Shoppin & eating....

Yesterday we went into Ensenada to go to the fabric place I found last Saturday. I knew just what material I wanted for the mobile home curtains and ended up choosing the same pattern different colors for the bedrooms. It's fuuny how they do it. The guy measures and just cuts right across. Before we came, I took my little cheat sheet and converted inches into centimeters, even though Everardo said oh no problem, they'll have both....yeah...not. So I gave the guy the measurements and he said he had to make each as 2 sides because of the width of the roll. Well good cause that's what I wanted. After that it went down hill. I could tell at times it was too much, but others not so much... I kept trying to ask question as Everardo and they guy had a running conversation. I still don't know if the set for the sliding glass door will be wide enough, or even long enough because we haven't tried to put them up yet. So he marked on a post it after each set of cuts and then gave us an armload of material and the post it, which we had to bring to the front to pay. Then we stopped at the roads and had another almost argument when I agreed that 6 out of 7 were fine, but (again the sliding glass door) the rods weren't long enough. Everardo kept saying how "they stretch way out" and I kept trying to make him read the label that showed the narrow-est and widest length. He kept saying I didn't understand and so finally I just shut down. Ok fine. If I had been so frustrated I would have said we need the round ones- not the rectangle ones we have to fit the material over. We got to the car and then he notices....are you ok? NO NO I AM NOT OK. I said this is when I HATE not being fluent! I have to stand by and watch things happen. Then I mentioned the rods and he took them back. Ha ha I knew they would not want to let us return them cause we paid with the bank card. And ha ha I was right, but the lady called a couple of other people, and they decided to just give us cash because they couldn't figure out how to reverse the bank card charge- fine with me- pls don't try something you don't know how to do.

I love those little pieces of paper they work it all out on. It's like the bakery area of the grocery store. All the baked goods are not packaged and you pick up a tray and a big pair of tongs and choose what you want. Then you take it to the counter and they put it in little paper bags and then staple a receipt to close the bag. Sometimes I choose something I want to eat while I shop (yeah terrible I know....like a doughnut) and I have to ask them to leave it out. Luckily I am learning not to worry about what other people think of me, cause as chubby me goes walking off munchin' on a doughnut I don't want any bad vibes. Anyway I usually can't follow conversations too well so I would be thinking everybody is talking about me! But if I speak first then everyone thinks I'm fluent and then they rattle off stuff way to quick for me and I'm lost but trying to go with body language...nodding my head...or shaking my head....

I do really like how people are not self conscious about their shape. I see women way way chubbier than me wearing tight tops, skinny jeans, all kinds of stuff. And maybe in the higher class (money snobby don't mix with mere mortals) skinny and rich is a must- but most of Mexico is poor. Tiny population of rich, a few more middle class and then everybody else is poor. But man I see some happy people in situations I can't believe. I have definitely had some personal growth spurts here!

So anyway after the fabric shopping fun, we drove towards home but we were on the other side of Ensenada, closer to the docks, and we saw some segundas we hadn't seen before so we stopped and walked along the block. Yippe! Found a standing lamp, a couch and a chair. We were in the car so said we'd come back for the couch and chair the next day..this was 3 different shops. Then we stopped at a roadside stand and grabbed some carnitas to eat at home...ha ha but Poppi was in it when we stopped at Walmart for the round curtain rods. So today we went back to pick up the chair and the couch. Ouch the chair was gone. I mean the segundas are everywhere- how did that one chair get chosen...guess we shoulda given a deposit. But it worked out much better. We took the couch and then went along the segundas that line Reforma going south out of town towards our place...and I spotted a set of matching chairs in excellent condition so Everardo negotiated with the guy and brought down the price a little (remember for me the price is always always more!) Then as we walked back to the truck I saw the perfect loveseat, and Everardo said no way! The place is too small for all this furniture...I reluctantly agreed since the truck was full...but on the way home changed my mind and wanted it ha ha. So we went to the new place (tiny movile home) and guess what? The lady didn't leave the key! So we unload onto a covered porch and went back to Ensenada. We had to stop at a tire place and while we were waiting we walked over to a sidewalk vendor and had shrimp tostadas OMG so good. But it gets better! I read Jaiba (pronounced High-ba) and it means crab! I just learned this word a couple of weeks ago because I thought the word for crab was congrejo (con-gray-ho). OH MY GOD some fresh crab!!!! I stuffed myself for about $4...so good.

So we got the loveseat for 150 pesos less than marked and brought it home. We got the key, and....he couldn't get the couch thru the door. And he wouldn't let me call anyone to help. Finally we took the scren off a wide window and he pushed the couch thru it. And I mean we had to destroy the screen, but in Penasco he mastered putting up screens so he'll replace it. And.....he was right, I chose too much furniture for such a small place...but tomorrow I'll look at it again and I'll make it work!

So we get home after 4pm and there's no water in the house. There wasn't any when we left this morning but we called Mike the maintenance guy and so expected it to be resolved. He wasn't there and no water. I called him and he was in Ensenada "getting a part"...he always says that! He showed up after dark and worked on it, but as soon as he left the water stopped again. Everardo has been fooling with the pumps and the pilas all evening and it looks like we have at least the water coming up from the ground- the water that comes up hot from the ground, then gets cooled off in one tank, moved to another and then pumped into the house...and we use a hot water heater to heat it up! ha ha ha ha. Well we started using water we buy from the truck (like everyone else) because the hot water is too salty). But none of this complicated system was working today. Tonite we finally took salty showers....did I mention that the mobile home has piped in water? Oh and it's free. Yeah free and a relief. We've had so many water issues the past 3 months I'm ready for ...well I don't want to say ready for something new cause what if it's worse???

So tomorrow we'll move some more stuff over...and maybe takes the doggys to see the new place...man I love Mexico!

Mexico fun fact:
Mexico hosted the Football World Cup in both 1970 and 1986.

Housekeeping, coyotes, and deeds

This morning I'm going back over to the green carpet house (the shared utility place) to look at the loveseat and ottoman; I sent Irka an email last nite and she replied at 7am this morning saying -sure come get the keys. We have already worked out the money being refunded to us but she is $300 short right now so we'll deduct it from that. I hope close up I still like it- but it was one of those the second I saw it I went- oh! Shopping for anything else is going to have to wait until at least tomorrow because Poppi is still pretty sick. When I got up this morning- not until almost 9am, he was on his computer out on the couch. He said he felt much better today. But now, at 10am, I am writing this from bed, and he is fast asleep next to me. So maybe not that much better.

So in a little while I will extricate myself carefully- although let's see, the dogs have been running around the bed and wrestling and I have the tv in and yet he sleeps ha ha. But if I were to talk, even whisper, he would wake up. One nice thing about this house is all the birds around it. Especially in this room. I hear them outside, and I mean lots of them. There's a balcony on this side of the house, too and on the railing is a large wood owl. The birds all fly around it. I can see it when I'm sitting on the couch in the next room and I'm not sure what the birds think, but they walk up to it, but hop away, they gaze at it for minutes at a time, maybe looking to the great bird for words of wisdom? ha ha. But I do love the sound of the birds and the sounds of the ocean behind them. It's not as loud as in Playa Ventura, but in the house with the windows closed I can still hear it. Now that's from upstairs so the sound comes across, I don't hear from downstairs but I do when I'm outside-sometimes, and more at nite. Maybe there less noise from other things at nite?

The new place, the mobile home is closer to the beach. At first I was disappointed because it's nowhere as large as the one my mom lived in for about 15 years (I think-maybe longer) after my dad died. Hers had a big master bedroom, a living room, dining room and family room, 2nd bathroom and good sized kitchen. This one does have 2 bedrooms and one with a full bathroom- they are next to each other instead of opposite ends of the house, a tiny kitchen, small eating area, and a living room. The size is actually ok, there's just 2 of us and our doggys. There;s a guy next door, but his place is upstairs, there's no downstairs, it's like a carport, just an upstairs with all windows. I think his name is Bob, and he told us about coyotes, and to watch the dogs. Now I think Sam would be ok, but Hazel could get snatched up in a second. Shit- she so's unafraid she'd probaly run up to them.

Coyotes? Really? Apparently yes. They're hungry and come down from the hills. I even heard that they had come down into the Rancho Packard neighborhood and grabbed dogs off the road...so they would be crossing the main road because Rancho Packard is on the coast side of the road, the neighborhood I didn't want to look at because it's a maze of dirt road on the side of a cliff that when it rains you can be housebound. And no real beach access except for a steep hike thru rocky brush- not something I want to do on a daily basis. I want to ask my friend Joanne who lives there if she's aware of the coyotes in her neighborhood, or is it just talk? Another place we looked at houses this week that I forgot to mention in my last post was an area called Lomas Del Mar. It's across the street from the coastline but it high up enough to have an amazing view of our bay, across to Ensenada and out to the ocean. We looked at a couple of houses, and were actually surprised that there were houses because we thought it was all mobile homes. Anyway for the price they weren't worth it. We'd also have to build a fence for the dogs. But worse, was the neighborhood backed up to a hillside and we looked at each other, thinking about coyotes. Hazel getting plucked out of our yard, and 2 of the 3 places she showed us were at the back of the compound, right against the hillside. Hmmm no thanx. And our no was based on the price, the small area we would fence, the size of the places, and...coyotes.

These doggys are our kids. I've had Sam since he was a chubby puppy 8 weeks old, his belly so big it dragged on the ground. Drew and Halla wanted to take him somewhere and he jumped right out the car window. I lived alone then, before I met Everardo, and Sam and I were 2 against the world. We went to the dog park, and he went everywhere with me in the car- in fact I sold my car and bought a truck, for him. I trained him and he is the smartest, most loyal loving lab in the world. When Everardo came into our lives he made his own relationship with Sam, and they do their own things together. Lucky was the first puppy we got, for Sam, so he'd have a friend, but Sam completely ignored him. And now I believe it's cause he knew Lucky was sick. Sam turned 6 this summer and has always had more interest in people than dogs ha ha. Well Hazel has changed that. Sam loves her and they stick together. So yeah these dogs are our kids and the place we choose have everything to do with what's good for them. Sam loves the beach. Yeah the green carpet house was away from the beach but has a huge yard so it stayed in the running for a while. But the mobile home- it has a fenced yard- not really big but acceptable, and is about 100 feet (walking feet not heel to toe) from a beach entrance. Sam is gonna love it! We have this friend Tim, and he has this huge dog named Iggy who takes himself to the beach there. (Tim is friends with the guy next door, which is how we found this place). I guess he comes almost every afternoon to sit and bullshit with Bob while Iggy runs the beach. Iggy is only a year old so I don't foresee and problems between him and Sam. Sam is not a fighter unless pushed into it, like I said he usually ignores other dogs.

This place is much further down the spit (the piece of land that stretches down between the estuary and the bay). It feels funny calling it a bay, because the opening is as wide as the bay itself, but I guess a bay is where the ocean naturally comes into an inlet made by the land, right? The spit goes along the "end" of the bay...Ensenada is along one side, and the mountain rode to the Bufadora is on the other side. So we will be directly across from the mouth of the bay. I've been there 3 times now, and I think the ocean is maybe just a little bit louder than here, but maybe not any louder from inside. Next to Bob on the other side is one more house, then the beach, so technically we are 3 back. I can see the ocean from the side window and the estuary out the back. Oh and there's a house next to us on the road and at least one, probly two to the beach behind it, so there is some insulation. That's ok, because the salty wind just ruins everything....rusts your silverware..grime on the windows...

I'm excited to fix up this cozy place. Yep- I'm gonna call it cozy. Just the right size for us. I found the right material for curtains and actually we need everything for furniture so it will probly be an interesting menagerie that I hope to make look like I planned it that way ha ha! We will watch for coyotes and I will try to get info from other sources as to where they are, what to watch for, etc. Several people have told me that they hear them howling at nite, not out there, but from other neighborhoods, so I'll write as I find out things. I feel like my posts are not too much about Mexico, but I guess it's my diary so I write what I'm thinking- but I will say this...

The other nite I was looking at my photos online and started with when we first came to Mexico..will be 2 years in 3 or 4 months, and now I'd like to revisit the places we went to first, like Playa Ventura. The towns, even the cities down there are different than here, different than Penasco. Much more vendors with booths on the streets, like the open air fair here, but everyday and on the streets of the towns. The meat market and fish market in Marquelia, I know they have a huge fish mart in Ensenada, but not out here. No English speakers, well and the crazy driving, I don't miss that. But way down there, below Acapulco, and in Morelia as well, I just never saw hardly any Americans or Canadians- well English speakers. Now that I have a much better grasp on the language I think I'd do much much better down there. There have been a couple of inquires about the house down there, but it seems we need a deed. Down there hardly anyone has one. The document is not a legal deed, but a paper notarized by the commisario of the town. A deed would have to go to a gov't agency above the commisario, and really it's just about money, so up to now we haven't worried about it. But I guess for example the guy showing interest now would need bank financing to but the house, and the bank needs to see a deed. So we are talking about a trip down there.

Yeah at first Everardo was talking about just him going, but I really want to go down there. When I left I didn't care if I ever went back, but my feelings softened- well and I'm only talking about a visit. And the bad feelings with what happened later with my "friend", well those people never confront each other so this time it's to my advantage. We will surely all hug and be happy to see one another, regardless of anyone's true feelings and that's fine with me ha ha. I want some things from the house, probly not much, probly just a few things we can fit in the car. We would take the car (the gas for the truck would kill us)- but I guess if I really wanted something big we could ship it. We need to pay the property tax for this year and now it appears we also need to shell out the money for the deed. We are trying to do the right things for the right reason, but also in self protection. Not too many people down there pay their property taxes, or even their electric bills, but they live there. If we are not there, someone could, move into our house and it would become theirs- except- except that if you pay the property taxes and can prove it, no one can do that to you. Now we have this guy Jay taking care of our house, he rents it out to vacationers and so it would probly never happen. But stranger things, right? Who knew I'd pay $30, 000 dollars too much for the house to people who hugged me and laughed with me and helped(?) me? So I trust no one down there. And then after my "friend" wrote to me- and I think she must have been drunk- and accused me of telling her private business and saying horrible things about my husband- which she later apologized for- well I got mad and wrote back and told her to ask jer own brothers and sisters who said all the things she was accusing me/us of. Well that messed up the wonderful (I thought) relationship I had with at least one person...another member of the family who bascially runs the town...so who knows what could happed.

But I want to go! I want to swim in the warm ocean and walk on the beach. I want to chat with my friend in Spanish and walk up the road to the other beach, drive out by the lagoon, and maybe even see the bread lady. I want to sit on my rock and talk to the universe and feel who I am since living there and then moving on. We will do the paperwork that needs to be done. Hopefully sometime soon we will sell the house. It's a great house, and it sounds like whomever is interested will probably be someone who will have it as a vacation beach house, perfect for someone from Mexico City- just a couple hours drive. That house was my dream, it was me living out my dream, and who gets to actually do that? How lucky am I? And then struggling to understand it ok to change my dream, to do something else. One thing about my living in Mexico, I have done so much introspection, and my spiritual growth! But ha ha I am still selfish and self centered, and struggle over silly things.

So we'll see. We need some work done on the car, and we would need a dog/house sitter. And we need to be really sure about whomever that is- for the dogs- like I said-our kids, and how long would we be gone. Driving long hours we can make it in 3 days- or wait that was from Penasco, so 4 days...so there's 8 days right there, and then how long to take care of paperwork? Hmm hopefully we can find out exactly what we need before we go....ha ha so I hope I'm going, too!

Well it's time for me to get out of bed, I'm not sick...but I am hungry! And I want to go see that loveseat. Poppi is still sleeping, and now the doggys, too. It's kind of gray outside, foggy maybe, but probly not too cold. If this is as cold as it gets, yipee. And in the new place, well if it's as cold inside as this place- we will use our little propane heater- it's a much smaller space so should work- and we really only need it when we're sleeping. So happy Sunday!

Mexico fun fact:
The national symbol of Mexico is the golden eagle which features prominently on the coat of arms.