There is a good reason I am not a hobbyist. I simply do not have enough discipline to even be a parvenu.
Over two years ago, I told you about one of my projects -- to read at least one biography of the 43 men who have occupied the White House (pail by comparison). I had crossed off 16 names back then.
You would think in the past two years (considering the amount of reading I do), I would have whittled down the list considerably. If so, you would be wrong.
I have bumped off only two more presidents. Admittedly, big names. Wilson and Truman. But just two. Rumor has it that the Mafia has a better track record than that.
This is how the list now looks.
My original thought was to read the biographies in chronological order. And it appears that is how I started. But appearances are deceiving.
One of my college degrees is in history -- with an emphasis on the Federalist-Republican era of America's founding. The checks beside Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe represent a stack of biographies -- and an ongoing interest in the period that was sparked by a trip to the East Coast during the summer of my junior year in high school. I would have read those books without the artifice of a project.
And then I stopped at John Quincy Adams -- just about the same point where school children lose track when trying to recite the list of presidents. If it had not been for the parcel of human interest stories during the presidency of George W. Bush comparing the legacy of the two Bushes with the tale of the two Adamses, I doubt most people would remember John Quincy. That is, unless they have seen Amistad.
My problem was finding an authoritative biography on our sixth president. Most of the better-known presidents have attracted professional biographers with academic credentials. Not so John Quincy.
I am auditioning the latest attempt -- John Quincy Adams: American Visionary by Fred Kaplan. One of the great marketing tools Amazon uses to sell books is to provide free samples of their offerings. Just like Costco.
Having taken advantage of that option, I am now prepared to buy it for my Kindle. (Amazon's customer service results in revenue.) Kaplan is an academic with a rather light writing style and an eclectic set of biographical subjects: Lincoln, Twain, Dickens, Henry James, the irascible Gore Vidal.
But he will provide me with enough information (672 pages) to put a deserved "X" beside the name of John Quincy Adams.
I will then face the task of finding a good biography on America's first professional politician to be elected president -- Martin Van Buren. Now, there is an interesting figure.
In two more years, I may actually have done just that. Finished off only John Quincy Adams and Martin Van Buren. But I am slowly edging toward the 50% mark.
Just in time to add another president to the list.
So, there I was sitting in one of my favorite San Patricio restaurants when I heard the refrains of a tune I have probably not heard since the year Richard Nixon was re-elected president.
It was an instrumental arrangement, but my fading memory head had no trouble filing in that familiar opening line. And I have handily provided it to you as the title of this piece -- a choice that will undoubtedly boost my Google hits.
Those of you who were television watchers from 1969 to 1972 (and whose memory is still firing on all cylinders as a good Duesenberg should) will recognize the line as being from The Courtship of Eddie's Father. One of those single father situation comedies that peppered our lives in my youth.
That little stroll into a nostalgia cul-de-sac was timely because Barco Rubio has discovered a new playmate in our neighborhood.
Before I bought Barco, I seriously thought of adding two puppies to my dog-less pack. The best argument for two (maybe the only one) was to provide companionship for each of the puppies. I am no spring chicken. I am not even a winter rooster. With two dogs, I hoped they could amuse each other.
I decided that argument was not good enough to counter my concern whether I could handle two puppies simultaneously. And I would have failed -- if dealing with Satan's Spawn (Barco's nickname this week) is any example.
We are in that stage of puppyhood that I had almost completely forgotten. House-breaking. Barco has decided that the courtyard is a perfect place to relieve himself. We have a bit of a disagreement on that. Translate 'bit of disagreement" into what Ted Cruz thinks about Obamacare -- and you just about have our polar positions.
Fortunately, life is not just about toilet venues -- even for bladder-challenge puppies and OCD dog owners. Barco has added a good deal of amusement to what was becoming a far too comfortable life -- the malady that convinced me to move away from Salem.
My failure to provide Barco with a fraternal playmate has turned out to not be a problem. He is a puppy. He can create fun out of a discarded plastic bottle. Or four legacy stuffed animals only slightly-used by Professor Jiggs. Or some hapless butterfly that crosses his path.
And then there are the goats across the street. Three of them. He treats them as if they were dogs. Initially wary of him, the goats now treat him as a mere nuisance.
But there are real dogs. Lilly, a large breed owned by my neighbor Mary, is a replacement mother figure. For Barco's first week here, Mary was fostering a young English sheep dog. Bella and Barco could run and roughhouse for hours -- if we had let them.
Bella has now gone to her permanent home. I thought that would leave Barco without a playmate -- other than the goats. Once again, I was wrong.
Over the Christmas weekend, a pug showed up while Barco was in the goat field gathering ticks in his ears while looking for just the right plastic bag to swallow. Barco forgot all about Bella. This time he was larger than his playmate.
The pug lives just down the street. His name is Lucky -- it could be Loki (even though that strikes me as a bit too Nordic for my neighborhood). My lack of understanding the name could have been right out of an I Love Lucy episode with Steve playing the part of Ricky Ricardo.
For all of the restrictions Barco has placed on my life, he has added far more than he has taken. He has reminded me of small joys -- even when it is nothing more than the same food in the same dish three times a day. Or his desire to simply be held and to trick me into feeling that I have some role in protecting him.
He has also taught me to laugh again. Watching him hunting butterflies is a reminder that predator DNA lies just below the surface.
Lucky may be his best dog friend. And Barco is mine. But you have figured that out already.
When I bought the house in Barra de Navidad, the first words out of a friend's mouth were: "Just think what you could do with this courtyard decorating for Christmas."
She obviously did not know my feeling about celebrating Christmas. I generally don't. Even though our town has Christmas right there in its title.
I won't bore you with my reticence to join in the usual Christmas goings-on. No, I am not a Scrooge. Yes, I am a firm believer in the incarnation -- or, at least, a version. And, yes, I do have some great memories of Christmases past.
These pages have included my family's rather eccentric calendar for holidays. We did celebrate Christmas. And still do. When our calendars let us get around to it.
But as far as decorations go, I am a minimalist. Yesterday our blogger pal John Calypso shared his Christmas tree with us over at Viva Veracruz and Viva Puerto Escondido. (If he buys any more houses, I am going to have to start abbreviating that title.)
His post gave me an idea. It was time to break out my Christmas tree. After all, traditionally, they go up only late on Christmas Eve to surprise children on Christmas morning.
There it is at the top of the page, hanging on the frame of a portrait of the late great Professor Jiggs.
I am not certain where I got it. The label says Ecuador. I suspect it was a gift from my mother as a memento of one of her travels. Wherever it came from, it is enough to let me know that Christmas is just around the corner.
Lest you think I do Christmas on the cheap, I have also put out three Christmas candles that I purchased from a neighbor boy when I lived in Milwaukie. For a school fundraiser. There are always school fundraisers. Even here.
That must have been 1988 or so. I put them out if I remember where I last put them. Had I not made the trip to Bend in November, these items would still be in my mother's garage instead of symbolizing our remembrance of the birth of the messiah.
So, there you have it. Christmas at the house with no name, brought to you by the dog with many names.
I will say it once again, now that it is a bit more timely, I wish you all a blessed Christmas.
It is Christmas week.
You could not tell that by our 90 degree days with their 75% humidity. It feels a lot more like the Fourth of July than two days before Christmas.
But there is no doubt: it is Christmas. And I have evidence to prove it.
Exhibit A is that bell at the top of this essay -- complete with night-time lighting. It is the sole civic Christmas decoration on the main street in my part of town. I am certain there is a story behind it. And I suspect I know the guy who will help us out on the subtext.
But the bell's shimmer pales in front of Exhibit B.
Every Christmas (and several other holidays during the year) the local traffic police show up in town to write tickets for infractions that go unnoticed the rest of the year. (It is hard to shake the feeling that the Policeman's Benevolent Fund for the Children of Policemen is being replenished with a healthy dose of new pesos.)
Expired license plates. Riding a motorcycle without wearing a helmet. Going the wrong way on a one-way street. Not wearing a seat belt. Driving while sitting on a fat wallet.
I sit on the sidewalk in front of a restaurant across the street from our only bank. The bank parking lot is a regular hangout for the police. The street theater is worth spending a full afternoon. Almost everyone stopped gives the policeman a good dose of fauxrage. So far, I have not seen any of the police accept a bribe in lieu of a ticket.
The police have plenty of pigeons, though. Our seaside villages are packed with tourists. The northerners have started arriving. But this is the week when residents of Guadalajara visit their seldom-used beach houses. And busloads of highlanders show up for a week in the sun and sand.
Of course, there is always a flock of former locals who show up in town with their Volvos, Escalades, and the odd Hummer here and there. Most have license plates from the more affluent states that crowd around the Federal District. But there are plenty of California license plates, as well.
I know the drill -- having spent my time growing up in a dirt-poor logging community in the coastal mountains of southern Oregon. Almost all of the families I know from there have moved away to find fame and fortune elsewhere. But they love to show up for the annual summer town picnic with their achievements dutifully displayed.
For those of us who live here, it is a time to be very careful driving. We live without traffic control devices. Those that exist are customarily ignored if the situation is safe. And I use "safe" very loosely there. I have been amazed how our mix of traffic works like a well-choreographed ballet.
But things are different when new drivers are tossed into the mix. Most American and Canadian drivers simply do not have the local rhythm down. They believe a stop sign means stop.
That is fine unless the guy riding your bumper believes the stop sign means tear through the intersection if no one is coming. The ensuing rear-end collisions are as predictable as a Trump insult.
And then there are the returning Mexicans who have not been here for a time and are uncertain where they are going. Immediate left turns then veering into a right turn are common enough that I slow down when I see an out-of-state plate.
I won't even waste time talking about cars headed the wrong way on one-way streets where illegally parked vehicles barely allow one car to drive through.
Fortunately, driving in Mexico has taught me patience (and a desire to speed that is a trait to be unused for the next two weeks). So, I drive carefully through town, trying to keep up the local rhythm. Knowing this too shall pass.
I may not get back to you before Friday. Therefore, let me wish all of you a very merry Christmas -- from both Barco Rubio and me.
We will talk about the new year later.
It may be Christmas week, but it's starting to look a lot like Halloween around here. Or Day of the Dead to be more local.
In February of 2014, I surrendered and gave up on trying to save my last upper left molar. It had harbored infection for over a year, and eleven months of root canal work could do nothing to salvage it. The root was irreparably cracked. So, out it came (the tooth -- the whole tooth -- and nothing but the tooth).
There has been a gap there ever since. Not in my smile. I would need a Martha Raye display of teeth for anyone to ever see it.
But there is a gap nonetheless. A chewing one. The two molars on my lower jaw sit there unpartnered like two lonely bachelors. They are ready to mesh and masticate. However, they lack a mortar to go with their pestle.
Not for long. This morning, I am driving to Manzanillo to start the process of restoring my gnash and grind. The same young dentist who extracted my old molar is going to give me two new implants.
Well, not "give." He will install them. At a cost. More on that later.
Unfortunately, there will be another procedure before the implants go in. I do not have adequate bone between my tooth line and my maxillary sinus -- that big hole in my head that friends, teachers, and absolute strangers have remarked on for decades.
There is just not enough bone in jaw to take the implant. But, medical technology being what it is, there is a solution.
The young dentist will graft two pieces of bone (one from a human cadaver, the other from a cow -- I will let you do the punchlines on that one) into my jaw to create what nature has not provided. It may not be as sexy as new breasts or calves, but it will be far more utilitarian.
When he grafts the cadaver bone, he will also install the implant for the recently-deceased tooth. The cow bone will take longer to set. After six months, he will install the second implant in that bone. And once all of that is in place, he will install crowns on the implants.
I have never priced implants in The States. I really had no need until now. So, I cannot tell you if what I am about to pay is more or less than up north. Nor did I shop around to see if the implants could be accomplished here for less than what I am paying.
Tomorrow, I will reach deep in my wallet and pay $22,000 (Mx) -- or $1,285 (US) -- for both bone grafts and one implant. When the second implant is installed, that will be an additional $10,000 pesos -- $584 (US).
That does not include the cost of the two crowns. I have no idea what they will cost. Because I did not ask.
However, it all seems to be reasonable enough to me. I look forward to being able to chew a nice piece of extra rare prime rib on the left side of my mouth. The right is getting tired of carrying the load.
For those of you who are concerned, little Barco is staying with my neighbors who love golden retrievers. I hope he is on his best behavior. There is a bit of the Bark Simpson in him.
The dentist was kind enough to tell me that I will be in the dental chair for about three hours, the left side of my face may turn purple, I will need to keep ice on my jaw, and he wants to wait in his office for an hour after the surgery before e will release me to drive away.
For some reason, that did not sound entirely reassuring. I just need to keep focused on that prime rib.
"The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES."
So claimed T.S. Eliot in -- well, what else? -- "The Naming of Cats."
And his couplets very well may true. I know little of naming cats. Or keeping cats. I am a dog man by nature.
But naming a dog is the essence of dog ownership. Get it wrong and the dog is marked for life with a name that will cause titters rather than catching his dog spirit.
Well, I faced that problem this week. To be honest, I had chosen a name for my new dog before I had ever seen the dog -- a very dangerous prospect.
I wanted a name that had Hispanic roots, but one that bespoke dogginess, was descriptive, and had a bit of wit at its root. One of the dangers of naming in two languages is that the name can have an inadvertent double meaning. And mine suffers from that problem. In a very small way.
Yesterday was my delivery date. But I did not get out of the dental chair until late in the evening. Two friends persuaded me to wait until this morning to pick him up -- when I could spend the full day with him before the dreaded first night away from the litter.
It has been a great day. I have introduced him to some friends, took him swimming, and let him play with children.
For those of you who have asked for photographs, you may need to wait for a bit. The puppy has been running around the courtyard so fast I cannot get a very good shot. There will be plenty of time for that.
But we were talking about names. I was originally looking at the puppy called green. However, when I heard the red puppy was very vocal, I knew the name had found the dog.
So, dear readers, let me introduce you to the latest regular in this situation comedy called Mexpatriate: Barco Rubio.
I have a puppy.
Well, I am ready to receive a puppy.
Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in Manzanillo searching for supplies to receive my new acquisition. Walmart came through, as usual, with a crate (big enough for one golden retriever during puppyhood), a dog bed, and water and food bowls.
Now, all I need is the dog.
I just returned from the current owners' house. Pesos were exchanged. But not the puppy. Not yet. A major hurdle showed up on my calendar rather suddenly on Monday.
I will be spending a good part of the day in Manzanillo (again) having an x-ray of my mouth, and, if all goes well, I will be sitting in a dentist chair for a couple of hours getting a bone graft on my upper left jaw. And, possibly, one or two dental implants to replace the molar that was extracted about a year ago. Same dentist.
When I drive back from Manzanillo, I will pick up my bundle of golden fur. And my life will once again change.
You will be the first to know when he arrives. I don't know what could be a better incentive to focus myself during this surgery. There will be a dog at the end of the tunnel.
