Laundry is not my favorite household chore.
It never has been.
When I lived in Oregon, a fancy front-loading washing machine and matching dryer haunted the darker corners of my basement. The dark was not the problem. It was finding time to turn my soiled linen into something a gentleman could wear.
Every three weeks or so, I would wander to the basement, usually with Professor Jiggs in tow, and retrieve my clothes from the laundry chute. Then, there was the usual sorting pieces, measuring detergent, setting the proper controls, and waiting.
The waiting was easy. I usually dd it in the hot tub in my backyard. The whole process, at best, could be categorized as a nuisance.
All of that went away when I moved to Mexico.
My life in Mexico is quite different than the one I led in Oregon. And laundry tops the list of thins I no longer do.
Well, I did. When I lived on the beach for my first eight months in Mexico, I used the washing machine at the rental and sun-dried my underwear as if they were tomatoes.
But, I broke that habit when I discovered there were women who took great pleasure in laundering my clothes. Making them smell mountain fresh. And then folding them. At a nominal charge.
My laundry for a week (including clothes, sheets, and towels) costs me around $75 (Mx) -- about 4 dead Washingtons (US). I couldn't get a coffee at Starbucks in Salem for that.
I have discovered only one fly in the burrito with my little plan. Whenever laundry leaves the owner's hands to be combined with other bags of laundry, things get lost. How can I lose socks on my own washing machine without expecting something to go missing at the laundry?
And they do. Socks, of course. Or, more accurately, one sock. Socks seem to be no more faithful to one another than teenage love affairs.
But, the most common items to go missing from my laundry are pillow cases, hand towels, and bath towels.
I like quality in my bedding and towels. So, I am willing to pay good prices for both. And I have.
It is not unusual for me to send four pillow cases out the door and receive three in return. The same goes for towels. Socks? I understand how they get lost. But towels and pillow cases?
About once a month, I will find a piece of clothing that is obviously not mine. My favorite was the fuchsia bra. Once, over half of the clothes in my bag were not mine.
I dutifully return the items to the laundry. However, I have never been offered one of my missing items in return.
The first time I discovered I was not getting everything back from the laundry, I came up with a perfect northern solution. I made a list itemizing all of my items, as if I were spending the night at the London Ritz, and attached it to my laundry bag. When I returned for my laundry, I checked each item on the list.
A pair of underwear was missing. I showed Maria the list, she nodded, looked through the clothes she had given me, and -- shrugged. I later heard that she had concluded I thought she was stealing my clothes because of my obsession (her word) with the list.
I understood her reasoning. We northerners need to keep our cultural radars working. Our Mexican neighbors quite often laugh at many of our foibles. We do not need to make it worse by being inadvertently offensive. I have never used the list idea again.
But I still am missing clothes occasionally after changing laundries three times. It just seems to go with the business.
Now, I will turn the talking stick over to you, my trusty readers. Do you have any suggestions?
Let me cut one idea off before it takes flight. I have a washing machine at the house that Dora, the woman who helps me clean the house, uses. My son also uses it and then hangs his clothes out on the railings of the house making the courtyard look like a brothel set in a Fellini film. I am not going to add to that.
Of course, it is possible that I will do as I so often do in Mexico: I will accept the bad with the good. Worrying over an occasional missing tea towel is not the reason I came to Mexico. What goes missing can be replaced.
At least, I have been freed from the tedium of laundry. And I do not want to re-trace that particular path.
How does that line go?
Oh, yes.
"Hey, wasn't it me who said
That nothin' good's gonna last forever?"
I think that is it. And it is true.
Nothing in our lives is permanent. We live as transients passing through an ever-changing sea of circumstances.
Two weeks ago, my blogger pal Gary Denness (The Mexile) announced an end to the blog he had been writing for over fifteen years. His reason was a familiar one. Blogging had been fun, but he now felt that writing his blog was just an exercise. A tautology.
I fully understand his reasoning. I have handed in my essay resignation at least twice now. But I am the Michael Myers of blogging. I just keep coming back.
Gary now joins a long list of fellow bloggers who no longer write for one reason or another.
I started reading Mexico blogs in 2006, I think. I had started researching places to retire. Not for myself, but for my sister-in-law. Mexico was the obvious option.
Back then, finding information on the internet was more difficult than today. I felt like Indiana Jones uncovering Maya ruins.
Somehow, I ran across my first blogger. I am not certain who it was. I suspect it was an older woman living solo in the under-developed beach town of Chacala. Andee.
I immediately liked her. She was irascible. Direct. Honest. And, it turned out, extremely hard to get to know. But, I did. She convinced me to start writing a blog about my decision-making process. Thus was born Same Life -- New Location (Mexpatriate's predecessor).
There were other bloggers in that early group. Babs. Felipe. Jennifer. Nancy. Billie. Don Cuevas. And a few others who played a big part in encouraging me not only to write, but to make the jump across the border.
Over the years, most of the bloggers I knew have stopped writing. Andee died. Some had health issues. Quite a few moved their writing to Facebook. Others simply disappeared.
We humans tend to find some comfort in routine. We like to open our Kindles to find our favorite newspaper. And we fret when it hasn't downloaded.
Every blog I have read over the years has added something to my life. And I have become friends with people whose work I have read over the past decade.
For that reason, I would be churlish to say I do not feel a touch of remorse when a fellow blogger shuts down his press. It is almost as if a part of me has slipped into a coma.
That is how I feel about Gary's departure from the blog realm. But I have a certain reassurance that he is still out there in Britain fuming about Brexit while he keeps the English train system operating.
I thank him for his service. And, for all of the other authors of blogs current and past, I thank you, as well. We are an odd little community. But, a community, nonetheless.
Now. What is the next line of that song?
Oh, yes.
"And wasn't it me who said
Let's just be glad for the time together?"
I am certainly glad for that time.
Diana Ross had it right.
I cannot be certain, but she may have been talking about Mexico when she sang "I Hear a Symphony." Because I certainly do. Every day.
Mexico is not a shrinking violet when it comes to noise. It is more like a megaphonic trumpet vine. And that is fine with me.
Every day, I am surrounding by sound. It starts early in the morning when at least three separate boom boxes or truck radios are cranked up to distortion level. I think they all play different music, but it is hard to tell through the blown-out phhht-phhht-phhht tweeters.
But, that is just part of the brew that includes the cry of chachalacas that sound like a piece of equipment about to fail, along with pieces of real equipment that are about to fail. And the loudspeakers of gas trucks, water trucks, and vendors selling everything from holy water elixir to tomatoes and pineapples. The piercing whistle of the knife sharpener is almost pleasant by comparison.
As I sit here writing in the patio, I hear them all. And yet I don't.
When I first moved to Mexico, I could hear every separate sound. And it was not pleasant. At some point over the years, it has now simply faded into the background. As if it were a national tapestry. Something that is just there. Without pausing and listening very carefully, I could not have written that list of noise sources.
But that is not always the case. Sometimes, a new sound will stand out from the others. Because it is new. Or different. Or both.
That happened today. Amongst the usual melange was something odd. Mechanical. Insistent. Almost military in its momentum. It sounded as if it might be at the hotel construction site.
Of course, I had to go investigate. And I was correct. It was at the hotel.
A cement mixer. Now, for most of you,the sight of a cement mixer is not a major event. But they are not extremely common here. Most cement is mixed on the ground.
Or, at least, I thought they were not common. On my morning walk, I saw at least two more. One at a residential site around the corner from me and another at a commercial site next to the new butcher shop.
And that got me thinking about the amount of construction that has been underway this summer in Barra de Navidad. Some residential remodeling. But quite a few new houses and businesses.
Our little village is growing. That is a good sign for the vitality of the community. The appearance of OXXOs and Kioskos means there must be more local and tourist disposable income coming our way.
Our village has quite a few homes that have been under construction for years. I can think of two that were finally finished in a mere additional two months this summer.
And the hotel we have been watching is quickly becoming a reality. "Hotel" is probably the wrong word. I had been hoping for a hot sheets place. That is not going to happen. This is more like a set of bungalows.
The pool is almost done, and the walls of the bungalows are starting to rise. That cement mixer runs for almost twelve hours each day.
Now that I know what the new sound is, it will fade into the background along with Luis Miguel and Vincente Fernandez crooning next door.
All we need now are the percussive bursts of cohetes.
I wonder if that is what Diana Ross had in mind?
Some blog topics stir the blood.
There are two classic Untouchables (religion and politics). Both of which occasionally put in cameo appearances on Mexpatriate. But, not today.
Oddly, traffic seems to be a topic on reader's radar. At least, over on Facebook.
I post links to my periodic postings on my Facebook page and two other Mexico groups I belong to. While Disqus was acting up, my comments dropped precipitously here. But, on Facebook, they have soared. Especially, on the topic of our first traffic signal in San Patricio (you light up my life).
Everyone who lives in our area, visits periodically, or has ever seen a photograph of a car in The New Yorker has an opinion on what is best for the traffic flow in our little burg. Of course, I started it by saying that I will live with the new light -- even though I would have preferred a traffic circle.
Several readers suggested the light was being installed at the wrong intersection. They would have preferred it to be installed where Lopez Mateos (the main street of San Patricio --if that is not putting too much lipstick on the pig) crosses Highway 200.
That makes some sense. Lopez Mateos does not have the elevation issues that face drivers on Álvaro Obregón, but Lopez Mateos seems to bear a heavier traffic load. Getting on or off of the highway there is like playing roulette with the god of bent fenders.
And that is exactly what happened in today's photograph. In Mexico, the law (or custom, I am not certain which), requires a driver who wishes to turn left off of a thoroughfare, to pull to the right, wait until traffic clears, and then cut left across all lanes.
It makes sense. That method allows the traffic to flow, instead of waiting for someone to turn.
Not everyone does that. In fact, hardly anyone does it. Even though there is a left-turn lane on the lateral at that intersection, most drivers just toss out the anchor and try to worm through any hole that opens up. With no turn signal.
Yesterday, a woman driving a white car did just that. But she chose unwisely. She abruptly stopped right in the path of a dump truck.
That is her standing in the street. You can see the paint transfer she donated to the dump truck's bumper.
Fortunately, it appears no one was hurt. That is not always the case where trucks are involved. Just before I left for San Miguel de Allende, a dump truck ran into a tourist bus killing a couple of the passengers, including the driver, I believe.
That last sentence would have ended up in my termination if I had written it for any of the newspapers and magazines to which I have contributed over the past six decades. My source was the chief fount of information in our little villages -- rumor.
And I am about to add another sin to my bucket. I have reason to believe what I told you about the traffic light on Álvaro Obregón. After all, I see evidence that it is being installed. And it was confirmed by someone I know who closely tracks the machinations of the state and local governments.
This little tidbit has not been vetted. Other than the fact it comes from a Mexican businessman who is civilly active.
I told him about yesterday's accident and mentioned that some of my readers thought the new traffic signal should be at the Mateos intersection. He agreed.
Then, he told me, there is going to be one there. And street lights are going to be installed on Mateos through downtown. At night, the main street is as dark as my chances of becoming the first American protestant pope. (Even though I have chosen my papal name.)
Fortunately, he stopped before verifying the new McDonald's in Barra de Navidad and the Carl's, Jr. in San Patricio. He left those announcements to me.
So, like many things here, patiently waiting brings results. And it gives me another storyline to follow.
What could be a better result than that on a Wednesday morning?
Time solves all mysteries.
It just solves some of them quicker than others.
You remember that multi-purpose local hill that once provided tsunami shelter for grade-school children, a screen against hurricane winds, and a billion-peso panoramic view of our quaint little commune? (where there never was a hill)
The mystery was why the company had left a tiny needle of the hill next to the highway untouched. There is a small pillbox structure at the top. I considered the possibility that the outhouse might have some sort of historical significance. But this is Mexico. Preservation is not a high priority.
So, there it sat looking like a groom's snaggle-toothed grin at an Ozarks wedding.
If I had looked closer at my own photographs, I would have had my answer. But, I didn't. Yesterday, all was made clear.
I needed to run some errands in San Patricio. Because it is only a 4-mile walk, I usually stroll over there and back. Being an old geezer, I managed to do something to my left knee. It is not bad, but walking was not on the agenda. So, I drove.
As I was passing the hill, I noticed CFE (our national electric company) was erecting new utility poles and stringing lines. From my perspective, it appeared they had run the lines to a new pole on top of the rump of the hill.
That seemed very odd for CFE. Even though it is a government agency, it is one of the most efficient institutions in Mexico. Whenever hurricanes are predicted, CFE marshals its trucks throughout Mexico to places as close as possible to predicted landfalls.
And they always have power restored quickly. Sometimes, in hours. Other times, just a couple days. This is not Puerto Rico.
CFE is a company that understands its market and customers. If no power is supplied, there will be no revenue coming to CFE.
That is why placing that major line on top of a hill that will get the brunt of hurricane winds seemed to be out of character. To be blunt, it seemed illogical.
And, it was, because that is not what was happening. The old line had run across the top of the hill. CFE had installed new poles at the base and had removed a weather-related problem.
Today, it was the turn of Telecable (our local company that provides cable television here, but not internet). Its workers were re-stringing the television cable. I assume Telmex (the telephone company) has already done its job.
And what now for our Ozarks groom? Is he awaiting his time in the Tower to have what is left of his pride lopped off (to truly cuisinart my metaphors)?
I don't know. I could not find anyone working the rock operation today. And the Telecable guys were as clueless as I would expect them to be. They were there to maintain service, not to be interrogated by Geraldo Rivera.
I guess that is just a mystery fragment that will entail more time to resolve.
And I will be right there to open Al Capone's safe for you. Maybe that is what is in that building.
I love driving in Mexico.
Where else can you share a highway with the combined forces of the Avengers and X-Men?
That is the only conclusion I can draw. My fellow drivers must have super powers I cannot even fathom. And I am not talking about those faux heroes like Ms. Second Guess, who has the uncanny ability to offer advice two days too late.
I am talking about real super powers. The Super Mom eyes-in-the-back-and sides-of-her-head type of powers. The real deal.
Let me tell you my tale, and I will let you add the conclusion.
This morning I was driving from Barra de Navidad to San Patricio. A short four-mile drive.
You already know about Nueva España, the main east-west street in my neighborhood. Between my house and the highway are eleven streets that feed into Nueva España from the north. Because I was heading west, those streets were on my right.
I do not know why I did it, but I started keeping track of the number of vehicles that came from my rigfht. The first was a pickup at the first intersection. The next intersection was a bicycle. Of the 11 streets, 7 vehicles pulled in from the right. 2 bicycles. 2 motorcycles. 3 cars or pickups.
And they all did exactly the same thing. Or didn't do the same thing. No one looked to the left to see if a car (me, in this instance) was coming. I had to brake for 5 of them. One bicycle actually brushed my front fender. Even then, the bicyclist didn't look.
Today was not some great exception caused by a full moon, a plague of flies, or Mars transiting Jupiter, as far as I know. It is the same driving behavior I have encountered since I moved here. To my northern reasoning, it seems to be a complete disregard for self-preservation.
I added two more examples in San Patricio. There is a very narrow street near the town square where cars parked on both sides of the street make driving almost Panama Canal narrow. I carry a five gallon can of olive oil to smear on the sides of my SUV to squeeze thorough. A taco restaurant has moved tables into the street to complicate the maneuvering.
As I was edging my way through the chaos today, two middle-aged men came around the side of the taco condiment table, looked straight at me driving toward them, and stood there in the traffic lane dressing their tacos. I waited the minute or two it took them to decide on which salsa would best complement their folding food.
A block further, I started to turn a corner when an Indian vendor stepped right in front of my car without looking. I braked hard enough that my tires squealed. She glanced at me and kept on her way.
I have raised this behavior with several Mexican friends in the past. But I put the same question to four of them today. (One is guilty of the same behavior. I have seen him mount his motorcycle and pull into the street without clearing for traffic. He has had several near collisions.)
The answers I received today were even more confusing than the driving behavior. But they were consistent with Jorge Castañeda's first cultural contradiction in Mañana Forever? I certainly would not have come close to the reasoning they used.
But, rather than pollute the opinion pot with their responses, let me ask you. In your Mexican driving experience, why do other drivers not clear for traffic before entering a street?
I would really like to hear your thoughts.
As for me, I am working on developing my own super power to compensate for my driving frustration. Maybe I could just turn myself into Oblivious Man.
It would not be a reach.
I had no idea what was happening. It looked liked a coven of fluorescent witches had checked into Melaque
When I returned from San Miguel de Allende at the end of last month, I encountered a road crew on the main north-south highway running through Melaque. The crew had begun to cut the asphalt and dig a trench between the lateral road and the parallel highway.
I suspected the island that separates the two lanes was being extended. It made sense. That intersection is a target-rich environment to traverse. Installing a demilitarized zone might bring some peace.
One of Melaque's main streets intersects the highway there. The street's official name is Álvaro Obregón -- honoring the revolutionary general and president who was implicated in several Mexican assassinations and ended up dying on the wrong end of another assassin's gun.
But no one calls it Álvaro Obregón. It is either called "Whorehouse Street" for the business establishments it hosts or "calle de mariposas" (Butterfly Street) honoring the world's worst transvestite show company that was once resident there. (The bar is now closed for reasons that you will never see in writing here.)
Whatever the street is called, when it intersects with Highway 200, it becomes one of the most dangerous intersections I have ever encountered. (Probably the most dangerous is just one block away in Villa Obregón, where traffic entering from Reforma meets the highway.)
If you have ever tried to enter or leave the highway at Álvaro Obregón, you know what I mean. The street enters a drainage ditch immediately before it climbs a steep grade to the highway. To avoid waiting on the incline, vehicles usually pull part way onto the highway.
As I mentioned earlier, there are laterals on both sides of the highway. Traffic entering from Álvaro Obregón will often pull horizontally into the lateral lane causing oncoming traffic to pause -- or crash, whichever seems more convenient. The traffic turning onto Álvaro Obregón from the highway is forced to stop because there is no place to drive.
The solution? At first, I thought the extended median's sole purpose was to channel traffic more efficiently when turning across the highway. But, I was only partially correct.
It is actually a turning lane. My sleepy little town is getting its first traffic light. At the bottom of the photograph, you can see where it is to be attached.
Here is what I know. Apparently, the state government (Jalisco) has appropriated $1.5 million (MX) to upgrade Highway 200 through Melaque, including the traffic light. Even though that sounds like a lot of money, it is less than $80,000 (US). I doubt that would pay for an American consultant to start thinking about a traffic signal in Salem.
I do not know when the work will be complete. But I have been pleasantly surprised at how quickly the preparation work was completed.
I am not a big fan of traffic signals. The studies I have seen is that accidents increase when new signals are installed. A major contributing factor, of course, is they often catch drivers by surprise.
If I had been asked, I would have suggested traffic circlets. Probably, three in Melaque. There certainly is space, and I like their feel. A cross between a carousel, bumper cars, and a re-make of Mad Max.
But, no one asked me. And I always feel a bit churlish when I start acting like an old expatriate or tourist who sees any change as a threat to some sort of imaginary paradise.
And for some reason that reminds me of Emma Stone's brilliant delivery of her monolog in Birdman: "You're doing this because you're scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don't matter. And you know what? You're right. You don't. It's not important. You're not important. Get used to it."
That is exactly what I am going to do. Because it does not really matter, I am going to get used to it.
Whether I obey it or not will be another essay.
