opening up shop

If Facebook was your only source of news for the events in these little fishing villages, you would believe we were all cowering under our beds and were reduced to eating fallen mangoes and discarded fish.

There is a tendency, probably throughout the world, to filter everything through a coronavirus prism. And there is no doubt that much of the world is operating under rules that have restricted people from living their lives.

That has been less so here. Especially, this week.

There was an abrupt change the week before Semana Santa when local authorities shut down our beaches (and townspeople demonstrated at the entrance to town) to discourage tourists from coming to the beach along with an unwanted infection. Even though it seems an eternity, that was only about 6 weeks ago. The governor of Jalisco then issued a rolling stay-at-home order that may be lifted here in another week.

The Semana Santa shutdown and the early departure of northern tourists had an immediate effect on the economy. With no reason to open, most shops and restaurants closed. And because there was an immediate disruption in the revenue stream, soup kitchens opened, and dispensas and food vouchers were distributed.

Life in my part of Barra de Navidad did not change much. People needed to be out to take care of their daily business. Even after the governor issued a public mask order and an edict that people over 60 had to stay home (except for essential business), compliance was lax -- and that is a very liberal use of the word. A few people wore masks, but most of the masks hung around necks like inefficient drool cups.

The most obvious sign that life is going on as usual is on the main street of our neighborhood. We hear how economically stressful it is for local businesses. And I do not doubt that. However, it is not a feeling shared by the entrepreneurial spirit of my neighbors.

Three new businesses are opened or are in the process -- all within a block of my house.

The first was a water-bottling operation that opened, I believe, before most of the closure orders were issued. A steady stream of bottle-carrying customers wait to have their containers filled for 8 pesos. The line makes the place look a bit like a tortilleria. The water guys also deliver bottles in a truck that seems to have earned its spurs in previous business battles.

The second shop opened this week. An ice cream stand. It is part of a national franchise, and has been attracting waves of unmasked parents and children looking for something sweet and cold to help deal with our increasing heat.

The third is going into what was once a dress shop next door to the ice cream stand. I was going to ask the workmen what was going to be offered there, but I did not want to interrupt their work. If I am patient, I will find out just like everyone else.

I am not certain why these three shops have opened at what would seem to be an inopportune time. There is a mismatch between charitable donations and business expansion.

Maybe the owners are simply hopeful. Maybe they know better than what some of us fear. Whatever the reason, they are offering their wares in our little part of the world where life is quickly transitioning back to normal.

A normal that is fully aware that the next day could be filled with horrors -- or beauty. But that is not this day.

something is bugging me

I could use some help.

And it has nothing to do with my lost wallet. Project Recovery is continuing apace.

I need some gardening advice.

During one of our light rains last February, the mesh on the trellis in front of my bedroom that provides vine-holds for the cup-of-gold broke loose (as welcome as flowers in may). Actually, it was just the ties that held the mesh in place that failed. They are made of plastic and had succumbed to the deadly effect of the sun over the past six years.

I enlisted Omar in helping me. It took a few false starts, but we were eventually able to wrestle the vines into a semblance of order. The weight of the vines made the process a bit more difficult than I had anticipated.

Out of curiosity, I looked at the other three trellises to see if any other maintenance was likely in the near future. The trellises in front of Omar's room and my mother's room were fine. I could not say the same for the trellis in front of Darrel and Christy's room. All of the ties had broken with the exception of two.

Omar and I started to rectify the slump -- until I noticed another problem. The vines were infested with mealybug. And their exudations formed a great base for black mold to grow on the leaves of the flowers that share that planter.

So, I decided to take one action that would sole two problems -- to hack down the vines. That would make re-positioning the mess easier with the added benefit of ridding the vines of the mealybugs.

I was half right. It was easier to fix the mesh. (That is Omar at the top doing just that.) Unfortunately, the major prune did not solve the mealybug problem.

The vines are recovering. But the moment they put out greenery, the mealybugs returned. Worse than the last infestation. It was my own personal second wave of coronavirus.

In Oregon, mealybugs were primarily a house plant problem. Simple to resolve with a few swipes of alcohol and detergent. I have never dealt with them outside.

Based on my limited experience and some advice from the internet, I mixed together a traditional alcohol-detergent-water insecticide and sprayed the vines. It did not seem to do anything. I tried a few days later with the same non-results. The mixture seemed to encourage my prey to spread.

But, I knew where I could find an answer. I am certain there is someone out there amongst my readers who has the perfect solution to stop the rush across the border to my trellis. Oddly, none of the other planters is affected.

Once that problem is fixed, we can start on the list of everything else in my life where I need help.

feliz cinco de mayo -- redux

Because I am involved in other matters this morning and Cinco de Mayo cannot pass without mention, I decide to re-post this lightly-edited essay from last year. I was going to take out the obvious references to The Before Times, but I liked the bittersweet feel they added to this interesting holiday.

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"Have you put up your Cinco de Mayo tree and sent our your greeting cards?"

It was Roger -- an acquaintance of mine. That was his salutation as I joined two other expatriates for dinner in Barra de Navidad last evening.

Roger has a reputation for being a prankster. Before he died, my friend Jack Brock filled that social niche here. Apparently, Roger has taken up the mantle.

It turned out that Roger had spent the day telling every northerner he ran into that the evening of 4 May was going to be filled with all sorts of celebrations on the eve of the Fifth of May. Cinco de Mayo.

I noticed one of Mexpatriate's readers had posed a question on Facebook about the time of today's Cinco de Mayo parade. I thought she had been a victim of Rogerfoolery. It turns out she was thinking of the Revolution Day parade in November. Fair enough.

It can happen. In school we northerners learn very little about Mexican history. Independence Day. Constitution Day. Revolution Day. They often blend together.

And that is a bit understandable. From the day Mexico declared its independence until it fought its bloody revolution a century later, Mexican history has been the story of a people in search of a national identity. Often violently. A search that culminated in an answer -- the Mestizo Myth.

And Cinco de Mayo was a small event in that bigger picture.  But it is a story worth telling.

There is an urban myth that most northerners believe that Cinco de Mayo is the Mexican equivalent of the Fourth of July -- a celebration of an American nation's independence from a European colonial overlord.  I have never seen a poll that would verify the myth.  But I cannot gainsay it.  The northern grasp of the history of other countries is -- well, how to put it delicately -- slightly wanting.

Even the Mexicans I have talked with have had a slippery grasp of what the day is all about.  My favorite was the young man who thought it had "something to do with the Americans taking away the northern half of Mexico. Or beer." That confusion is evidenced by the inclusion of a Cinco de Mayo float in a recent Revolution Day parade (pictured above) -- despite the fact that 50 years separated the two events.

From the day it became independent in 1821, the nation's leaders were split into two factions -- conservatives (who were supporters of the Catholic church, Spanish culture, and a centralized government) and liberals (who were anti-Church, looked to the European Enlightenment for culture, and supported federalism).

For almost forty years, the two factions fought each other politically and often physically.  The civil war we know as The Reform War (a war caused in part by the confiscation of Church property by the liberal government) ended in 1860 with Benito Juárez (a liberal) as president -- and the conservatives plotting revenge.  They found an ally in a very odd place: France, the home of the Enlightenment so beloved of liberals.

Forty years of battle, including the loss of half its territory a decade before, had left Mexico in dire financial straits.  To keep its accounts afloat, successive governments had borrowed money from Europe and the United States.  And now it could not re-pay those debts. President Juárez did what any debtor would do under the circumstances.  To pay the daily expenses of his administration, he suspended interest payments on foreign debts for two years.

One of the wiliest (and silliest) characters to ever sit on the French throne was Napoleon III. If he had not existed, Monty Python would have conjured him up. 

He dreamed of restoring the glory of the Bonaparte name -- both in Europe and in Latin America.  He envisioned a French empire in middle America that would increase France's glory while simultaneously preventing the United States from becoming a world power.

The place to start was Mexico.  Mexican conservatives and Church authorities had persuaded him that the Mexican people longed for a return to Crown and Church.  They just needed a leader bold enough to show the way.

Napoleon III found a perfect emperor for his new colony of Mexico in Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, the younger brother of the Austrian emperor.  And he found the perfect political mechanism in the Tripartite Alliance.

Mexico owed large debts to Britain, Spain, and France.  To collect those debts, the three nations joined in the Alliance and hatched a plan that they would seize the Mexican port of Veracruz, apply the custom duties of the port to re-pay their debts, and then negotiate with the Mexican government for further payments.

It all worked as planned until the British and Spanish saw that France's agenda was something they could not support.  They took their troops and went home in April 1862.

That left the French commander, the Comte de Lorencez, on his own with his French troops.  Even though there were Mexicans prepared to join the French cause, Lorencez rejected the offer believing that Mexican forces were inherently inferior to his French troops.  He also believed the romantic nonsense that the Mexican people were ready to welcome the return of the Crown and Church to Mexican soil.

So, off he marched with no more than 6,000 troops to capture Puebla on his way to Mexico City.

Puebla was guarded by two forts on separate hills -- Loreto and Guadalupe.  The Mexican general in charge of the defenses, Ignacio Zaragoza (whose scholarly face adorned the 500-peso note when I moved to Mexico) exhorted his troops: "They have come to take our country from you."

Lorencez's arrogance knew no bounds.  In the same show of hubris that would send French officers into battle in World War One armed only with walking sticks as weapons, he sent his troops into battle with bayonets.  And no artillery support.  The day was 5 May 1862.

Three times he marched French flesh against the Mexican trenches and fortresses.  Each time he failed -- thanks, in large part to a brave brigadier general by the name of Porfirio Diaz (a man who would soon enough be known to all Mexicans), who disobeyed orders, and repelled the French.  

The French finally retreated when Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain, decided to send a downpour.  The French, some of the best troops in Europe, retreated wet and defeated to their base camp.

It was a victory by default.  But a victory, nonetheless.  And it gave Mexican patriots hope that they could actually beat back Napoleon III's attempt to build an empire.  For a time.

That time was one year.  Napoleon III sent a full corps of his best troops to Mexico along with a new general.  On 17 May 1863, the French returned to Puebla.  The Second Battle of Puebla had a different outcome.

The French seized Mexico City and Maximilian I sat on the imperial Mexican throne as the country's second post-Independence emperor.  At least, until 1867.  After Napoleon III withdrew his troops to deal with more pressing Prussian matters, Maximilian and his Mexican generals were defeated and executed before a Mexican firing squad.

But on Cinco de Mayo, we are not celebrating merely the bravery of the Mexican forces that managed to survive defeat.  We are celebrating the spirit that every nation celebrates when invaders are defeated.

And who needs a parade to honor those values?

a storm with a blessing

The little church I grew up in sang a hymn that occasionally comes to mind -- "showers of blessings."

And we have plenty of days where that could be the theme music. But some days are perfect storms. Today just may be both. I hope.

The best acts of charity are anonymous -- where the giver and the recipient are unaware of the provenance of the giving. At least, that is true for me. I always feel a bit tawdry about talking about my giving. But I cannot tell this tale without a bit of bad manners.

For the past month, several groups have been providing food bags, hot meals, and food vouchers to people who have lost their income due to the early departure of northern tourists and the closure of the beaches over semana santa. All of that food appears to be given to good ends.

I have a somewhat different take, and living here gives me the luxury to do something about. There is no food distribution problem here. The problem is one of revenue interruption. Tourists are not paying merchants for float toys who then are not paying grocers for tomatoes who are not paying their rent. Money is not being circulated.

Having lived here long enough, I know a long list of families who have been directly impacted by the loss of tourism revenue. Because there are more than enough groups handing out food, I decided to shut down the meal program at my house in favor of giving cash directly to people who need it.

Today I gathered together my bank cards to visit each ATM and teller to accumulate as many pesos as I could. I was then going to distribute those funds over the week.

I never have all of those cards together in one place outside of the house. Ever. Because bad things can happen. Losing all of them would mean my financial lifeline would be crimped.

Some of you already know what comes next in this story. I had put all of the cash from my trek in my billfold. The total does not matter, but it was substantial. Substantial enough that my billfold would no longer fold.

On my way back from the bank, I stopped at Hawaii for some ingredients for tonight's dinner. I paid the bill out of my billfold -- and that is the last time I saw it. Somewhere between Hawaii and my car, my billfold must have slipped out of my pocket.

The loss of the money does not bother me. That money was no longer mine. I was just a custodian until I could deliver it to the families on my list.

I hope whoever picked up the billfold will put the money to good use. For all I know, it was found by someone who has been praying for deliverance from financial hardship. Even if that is not the case, that money goes with blessings.

The more difficult problem is the lost bank cards. Up until a year ago, that loss would mean I would be without financial resources until the banks could get cards to me. But I now have an account at Intercam that is my primary revenue stream. Even though I do need to get a new bank card there, as well.

Then there are the identity cards. My driver's license. My military identification. My visa. The first is on its way. The second will have to wait until I am in The States. The third I will deal with tomorrow.

So, it was both the perfect storm -- and, I hope, showers of blessing for whoever found the money. 

a swedish spring

Felipe over at The Unseen Moon takes pleasure in pointing out that I am simultaneously predictable and contrary.

I suspect he is correct on both counts. Especially when it comes to themes for my essays.

It is Spring -- and here is a photograpgh of a primavera tree. I took a quick look at some of my earlier posts involving one of Mexico's most showy trees. Every year, I write about the contrast of these trees with their bright yellow blooms against our blue skies.

I almost missed this year's show. Actually, I did miss half of it entirely. The primavera blooms twice -- once in late February and again in April. As its Latin name tells us, it announces the arrival of Spring.

The first bloom has the most flair because the blossoms are not obscured by the leaves that emerge in the second bloom. And it was that first bloom that I missed entirely. It happened while I was in Oregon watching my planned India cruise sink lower each day in the sea.

I almost missed the second show, as well. I have been rather good at staying home, but not obsessively. That was helped by my SUV being in the body shop for almost a month. And when it returned, I limited my drives to laundry and food deliveries.

That is, until I drove to Manzanillo last Saturday. The drive was punctuated with yellow clouds of primarvera blossoms -- both in groves and as stand-alone specimens. Their presence made the trip more pleasant.

I do not know what it is about the primavera that causes almost everyone to wax poetic. Even the outlier curmudgeons who mutter about how messy they are will concede that they are pretty.

That they are. From an objective standard of beauty, they are one of God's admirable creations. The primavera could easily have been what the psalmist had in mind with: "Let all of the trees of the fields sing for joy." (Psalms 96:12)

But the primavera touches something deeper in me beyond its beauty.

Maybe it is that the trees remind me of the banks of King Alfred daffodils in the front yard of my Salem house. They heralded the promise of Spring -- the hope that everything, in fact, will turn out well.

And maybe that is it. Nature cycles through its dance with death and renewal. That combination of blue and yellow is evidence that life does go on.

The photograph at the top of this essay is a stand-alone tree in Melaque on Primavera Street. When I moved here, someone in authority decided the primavera that ran the full length of the street would be replaced with palm trees. For some reason, one or two primavera were spared. And this is one of those.

In these days of uncertainty, it is reassuring that life does go on. And we should take pleasure that one spared primavera still teaches us that lesson.

small pleasures cannot be denied

You have ten seconds. This is the opening line of a famous novel. What is the title? And who wrote it?

Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small — to wit, a workhouse and in this workhouse was born, on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events, the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.

That is one of my favorite games -- guessing the first lines of popular books. Of course, the game works best with titles that a person reasonably well-read would know. I call it, oddly enough, "First Line."

That long sentence at the start of this essay is a perfect example. Dickens is always a good subject because he folds in enough clues in his opening sentence that we not only know where we are, but where we are going. In this case, following the life of Oliver Twist.

But it was not the Dickens novel that came to mind yesterday afternoon while I was cooking my supper, but the rather dreadful musical adaptation: Oliver!. The musical introduces us to what will be the sympathetic character of Nancy, forced by circumstances to be a pickpocket, thief, and resident of the far verges of society, in the chirpy number "It's a Fine Life."*

Even at its 1968 opening, lines from that song like "Though you sometimes do come by/ The occasional black eye/ You can always cover one/ 'Til he blacks the other one/ But you don't dare cry" were just as grimace-grabbing then as they are now.
That was not the lyric that jumped to mind, though, yesterday. It was "Small pleasures, small pleasures/ Who would deny us these?"
Being forced to live life as dictated by the whims of the state (or, at least, to a degree), I have been surprised how little things in life can immediately brighten my day. That is one of those realizations that is concurrently enlightening -- and just a bit sad.

Yesterday, it was the discovery of some cheese tortellini and a package of arugula at Hawaii. Both are rare finds here.

Originally, I did not put either one in my basket. But, my mind started assembling possibilities. I had purchased a large container of small heirloom tomatoes last Saturday when I went to Sam's Club in Manzanillo. They were not going to last much longer.

The discovery of a carton of heavy cream clinched the deal. The cream, tortellini, and arugula were going home with me to be combined with some ground pork I had purchased the day before and had turned into a spicy Italian sausage.

Balancing the tastes of the sauce and the texture of tortellini is always a trick. The sausage was already spiced. What I needed was something to balance the sweetness of the cream and tomatoes. A couple of serranos seemed to be the perfect choice -- along with the bitterness of the arugula.

So, into the olive-oiled pan went the sausage, then the onion and serrano, and then the garlic. When the garlic became fragrant, I added the quartered heirloom tomatoes and let them warm through. Then, it was liquid time. Heavy cream and chicken stock.

When the liquid had blended, I added the tortellini and let it cook covered until the tortellini had been warmed and the liquid reduced. Next in was the arugula just long enough to wilt along with a healthy dose of oregano and thyme.

A quick taste was disappointing. The arugula and serranos had not balanced out the sweetness -- nor had the salt in the chicken stock.

The solution was a classic one. What works well in taming the sweet in pasta Alfredo should work in this dish. Nutmeg.

And it did. I grated about three-quarters of a nut into the sauce and let it meld. What had been a possibly-mediocre pasta dish was turned into a satisfying supper.

I usually do not like meals that duplicate ingredients in side dishes. But I needed to use what was left of the heirloom tomatoes and argula before they both went bad.

The obvious answer was a salad teamed with red onion, petite cucumber, kalamatas, pickled ginger, and a Spanish truffled-sheep cheese. Because the flavors were already strong enough, I dressed it only with a light touch of olive oil.

It may not have been as good as Enoteca Pinchiorri, but it certainly was far less expensive. And, best of all, it was my creation.
How can small pleasures be better than that?
   

* --There is probably no less-appropriate song for a major woman character from literature than "It's a Fine Life," with the possible exception of the parody finale of Anna Karenina by Forbidden Broadway. The song has the added value of being the type of inside joke that makes playing "First Line" worthy of a chuckle.

I need to give a tip of my sombrero to my friend and former work colleague. He recently posted a piece on Facebook about actresses who were born for their most-famous roles.

jackson pollock -- call your studio

When I first moved to Mexico, I rented a house on the beach in Villa Obregon.

There was no living space on the ground level, just a patio that was covered by the rest of the house. It was a pleasant place to while away my days in a hammock while listening to the beat, beat, beat of the surf tom-tom. It may have been my favorite place in the house.

It was also the favorite place of the local cave swallows. They would build their nests in the corners of each pillar in the patio to rear their young. There must have been at least twenty potential nursery spots -- and most of them were filled.

I am fond of birds. I like their colors. I like hearing their sing. And as a former pilot, I like watching them soar so effortlessly through the day's sky.

But there is a cost that comes with living in close proximity to birds. All of those mosquitoes that swallows are much-lauded for consuming eventually are processed into excess waste. And that waste starts piling up under their nests until you find British explorers in your backyard assaying whether the guano deposits are worthy of sending in a gunboat to annex another piece of commodity-rich land to the empire.

Marta, the woman who cleaned the house, was under orders from the owner to prevent the swallows from nesting. It was not quite Cnut attempting to hold back the tide, but it was close.

She would knock down the nests with a combination of hose water and sweeping assaults with a broom handle. Anything in the nest would be dispatched, and the detritus of war would be swept up for the next battle that would inevitably ensue.

I thought of Marta and her armory of bird control yesterday.

As you know, I have had a series of nesting birds in my patio palms. It started with a pair of mourning doves last June (tales on wing). They were ousted by a pair of their more-aggressive cousin Eurasian collared doves. (all the world's a stage), who have now raised two broods out of their conquered nest. Last month they lost a portion of that brood to a predator. I suspect it was the garrobo I found in the library.

I have enjoyed the reproduction cycle. Doves are not as fascinating as reproducing crocodiles, but I settle for what I have.

Well, I did until I noticed the cost of what I thought was a free hobby. Sharing my patio with the doves does have a cost.

On Tuesday, I saw three doves perched in the palm. They were indulging in an obvious act of courtship -- completely oblivious to my presence. I pulled out my camera to record this ménage à trois, but was distracted before I could take the shot.

Directly underneath this rather busy love nest was a pile of digested and discarded whatever-Eurasian-collared-doves eat. Remember those British explorers we met earlier? They would have gladly planted their flag on this guano site. A quick review on the upper terrace disclosed three more latrines.

So, when Dora arrived yesterday morning, Omar and I staked out our task -- to restore order to the house's staircase. With a hose and a bucket filled with water, soap, and Clorox, we set to work.

I now understand why those ocean rocks where birds perch are always white with waste -- even in rainy climates. Bird droppings are almost impervious to water. Pressuring the spray lifted off some of the larger pieces. But it took a scrubbing brush and time to get down to the gray paint.

While I was cleaning up the last few spots, Omar took action for the future. He removed the nest from the tree in the hope that the birds would not return to nest there. If my experience with Marta means anything, I suspect the doves may rebuild.

Or, maybe not. After all, they did not have the initiative to build their own nest. They stole it from the mourning doves.

The collared doves would frequently drink at my pool, along with the grackles, when they were in residence. We will see if their eviction cuts back on their visitation.

Or, if like so much in nature, they may simply persist over my desire to control their behavior.

Somewhere in there is a parable about the coronavirus, but that will be for another day.