these cars today. 

from one bowl to another

While we enjoy our lives (as we should), the inevitability of death circles us daily. Like a lean leopard waiting for that one little slip that will turn us from yesterday's toast of the town to today's lunch.

And, no, John, I have not been reading too much Thomas Hobbes.

I have simply been getting my health back on a regular course. It all started, as you know, with my recent bout of gastro distress. (That is what we will call it so as not to disturb the Victorian gentleman in the back row reading his Kindle.)

My digestive system is a marvel. Someone once said of Thomas Jefferson, in his old age. that he had the digestion of a teenager. And I have felt that way about my well-run bowels. Until recently.

On my long walks, I frequently find myself urgently in need of a rest stop. There seems to be something in the movement that confuses my intestines.

That is simply an annoyance. The more serious problem lately has been long bouts of -- and let us be adult and use grownup words -- diarrhea. Once I realize my system will not clear itself, I head to my doctor who will give me a bout of antibiotics, and I am as right as drain -- so to speak -- within a few days.

My latest bout persisted for a month through a regimen of conservative treatment and two rounds of antibiotics  My doctor gave up and referred me to a specialist in Manzanillo.

There were some worrisome results in my lab report. But the earliest appointment I could get was 10 days away. So, I waited. And three days before the appointment, all was back to normal in digestionland.

But I went to my appointment on Monday. The doctor ruled out a number of causes. Cancer (most Mexican doctors are refreshingly honest in their accurate use of words). Food allergies. Food intolerance. He was even dubious that a parasite or bacteria would give the results in my lab report.

Like many Mexican doctors, he took a conservative approach prescribing some nature-based drugs and asked me to come back in 6 weeks or so.

In the back of my mind, I could see neither a good reason to take the medications nor to return. My stomach was fine.

That is, until I got home and had to run from the front door to the nearest toilet. My hubris was not well-rewarded by my bowels.

OK. There is a little more to that story. I stumbled onto some Rainier cherries at Sam's Club just before my appointment. Worried that they would not keep in the heat (I will use almost any handy excuse), I ate the entire kilo of cherries before I got home. I suspect I would have made the same run had I not had an earlier problem.

Under my current food plan, those cherries probably contained enough sugar to fulfill my weekly requirement. I am trying to cut down as much as I can on my sugar intake.

I do not like sweets. Even fruit. Cherries being the exception. My sugar downfall is carbohydrates. Primarily pasta. But, there are plenty of other culprits, as well.

Two years ago, I altered my food intake to rid myself of a lot of foods I can do without. Combined with my walking regimen, it worked. I felt better. I looked better. I acted better.

Salads have never been a favorite food item for me. They simply do not fill me. But I have learned some new tricks from my reading.

I am easily bored by food. If I eat a dish three times, I am not inclined to eat it again.

Salads are the perfect meal to avoid that rut. The possible combination of vegetables is almost limitless.

Take my salad this afternoon. I combined leaf lettuce with basil and mint leaves, topped it with cucumber, tomato, habanero, red, and yellow peppers, onion, celery, Kalamata olives, feta, and walnuts.  And then sprinkled it with a lime-balsamic-oregano dressing of my own invention. Amazingly, it has kept me for the full afternoon.

If I ever become one of those people who feel they have the liberty to bang on about how everyone else in the world is poisoning themselves with the food they eat, I hope a sane and good-willed soul will punch me in the face until I come to my senses.

But, I may share some of my own discoveries with you on my road back to good food and good company. If you make a fist, I will stop.

Provecho!

mr. moto takes a vacation

Something was happening.

As part of my afternoon walk today, I ambled down to the Barra de Navidad malecon. It is quite an attractive hunk of concrete and landscaping mounted atop the barra (sand bar) that separates Navidad Bay from a nifty little harbor. It is the bar in Barra de Navidad.

When I was last down there, it was a set for which the Spanish word tranquilo was made. There were very few people on the malecon. And even fewer on the beach.

Not so this afternoon.

My first hint were the number of motos -- motorcycles -- parked at the start of the malecon. The most I have ever seen there is two. This afternoon, they were as numerous as horses in front of the Rock Ridge saloon on Lili von Shtupp night.

And the motos were not there alone. But let me tell you two brief stories before we proceed.

Several years ago, I was standing in a long line waiting for the ATM to disgorge pesos into my pocket. In front of me was a woman I have known since moving here. But, unlike me, she spends only a few months each year in Mexico.

She looked at all the white-haired northerners in line in front of us,and said: "I really feel sorry for the Mexicans when we leave. There will be no money in town for them."

The second is not unlike the first. Last week, I received an email from an acquaintance in Canada. He wrote: "Thank you for your stories. I truly enjoy reading them because they remind me that even though we are not in Mexico for six months out of the year, life still goes on there."

And part of that life was on the malecon. The place was filled with vendors selling sugary treats to families made up of three or so generations. All enjoying a comfortably warm day in the sun.

What startles me each summer is to approach of a group of who I believe are Mexican teenagers, and hear them speaking English. A lot of American citizens come here to visit their relatives -- and to enjoy their vacation.

A young woman from Victorvile, California told me she was jealous that I live here. I told her I fully understood what she meant.

What struck me most though were the number of people in the water on both sides of the sand bar -- in the bay and in the laguna.

Some of the grumpier northerners have rattled on about how the beach at Barra de Navidad no longer exists, Plenty of culprits are blamed, but the dirge is the same. It isn't what it used to be.

That did not seem to be bothering the Mexican families that found the beach exactly to their taste on a Sunday on the sand.

I suspect all humans have a tendency to believe if they are not in a place they enjoy, somehow that that place folds up waiting their return. As if it were a freeze frame in a bad movie.

But that is not how life works. My friends in Salem are going about their lives without any regard to whether I am there or not. As is my family in Bend. And my friends in British Columbia -- and England -- and Germany. Life does not stop just because I am not there.

I suspect that is one of the flaws of existentialism and Cartesian logic. In truth, we can know that life does rely on our personal validation.

So, dear readers, do not worry. Life goes on here. And Mexican tourists are doing their best to see that the local merchants fill their cash registers with pesos.
 

where do you get your ideas?

It is a fair question.

And my usual answer can sound a bit flippant, for the major part, I just open my eyes.

Even after living here for ten years, I am often awed by what goes on around me. Some things are amusing. Others charming. A few metamorphic.

I am awed because I am a fish swimming in a foreign sea, A rainbow trout in the Indian Ocean.

It is the interpretation where the nub of the narrative lies. And even though I can figure out some cultural vagaries, most stump me. I either misinterpret them -- or I go to one of my Mexican guides to unravel the paradox.

Those are my existential essays. But, there are other sources. I stumble across things on the internet. Northern friends send me articles.

And, from time to time, readers bring great ideas to me. That is the genesis of today's tale.

Wade lives here part time in my neck of Barra de Navidad. While going to the bakery one day, he walked past some new construction on the main street of this part of town. He said he had noted something very peculiar about the new building -- and included a photograph.

I thought I knew the building he meant. It is so close, I can see the top of it from my terrace. Looking a good deal like the Moorish domes of the remnants of Whitehall Palace seen across the duck pond of Saint James's Park.

I wrote about the construction in February 2016 when the foundations were being laid (mexico knows best). Back then, it was supposed to be a storage area. It has now morphed into commercial space -- though it is still unfinished.

So, I hiked over there -- earning a few more of my prized steps. And, sure enough. Just as Wade had pointed out. There was something very peculiar about the building.

At that point on the street, the utility poles is concrete. The electric company recently replaced the wooden poles that had a tendency to rot and come down in mild tropical storms and the occasional car crash.

The building is built very close to the street, and the first and second floor terraces jut out further. It is that jut that causes the "peculiarity," Here it is.

At some point during the construction, the building met the utility pole. Rather than alter the building plan, the building was built around the pole. I suppose they have a symbiotic relationship of support. We might call it Donald and Andrés.

But my northern mind conjures up some questions. What happens when the pole needs to be replaced? What happens if the terraces need to be re-modeled? What happens if a fiery asteroid collides with the Earth and ends life as we know it?

Of course, none of the questions relate to facts happening right now. The present problem was how to complete the building with the pole where it was. And that problem is solved. Any others are merely hypothetical.

There is one fact I have withheld from you (just like Agatha Christie). The owner of the lot and building is a Canadian. A citizen of British Columbia. Certainly, he must have shared some of my questions. If so, it is a fact not in evidence.

The point is: it works. And worrying about the future is just wasted energy.

I will confess, though, I will be interested to see how it all plays out over the coming years.

And we have Wade to thank for it all.

Wade -- Your royalty check will be on its way. Of course, that is dependent upon Mexico winning the World Cup.

all hands on deck

I just realized I have not invited you to my upper terrace recently.

There is a reason for the slight. Not a very good one. Even though it is one of my favorite areas of the house, I tend to take it for granted.

The Mexican-French Canadian architect, who designed and built this house as her dream home, had a good eye for Barragánesque line. (Luis Barragán is the Mexican architect who is credited as the father of Mexican modern architecture.) The lines of the house are Enlightenment-logical.

The lines were what attracted me to the house. I probably did not even notice the upper terrace. I certainly had no particular plans for it.

When my artist friend Ed saw the terrace, he saw the perfect venue for an art collection. And he was correct. The angular walls almost beg for the presence of large canvases.

Ed is an abstract expressionist. Well, he paints in that style. And his work is quite good. But I was not certain until I saw the paintings mounted on the walls (the good life). It was almost as if the architect had these paintings in mind when she conceived the walls.

Since then, the upper terrace has become part of family life around here. The breezes make it a great place to read -- or to play Mexican train, which we do when the rest of the family is in residence.

But I now have a new use for it.

The house is square, the rooms surrounding a patio with a swimming pool. The terrace is essentially built on the roof of the other rooms forming a complete path around the upper level of the house.

Early on, the terrace struck me as being similar to the deck of a cruise ship. The deck just above the swimming pool. On most ships that is also the sports deck with a running and jogging track.

I do not know why I did not see it earlier, but the upper terrace is built to serve the same purpose. And, over the three years I have lived here, I have occasionally used it for my walking regime. Especially, when the summer rains make our local streets impassable. Or simply to be avoided on foot because of the sewage overflow.

Lately, I have had my own sewage overflow problem. For the past month, I have had a lower intestinal issue that gives me very little warning before my system turns into Old Faithful. As a result, I have created my own Elba in the house.

Admittedly, it is a self-imposed exile. But, I do not dare get very far from the comfort of ceramic without the possibilities of a catastrophe spiking.

At the onset, I really did not feel like walking. I was too tired. But that was only for a day or two. My energy quickly recovered.

It then occurred to me that I have the perfect solution at hand. I can complete my daily walking regime without leaving the house. 100 laps is the equivalent of 5 miles.

Is it boring? You bet. Walking in circles makes me feel like a neurotic gnu wandering methodically but without purpose. But it is better than no exercise at all. And I have worked back up to walking 7 miles each day.

When I lived alone, I would play music while I walked onthe terrace to at least keep my mind active analyzing it. Now that I have a son, his television played at Mexican levels tends to drown out everything else.

This diarrhea problem will pass. I can then invite you back to the terrace for something a bit more entertaining. Maybe a game of Sorry?  

not ready for prime time

I really should talk to someone about this obsessive disorder.

For some reason, I keep picking at the scab of our local OXXO store. You know the one. I have written about it twice (does that translate to hugs and kisses?; hugs and kisses). And that is just about the number limit of guest appearances on Mexpatriate. Well, unless you are a scorpion.

I had decided I had OXXOnerated myself of the topic. That is, until last week when the store opened. Some of you mentioned in your comments that you hoped Mexicans would support their local abarrotes instead of buying their beer and ice at OXXO.

Last Monday, the store had its grand opening. It was to be quite the event. Invitations (with discount coupons attached) were stuffed under front doors. Unfortunately, the invitation arrived under my door the day after the opening.

That was just as well because the store was not really ready for the event. The contractor had told me the date and time. When I showed up, the store was open, but the staff was busily gathering up the required paraphernalia of such sacred rites.

Balloons. Posters. Ear-piercing music blared from a speaker placed just right to blast the eardrums of anyone who had the temerity to join the celebration.

I went inside. And I was not alone.

The store was not packed. There were perhaps 15 of my neighbors looking at the merchandise.

My Telcel (cellular) bill had just arrived. So, I decided to take advantage of one of the best benefits of Mexican convenience stores. Financial services. For me, it is a place to pay my telephone, electric, and cellular bills. For my neighbors, it is cash transfer point. These stores help fill the gaps left by Mexican banks.

To be a good neighbor, I grabbed a bottle of mineral water, and got in line behind a young woman with two small children who were fascinated with all of the small sweets just at their eye level. Like mothers universal, she was haggard.

The clerk was not quite so focused. Or, maybe she was just frustrated. The customer wanted to purchase one item. Toilet paper. But the clerk was having trouble. When confronted with a credit card, more problems ensued.

I stood there for just under 10 minutes and decided my transaction could wait. (I should note I have seen similar problems at one of the other OXXO stores in Barra de Navidad.) By then, there were about six more people in line. I returned my bottle to the cooler and left.

Since then, I have noticed a steady stream of customers at the store. Lots of young mothers. But the main demographic seems to be young Mexican men on motor bikes. The front of the store looks as if it could be in Saigon in 1971.

I was positive I knew what that last group was buying. They tend to be a beer crowd. But, when I went inside, I discovered the beer coolers were locked. 

The only unlocked alcohol cooler had a sign asking customers not to open the door.

It turns out there is a licensing problem. If I understood my informant correctly, it will be another month before the matter is worked out. Maybe.

For a company that bases its revenue on the sale of Corona and Victoria, that seems to have been an odd detail for OXXO to overlook in choosing an opening date. Or, maybe other sales will meet the company's capital recapture scheme. Who knows?

What I do know is that the store was not quite ready to open. A week later, the clerks are far more confident in manning their stations -- even if they are OXXO-slow. As yet, my attempts to build a personal relationship (similar to what I have with the owner of our local grocery and with the Kiosko staff in Barra de Navidad) have been rebuffed. But everything takes time.

Because of my continued need to be close to a bathroom, I have been taking my exercise on the upper terraza of my house. 100 laps gives me 10 miles.

A few nights ago, I noticed a bright light shining through one of the architectural features where there had once only been darkness. It was the OXXO sign. Doing its best imitation of John Winthrop's shining city upon a hill.

It was startling when I first saw it. Now it is just part of the background of my little village rolling into the twenty-first century.

I suspect in another week or two, I will not even notice the home of the moto cowboys.

insulting my country

Saying nasty things about Mexico will irritate me. Saying ignorant things will bring out the mother bear in me.

I have been friends with Al for years. Since I moved to Mexico, we stay in touch through email. Not frequently, he will send me something he has recently read. Almost always about Mexico. He is interested in my take. I suspect because he is still a bit baffled that I would have moved here.

Yesterday he sent me an article from an online magazine that I would not usually read. The writers are a mixed bag. But most are former conservatives who have given into a nationalist and protectionist philosophy.

The article Al sent me was about AMLO's election as president of Mexico and what it means to both Mexico and the United States. I would have anticipated the author would have been appalled at the election of a socialist in a neighboring country. But I was wrong.

The world of politics is changing. The old left-right divide is starting to make little sense. The new paradigm of "inward-looking" and "outward looking" makes far more sense. Or, as the British would have it, "somewheres" and "anywheres."

AMLO falls perfectly within the new political paradigm. The author points out AMLO ran "not as a socialist, but as a national populist skeptical of globalist neoliberalism." Having run twice before for president as a social democrat, he remade himself this year into a national populist. The author's prediction is that the new Mexican president and the American president will be able to work well together because they share a lot of the same interests.

Take this gem, for example. "AMLO critiques NAFTA for banning Mexico's traditional tariffs that protected its small corn farmers, whose ancestors had been growing corn for thousands of years. The beneficiaries were massively efficient Midwestern American farmers, whose cheap corn imports pushed huge numbers of Mexican peasants into illegally migrating to the US over the last quarter century."

We will skip over the factual errors in that statement because I am far more interested in its comic book view of economics. He builds on that to point out that the celebrated Trump-AMLO telephone call was a success because both of them have a deal in mind: trading American investments in Mexican infrastructure for Mexico's help in lowering Central American immigration.

The idea is interesting. After all, in congress, AMLO will depend on votes from his coalition partner, the Social Encounter Party (PES), a socially conservative Christian party with views similar to the Christian right in the United States. And AMLO shares a few of those views -- opposition to gay marriage, opposed to abortion.

But, that is not what really caught my eye in the article. In discussing American investment in infrastructure in post-Revolution Mexico, the author noted: "Mexican elites traditionally resisted the threat of American dominance, but at the expense of tolerating (and even promoting) a culture of mediocrity and accident-proneness in its population. Mexico’s superb real estate would attract an influx of Americans, but Mexicans have managed to make their country boring and distasteful to most Yankees besides Jeb Bush. Mexico’s shoddiness successfully repels gringos, but also limits its potential."

There is a lot of vitriol in that paragraph. The sharp elbow to Jeb Bush is an example. And there are a lot of good reasons why American businesses have been reluctant to invest in Mexico. But, I really take exception to the gratuitous insult that the country in which I live has purposely been created "boring and distasteful to most Yankees." Those adjectives are born of a nativist mind.

It is true that some aspects of life in Mexico may be distasteful. Cartels. Corruption. Drug addiction. A violent crime rate that continues to climb despite the promises of politicians.

But the positives of living here are tasteful (if that is the proper antonym). In fact, delectable. For most of us, the negative aspects of Mexico are a distant echo. (With the exception of the recent scourge of methamphetamine addictions that has repeatedly touched my life through Mexican friends.)

Those of us who choose to live here have done so for many reasons. For me, it s the challenge of living in a new country. The weather, the availability of fresh ingredients for meals, the ability of my neighbors to accept what life offers with aplomb. Those are all sweeteners on top.

And "boring?" That is obviously the opinion of a man who has not spent any time truly taking in the life of Mexico. How can any country based on fiestas, faith, and family be boring?

What AMLO and Trump decide to do with their relationship is something I am looking forward to. But, I am going to do it in my country of choice where every day is to be celebrated.