swimming with cal

Calvin Coolidge, the wisest of American presidents, once said: "If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you."

I cannot verify his words of wisdom are true for everyone. But they are certainly true for me. When faced with the possibility of some pending doom, I find that if I just sit down and wait, the vast majority resolve themselves.

My swimming pool recently provided me with another test of the Coolidge Law.
 
I have written before about how well-engineered my swimming pool is. Not only is it a thing of beauty on the surface, its hidden innards are extremely functional.

First, let me say I had nothing to do with the design. It was all in place when I bought the house with no name. I have simply been the lucky beneficiary of its plan.

Every pool has a pump that filters and circulates the water. Mine has an added function. There is a tinaco (a water storage tank) buried in the patio. It serves two functions. The first is to act as reservoir when the pump starts circulating the pool water. Any evaporation is replaced from the reservoir. I do not need to schlep a hose to the pool to top it off.

But its second function is far more important. During the heavy summer rains, it works as a leveling device to keep the pool from overflowing. When the rain raises the level of the pool water, it starts flowing through a return to the tinaco. That obviates the need of manually taking water out of the pool to avoid flooding.

Whoever came up with the idea is a genius. The pool almost operates on its own.

That is, until something goes wrong. The only problem I have had with it in the past is when the toilet float in the tinaco stops operating. Last week I thought that had happened again because the well pump was sending a lot of water to the tinaco.

When Antonio and I lifted the concrete cover to the tinaco, we were a bit shocked at what we saw. The tinaco looked as if it had collapsed. It looked that way because it had. In the process, some of the plumbing had pulled away.

Ignoring the advice of Silent Cal, I started calculating how much concrete would need to be removed to replace the tinaco. A friend from church had to do something similar last week.

Biting the bullet, I asked Tracye and Jorge from Crazy Cactus to give me an estimate on installing a new tinaco. We discussed a couple of options -- all of them that would cut into my travel budget. 

Then, Jorge tried something. He stepped on the edge of the tinaco. It bobbed up and down. The tinaco had not collapsed; it had been crushed.

Our heavy rains during the past two months have raised the water table. That is evident in the bubbling sewers and the large puddles that still flood my street. The water has no place to go.

There must be an open space under the tinaco that allows water to escape. But that is a two-way street. What can escape can also back up. And that must be what happened to the tinaco. The water floated the tiaco and crushed it against the the cover on the patio. Just like a soda can.

Tracye and Jorge suggested that I leave the concrete lid off to let the space dry out. I did that. When Antonio came to clean the pool yesterday, the tinaco was no longer buoyant. He re-attached the plumbing to the tank and everything was in order.

Simply by waiting, everything is now in working order.

I have written it before, but I will do so once again. Mexico's greatest gift to me has been teaching the virtue of patience. That almost anything improves by simply sitting in silence for an answer.

And to watch those other nine troubles run into the ditch before they reach me.    

a star turn for barra de navidad

Each morning I do my impression of Earl Warren.

You remember him. Governor of California. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He once told an interviewer about his newspaper-reading habits: “I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records man’s accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man’s failures.”

I have a similar morning ritual of reading The Oregonian. As an amateur historian, I skip the front page and head directly to the "This Day in History" column. There are always a few interesting acorns buried there.

This morning was no exception. This caught my eye:

On Sept. 20, 1519: Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his crew set out from Spain on five ships to find a western passage to the Spice Islands. (Magellan was killed enroute, but one of his ships eventually circled the world.

Short historical blurbs usually get some things wrong. Though born Portuguese, Magellan had already renounced his citizenship before he set sail in an attempt to get Charles I of Spain to finance his exploration. Charles did. Magellan was no longer Portuguese.

But two facts (one mentioned and one implied) are what caught my attention. 1) The year Magellan set sail (1519) was the same year that Hernán Cortés began his conquest of Mexico. 2) The place left unnamed in the blurb where Magellan died in 1521 was in what would become known as The Philippines -- named after another Spanish king.

Both of those facts have a direct relationship with Barra de Navidad.

Despite what some people would now contend, Magellan was not just another white man out to oppress non-Europeans (though some of that did eventually happen). He was first and foremost an economic enabler.

Europe had long been trading with Asian nations. Especially, the Spice Islands (or, as they are now known, the Moluccas), an archipelago that is currently part of Indonesia. The islands provided Europe with -- you guessed it, spices. What we would now classify as a high-value, low-volume commodity.

When the land routes proved to be unstable due to disputes in and between Muslim countries, the Portuguese found an alternate sea route to The Orient when Bartolomeu Dias rounded the tip of southern Africa in 1488 -- opening the Indian Ocean to Portuguese trade.

As a result of the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, Portugal was awarded colonial rights in Africa and Asia, and Spain was awarded The Americas (with the exception of Brazil). And because monopolies are a powerful, but entirely inefficient, economic driver, the Portuguese built forts along the African-Asian trade routes, effectively barring Spain from the eastern route to the Spice Islands.

But Magellan had a better idea. Actually, he cribbed the idea from Columbus, who thought he was on his way to the Spice Islands in 1492 until he ran into a huge land mass not included on his charts.

Magellan knew The Americas were there. He just needed a way to get around them. He reckoned that he could sail south. That the land mass had to end somewhere.

And that is exactly what he did. He never made it to the Spice Islands because of his martial martyrdom in The Philippines. But Spain now knew that sailing west could make it a major commercial empire. And The Philippines were perfectly situated as a trading post with China and the Spice Islands.

That is where Barra de Navidad comes into the story. Magellan laid the foundation. Now, someone had to take the theory and turn it into a practical economic model. That man was Miguel López de Legazpi. Locally, we know him best as the name of a street.

Fast forward to 1564. After Magellan's crew circumnavigated the globe, the Spanish had a good idea what crossing the Pacific would entail. It could be done.

Mexico (a Spanish colony) faced the Philippine Islands, that had been claimed for Spain by Magellan. And the Philippines were a perfect trading post for setting up shop with Chinese merchants.

The problem was finding a route there -- and back. The only known trade winds blew to the east. No one knew of any that blew west. In the age of sail that was a rather important point. 

So, the Viceroy of Mexico commissioned López de Legazpi, a financial bureaucrat, to lead an expedition to the Philippines to establish a trade route from the east to Mexico and on to Spain. López de Legazpi had two galleons and two tenders built in the harbor of what is now Barra de Navidad. He then pressed Indians from the mountains of Jalisco into the expedition as sailors. They set sail on 21 November 1564.

As unlikely as it seems, the expedition was successful. López de Legazpi made it to The Philippines and set up an economic colonial trade node.

Then came the hard part. Getting back to Mexico. That task fell to a friar, Andrés de Urdaneta, who was known as an expert navigator and who had accompanied López de Legazpi on the voyage west.

Urdaneta had a hunch. If the southern hemisphere had a circular current blowing east, there must be a similar current in the northern hemisphere blowing west. Of course, if his hunch was wrong, they would all die at sea. It was a high-risk business.

With only that hunch to guide him (and a lot of Catholic faith), he headed northwest (almost to the 45th parallel north) and discovered what we now call the Japanese current. But the voyage took him longer than he had anticipated. Much longer.

130 days.  12,000 miles.  Fourteen of the crew dead.  Only Urdaneta and another crew member had enough strength to drop anchor in Acapulco on 8 October 1565.

When that anchor dropped, the world was forever changed. Spain set up an annual trading regime with China -- the Manila Galleon. In exchange for Mexican and Peruvian silver, China sold Spain silk, ceramics, and other luxury goods that were shipped to Spain through Mexico.

Columbus and Magellan were vindicated. Their dream had become a reality.  Spain had its trade route to the east by going west.

And thus was born one of the greatest eras of globalization. That is, until Spain debased its currency with a glut of silver and nearly bankrupted itself in all sorts of pointless national endeavors.  Including an ill-conceived invasion of England.  Eventually, Mexican independence in 1821 was the death knell for the Manila Galleon and its attendant mercantilism.

That is why this day in 1519 when Magellan set sail to circumnavigate the globe is directly connected to the monument that regally stands on the Barra de Navidad malecon. Urdaneta and López de Legazpi are not merely street names. They are the names of people who brought honor and fame to Barra de Navidad.

Not bad for one little blurb in the morning's newspaper.

back on the road

My calendar taunts me.

For the last few mornings, my telephone notifies me that I am on a cruise from Vancouver to Tokyo. It reminded me this morning that I am "at sea" -- and that I should have a nice day. I made up the "nice day" wish, but everything else is true.

Over a year ago, I joined my friends Roy and Nancy in signing up for a Celebrity cruise that would leave Vancouver on 10 September and arrive in Tokyo on 26 September. Those plans fell apart this spring. 

The continued strain that The Virus was putting on travel made a long cruise like that look unlikely. And unlikely it was.

First, Canada decided to close all of its ports to cruise ships for the remainder of 2021. The cruise line looked at the possibility of moving the start of the cruise to Seattle. But the wheels fell off of that Studebaker when Japan shut down its ports even while it struggled to keep airports open for the Olympics. As we all know, that plan ended up with Japan shutting its borders to tourists.

Our original plans were to stay in Tokyo for a couple of days. We would then board our respective flights to head home on 28 September -- having enjoyed the sybaritic pleasures of Tokyo for two days.

Just by chance, I discovered a homebound flight on Emirates that would take me from Tokyo to Dubai and then another flight from Dubai to Los Angeles. Effectively I would have made a trip around the world -- almost like an astronaut. The prospect fascinating me.

I booked one of Emirate's first-class suites. By now, I suspect that everyone knows that Emirate's suites are one of the crown jewels for international travel. But, best of all, I purchased the suite with my accumulated air miles on Alaska. To purchase it my savings would have meant selling a tidy share of my house.

When Celebrity cancelled the Tokyo cruise early in the summer, I did not cancel the Emirates reservation. Due to travel plan changes on two prior occasions, I was forced to give up the chance to experience the Emirates experience.

So, I decided to stall as long as I could. After I booked the flight, Alaska joined another airline alliance. There would be no further air mile purchases on Emirates. It was truly a use-it-or-regret-it choice.

The problem was how could I get to Tokyo. Cruise lines were no longer serving the country and the airport was closed to everyone with the exception of a limited number of special-visa holders. My papers were certainly not in order.

Then, it occurred to me. The restrictions clearly said that tourists could not enter the country. I did not need to enter the country; I just needed to enter the airport. Certainly connecting flights through Tokyo were still flying.

And, I was correct. With a little bit of research, I discovered that I could connect through Narita airport without even having a test for The Virus -- on two conditions. The first is that I cannot have a connecting flight at another Tokyo airport (like Haneda). The second condition is that the connecting flight has to be on the same day.

That sounded simple. All I needed to do was book a flight to Narita to arrive in sufficient time to catch my connecting Emirates flight.

That sounded simple enough. I gave myself a six-hour window and purchased a Japan Airlines business class ticket to Narita. That is when the fun began.

I asked if the two flights could be linked to show that I have a connecting flight that will qualify me to get on the airplane in Los Angeles. The answer was "no," but the agent helpfully volunteered to send an email to the check-in clerk in Los Angeles next week. Without meeting the "connecting flight" condition I would end up going nowhere.

I then checked with the Emirates customer service representative explaining my situation, that I cannot leave the secured area at Narita but I need to get a boarding pass for the second half of my journey. He had no suggestions other than to inform me there is no Emirates customer Service past security and, unlike other airports where the First Class lounge could help me, the Emirates lounge is closed in Narita.

So, there it is. The type of adventure that keeps my adrenaline burning. There is a good possibility that I will not be allowed onto the airplane in Los Angeles, and, that if I do, I may not be able to get on the Emirates flight in Tokyo. I may turn into Tom Hanks in The Terminal.

Is it worth the risk? Of course, it is. I refer you back to the "burning adrenaline" comment. What is the sense of doing anything if it can only go as planned?

If it works out, I will have flying experiences on which I can dine out on until I am tossed out with the rest of the refuse. If it doesn't, I will still have a tale to share. It is a writer's win-win adventure.

Even if there was not a story to be had, I would still do it. I need to start traveling again -- if only to prove to reluctant flyers that, with proper precautions, I am no more likely to contract The Virus on an airplane than I would at home. (Ignoring, for a moment, that my flight from Seattle in early March 2020 was most likely where I contracted my small bout with The Virus. But those were different times.)

It will also prepare me for a series of cruises I have already booked to take with Roy and Nancy over the next year.

• January 2022 -- Caribbean - out of San Juan
• February 2022 -- Antarctica -- out of Buenos Aires
• April 2022 -- Los Angeles-Vancouver
• September 2022 -- Vancouver-Tokyo 
• January 2023 -- Dubai-Cape Town

It is a start. I still have a lot more ground to cover here in Mexico. Delta is starting to wane, but Mu is starting to wax. We will see if anything comes of it.

But all of this will wait until I finish my David Niven impression -- with or without Cantinflas. Saturday I will be on my way. 


Note -- I am starting to feel like the guy in one of the greatest send-ups of pretentious folk music in Christopher Guest's A Mighty Wind. Enjoy it. And then get up and start traveling.
   

 

falling down sober

 

I need a minder.

At least, that is what a number of you have suggested this past month. And today I offer up proof that you just might be correct.

Last Sunday I was out on my regular evening walk. Had I kept it to the evening, this tale would never be told. But I didn't. It turned into a night walk, and therein lies our story.

I avoid walking at night -- for exactly the same reasons I do not drive here at night. Our streets and sidewalks are filled with various hazards. Potholes. Open drains. Utility guy wires. Uneven sidewalks. Low awnings. All of them just waiting to catch a pedestrian unawares.

In daylight, the chances of spotting a hazard are high. And danger can be averted. At night, I may as well be walking around with a white cane. The two previous times I have performed a face plant has been in the dark.

As soon as the sun sets, I usually take my walking act off the sidewalk and head into the street. The reason is simple. The little light there is comes from street lights. The sidewalks are simply dark -- and best avoided.

The rainy season brings new considerations. A number of our streets in Barra are flowing with raw sewage. Admittedly, it is diluted by the rainwater. But sewage it is. There is no missing the methane aroma. To avoid splashing sewage up my legs, I usually retreat to the sidewalk.

I did that late Sunday night. Because I was about 500 steps from home, I had shifted into overdrive. Glancing down at my telephone in my left hand, I could see the steps rolling up.

Then it happened. One moment I was speeding to walker stardom. The next I had made the same sound that wet laundry makes when hitting concrete. Except the wet laundry was me.

I went back to the scene of my fall on Monday. This is what caught my right toe. In the dark, I had no idea it was there.

Maybe I was lucky to fall where I did, though. This is what I could have fallen in. A mere ten feet more. A home-made sewer fix. And I never would have seen it.

Being a man of this century, the first thing I checked was my telephone screen. It had landed screen down on the concrete. Still in my left hand. It was fine.

Then I did what any other charter member of the Hubris Club would have done. I quickly looked around to see if anyone had witnessed my fall. They had not. My pride was intact.

Only then did I start checking for physical damage. There was some. The top layer of skin on my right knee had been flayed and a stream of blood had started trickling down my leg.

I had partially caught myself with my right elbow. It was scraped, but appeared to be functioning.

But I knew something was not quite right when I tried to stand up. My first thought verged on hysteria. What if I had exploded my liver? Well, I hadn’t, and I was a bit ashamed to think I had imagined anything quite so juvenile. 

The pain came from higher on the right side of my chest where I had had the biggest impact with the sidewalk. Probably my ribs said I. As the evening wore on, the pain did not wear off.

So, first thing Monday morning (after my morning walk), off I went to see Dra. Rubio for a diagnosis. I was going to drive, but the pain was bad enough that I could not use my right arm. Her office is only a 15-minute walk away.

Apparently, I had forgotten how sewery some of the streets were. I soon found myself leaping from dry spot to dry spot to maintain some forward momentum.

One of the wells that services the wealthier neighborhood in Barra regularly overflows. With our recent rains, it is producing a steady stream into the street. There is a sloped driveway that leads into the enclosure. It is now covered with what I grew up calling grandfather algae because of its resemblance to an old man’s beard.

Being an experienced hiker in Oregon, I know to be cautious while crossing river rocks covered with the stuff. But apparently, I was not cautious enough. I took one step and my foot slipped out from underneath me. I once again went down like that proverbial load of wet laundry. This time, on my back and butt in the sewage. There was nothing to do but laugh.

By the time I got to Dra. Rubio’s office, I was a sight -- and a smell. But she is a professional. She examined my ribs and told me to go get an x-ray.

That did not happen until this morning -- for reasons that will not benefit the arc of this story. And that is what you see at the top of this essay.

The news is both good and bad. The good news is that  none of the ribs seem to be broken. The bad news is that two or three are  cracked.

The x-ray technician sold me a support that looks a good deal like a bra that would be donned by a valkyrie. I will need to wear it for a month to let my ribs do what they can do on their own.

The best news is that there is absolutely no medical reason that I cannot keep my date with destiny to fly around the world in two days near the end of this month. But more on that later.

I would throw open applications for someone to demean themselves to be my minder. It would be a good gig for someone practicing on sainthood. I am demanding, ungrateful, and just plain snippy most of the time.

I fear any minder I would hire would soon need a miner of his own.

cheep thrills

Mexpatriate is all about broadening horizons.

Primarily, my own.

Today's essay is for group participation. Take a good look at the photograph and give me your best guess what might have popped out of it. Assuming anything popped out of it and that it was not a very-soft egg for some predator's breakfast.

Lace up your sensible Jane Marple shoes and wax your impressive Hercule Poirot moustaches, and have your own go at The Case of The One-Egg Omelet.

Here are the clues:

1. When whole it was just short of being one inch in length.

2. I found in on the stairs between the two Queen Anne palms in my patio.

3. Both halves were within five feet of one another.

4. The texture of the egg was similar to the type of leather you might find on a Tumi dopp kit or in a Ricardo Montalban commercial.

There are only two types of egg-laying animals that frequent my patio: birds and reptiles. And there are plenty of birds.

I have written about the Eurasian collared doves and ground doves who have turned my patio into their own nursery. But I eliminated both as the former owners of the now-empty shell for two reasons.

The first was size. The collared doves were prime suspects because they formerly used the Queen Anne palms as their nesting sites. But I pulled down their nests when I tidied up the palms earlier this summer. And they have not returned. If they had, their eggs would be slightly larger than the one I found.

Even though the eggs of the ground dove would be approximately the correct size, the shell on the stairs did not feel like an avian creation. Bird eggs are usually brittle. Like chicken eggs. This one gave under finger pressure without breaking.

Having exonerated the birds, I started researching reptile eggs. Certainly the texture felt reptilian -- the type of egg turtles, snakes, lizards, alligators, and crocodiles produce.

There are no alligators in these parts. And though my last house was surrounded by crocodiles, I have yet to see one in my patio. But I have been visited by turtles, snakes, and lizards. Primarily various types of lizards -- from large iguanas to tiny geckos. 

If I were a betting man, I would put my money on the iguana wheel -- either a green iguana or a Mexican spiny-tailed lizard (often referred to without regard to its biology as a "black iguana"). The size of the egg was right on. But its location was odd.

Both lizards nest in burrows. I have considered that the wind may have blown the shell from its original nesting place, but it would have been odd for both the top and bottom to have made that same journey.

I can hear the young lady in the back row anxiously wanting to add that birds and reptiles are not the only egg-laying animals. And she is correct. Two mammals lay eggs.

Eggs are the reproduction mechanism for both the platypus and the echidna. Unfortunately, I have not caught sight of either waddling toward my pool. In fact, I may have never seen an echidna, though, I think I saw one in the Sydney zoo.

So, there are my musings. Based on the evidence (and a lot of ridiculous speculating), my vote would be that either a tiny green iguana or Mexican spiny-tailed lizard clamored out of that egg. I regularly see the young of both species around the house. Now and then, in my bedroom if I leave my door open.

Don't let me influence you, though. What is your vote? And why?

I look forward to the discussion.

two and a half disputes about mexican independence

Happy Mexican Independence Day!

Tonight most Mexicans will gather at midnight for a reenactment of Miguel Hidalgo's el grito calling the Mexican people to arms against their Spanish colonial overlords. He would later regret stirring up the insurgency with: "Death to Gachupines [Spaniards born in Spain]." Tonight's el grito will cause the Spaniards in attendance to feel far less nervous.

There is a controversy about the midnight tradition. A minority of scholars believe Hidalgo actually roused the population of Dolores around midnight when the independence plot was discovered before its planned date. That would make 16 September 1810 the date of the speech -- and the day that is now celebrated as Mexican Independence day.

But the majority of scholars believe the tradition of starting the celebration at midnight on 15 September started with one of Mexico's most-autocratic presidents: Porfirio Díaz. He is the president that brought Mexico the Industrial Revolution, the terribly re-constructed ruins at Teotihuacan to celebrate the centennial of the Mexican Independence, and, of course, the Mexican Revolution and his ouster. His birthday was on 15 September, and he wallowed in enough hubris to make his birthday the start of Independence Day.

As interesting as that dispute is (and it is far from settled), there is another that I find a bit more interesting. You may have noticed that I said "most Mexicans" will be celebrating at midnight. Amongst them (and some that will not be attending), there is a small number* of Catholics and crypto-monarchists who light candles in hidden catacombs whose heart will not be in the day.

They look forward to 27 September when they will celebrate what they consider to be Mexico's true day of independence. And in that there lies a tale about one of a long line of Mexican statesmen who aimed for the stars and ended up shooting themselves in the foot. 

Both sides agree that Miguel Hidalgo started the independence ball rolling, but there was no independence in 1810. Hidalgo's inexplicable aborted advance on Mexico City merely ended up with the heads of the independence leadership swinging in the wind on public display in Guanajuato.

And both sides agree that another renegade warrior-priest, José Maria Morelos, picked up the pieces of the war against Spain. Until he was executed in 1815.

After the Spanish got Morelos out of the way, supporters of the independence movement deserted in droves and returned to Spanish fealty. Vicente Guerrero tried to keep the movement alive as a guerrilla war.  But the odds of victory were minimal. It appeared the fight for independence would be lost.

Until history offered up one of those opportunities that the mediocre usually miss.

In 1820, liberals in Spain, having thrown off a Bonaparte usurper, created a government based on a constitutional monarchy. There were concerns that Ferdinand VII, the then-current king, would be forced to step down. He was no friend of the liberals.

In one fell swoop, the monarchist forces in Mexico -- the church, the army the establishment -- were put in an awkward position. To support Spain was to support liberalism and to oppose monarchy. For them, the church and the monarchical state were everything. Defending Spain against the Mexican independence-seekers now seemed counter-intuitive.

Into the midst of these shifting loyalties stepped the man who was to give Mexico its independence. Agustín de Iturbide was a general in Spain’s Mexican army.  Since 1810, he had ferociously fought the independence forces and was on his way to put Guerrero out of business, when his big chance arose.

Instead of fighting Guerrero, he met with him, talked Guerrero into joining Iturbide’s independence movement from a liberal Spain, and drafted what was to be known as the Three Guarantees.

The Roman Catholic faith would be established as the only faith of Mexico. All social classes would be equal. Mexico would be independent as a monarchy -- under an unnamed European royal.

There was something for everyone. Monarchists. The church. The conservatives. The criollos -- who, first and foremost, sought social advancement and position.

Well, there was something for almost everyone. There was nothing for Hidalgo’s indians. For them, everything would remain as it was. The only thing that would change is that the faces with ultimate authority would be new. There would be independence, but no social revolution. Except for the criollos who were the initial driving force of independence.

And it worked. The Spanish viceroy, the king's representative in Mexico, signed on. One day independence was a lost cause. The next day it was a reality with the stroke of a pen.

Timed for his 38th birthday (27 September 1821; despots have a certain infatuation with their birthdays), Iturbide entered Mexico City at the head of an armed force to thunderous applause as the father of his country. Thus, the alternate date for independence. To honor the man who made independence a reality.

Had the story ended there, 27 September would be a viable candidate to celebrate Mexico’s independence. That is, if Iturbide had followed the example of George Washington by retiring to his farm after resolving the war.

Instead, when no European prince manned up to claim the Mexican crown, Iturbide decided to play Napoleon, and crowned himself as emperor in the cathedral of Mexico City. All hail Agustín I. Emperor of Mexico.

It all came tumbling down within 10 months. The Mexican elite tired of his incompetence as a monarch and booted him out of office into exile. First in Tuscany. And then in Britain.

But this was a man of action. During one of Mexico’s many leadership crises, he returned to Tamaulipas in 1824. He was cheered.  Then arrested.  Then executed.

His ashes are now on gaudy display in the Mexico City cathedral. Instead of where it could have been -- with the other heroes in the Monument of Independence.

So, what are the odds for a date change? Probably about the same as me being elected pope when Francis pops his clogs.

Iburtide’s historical forces died in the Revolution. And he is a bit of embarrassment to Mexicans who like their martyrs shot by Spaniards -- instead of other Mexicans. Even PAN, the conservative party, pays homage to the Hidalgo myth. We are all revolutionaries now.

To Americans, the dispute seems a bit silly. After all, when America declared its independence, it was ours. Right then. We (with a lot of help from Dutch bankers and France) simply had to kick out the bothersome British -- who refused to leave despite our pretty language and mean girl insults in the Declaration of Independence.

We do not celebrate the date we were finally successful. I doubt many Americans even know the month the Treaty of Paris was signed. Let alone the date or year.  (It was 3 September 1783 -- another September holiday to add to the calendar).

But we can give credit where credit is due.

Happy 199th birthday, General Iturbide. And thank you for the very nice gift you gave to Mexico. Sorry the relationship did not work out for you. 

* -- By "small number,"  I mean tiny. A number that could easily fit into a Mexican telephone booth -- if such a thing still exists.
 

dumber than a faucet

It was one of my father's favorite metaphors.

You know the type. Not the epithets that are daily pulled out of the closet, but the type that are saved for very special occasions. Like the young man who rode the family mule to town and forgot where he had hitched it.

The problem is that I had no idea what it meant when I was growing up. Until today.

Last night, I restricted myself to finishing up my daily steps on the upper terrace because I am nursing a broken rib. (The genesis of that condition is the topic of another essay.) I was in mid-course when I felt the immediate need of a toilet. Fortunately, one was at hand.

The only enclosed room on the upper terrace is the utility room where the clothes washer, a shower, a toilet, and a sink reside. I suspect John Stuart Mills would concede that the combination would qualify as an appropriate example of utilitarianism. But I only required the services of two of the elements -- the toilet and then the sink.

When I got to the sink portion of my exercise, I twisted on the water -- and nothing happened. I moved the lever in each direction. Nothing.

I do not often use that room. In fact, other than to retrieve the squeegee to clean the solar panels, I have not been in the room for a couple of years. But I do know that the grit and mineral content in our water often clogs the little filters at the end of the water pipe. 

So, I fetched a wrench and removed the filter. That did not help. There was still no water. I checked that both valves below the sink were in the proper position and moved both of them to each possible position. Nothing.

That left one possibility. Something was mechanically wrong with the faucet itself. It needed to be replaced. So I thought.

Omar told me the faucet has been broken for at least two years. That surprised me because no one had mentioned it to me. Not that I should be surprised. Until I discover that something is broken, it remains broken. It is just the way of the household.

Omar's father-in-law, Pancho, has repaired several things around the house -- always for a reasonable price. I asked Omar to have him come to the house today. And he did.

He went through each of the diagnostic steps I had tried last night. Because Omar was assisting him, I returned briefly to my bed because my rib had started hurting again.

In about five minutes, Pancho asked me to come upstairs to look at the completed job. Omar left with a can of WD40 and some tools that gave the impression of a task well-done.

Pancho showed me how the faucet worked. Regulating the temperature was easy. By pushing backward and forward on the lever. But I already knew that. I was wondering why I was getting such a detailed tutorial. And then I found out.

Instead of using the temperature lever to push the faucet to the right and start the flow of water (as is the case for the kitchen faucet), Pancho grasped the round portion and pushed it to the right. It worked perfectly.

What went unsaid between us (other than Pancho's knowing, but subtle, smile) was that the faucet was working perfectly last night. Omar and I had just forgotten how to operate it.

To save our blushes, Pancho had gone through a number of dismantling steps to give the impression that he had fixed what had not needed to be fixed. And no one even hinted at the updated Emperor's New Clothes scenario. 

There is an old Russian joke from the days of the Evil Empire where a worker says: "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work." The difference today was that I pretended Pancho had fixed the faucet and he pretended to have done something for his usual fix-it fee. An amount that would not buy a two-person McDonald's meal, let alone put change in my pocket.

I could draw a moral from all this that the lack of uniformity in faucets here was the root cause of the pay-off. It wasn't. I am just getting older and I tend to forget things. And usually things that do not much matter.

But I finally did discover what Dad meant when he would refer to some poor soul as being dumber than a faucet.

Today that was me.