And We're Off

And We're Off

After looking at the weather reports for Hurricane John, we decided that we would leave for Albuquerque tomorrow morning (Friday) rather than on Saturday. The forecast for our area is for rain on Saturday. The last heavy rainstorm that went through had some of the streets in Hermosillo underwater, as we have to pass through there we decided to leave early to beat the storm, maybe. We don't know Hermosillo that well and would rather not drive through it in a pouring rainstorm on streets that might be underwater. We are not expecting any major weather problems here as we are protected by the Baja. We just want to make sure that nothing happens to delay our arrival in Albuquerque as they do have a plane to catch. To be truthful I am glad that I am not flying after the last few weeks excitement with airplanes.

We won't have access to a computer for a few days, so I won't be posting anything until after we get there.

(Drum Roll) And The Winner Is?

(Drum Roll) And The Winner Is?

Thanks for the comments on the photo slideshow that I had stuck on the top of the blog yesterday. Survey says--3 to 1, get rid of it. Old folks, Juan?--ah I just read about your activities yesterday (on Billies comment area)--no wonder you are feeling old, what a busy man, ha ha ha. Seriously though Juan, your comment about siezures did remind me of some things that I had learned when working with handicapped adults, many of whom were epileptic. Some things that we might not even notice can cause seizures in epileptics. Disco balls with the light flashing on them, a drive on a road with the sunlight flashing in and out of the trees and who knows, possibly the slideshow that I tried. Surprisingly enough, I, who until the last couple of mths. had always been a "dial-up" user, forgot what things like that can do to the load speed, sorry Jingle, some of our family is still on dial up, so thanks for the reminder.

So what else is new? I did some more sewing yesterday, made a little curtain to cover up the area under the kitchen sink and also some curtains for the closet, as there are no doors on either and I like to keep my messes under wraps.

Again today, blogger is not uploading photos, it seems. It tells you that they are uploaded; but they never show up. I wish they would expend some energy on repairing their photo upload tool, so that it actually works. Better yet, just allow me to drag and drop them in, wouldn't that be wonderful.

The delivery men showed up out of the blue with the TV stand; but still no cupboard for the kitchen, oh well, we weren't expecting the TV stand so that was a bonus. The delivery man said "manana" for the kitchen cupboard; but you need to realise that you can't take "manana" literally. Manana might mean tomorrow or it just might mean, not today and who knows when!

Roy took me out for supper to the wonderful shrimp restaurant for an early birthday (I was kind of thinking "Sonic" in Albuquerque), Ha ha, this was much better. We laugh when we go there, we have been 3 or 4 times now. As soon as they see us walk in, they automatically get the one young man working there that can speak a tiny bit of english. We haven't seen any other "white people" there when we have been there. Last night, he greeted us warmly and shook our hands as if greeting old friends, yah I know he likes the tip; but it is still better than some gum popping waitress saying, "ya wanna a table?". The last time we were there, we couldn't see our young man when we were ready to leave, one of the young ladies working there walked past our table so I asked her in spanish if she could bring us the bill, "sure", she said and started walking away. She then stopped, turned around, and looked back at us as if she had been hearing things. The look on her face was funny and we had a chuckle. I am sad to say that the majority of people we see here (white ones-how do I differentiate without that word? Roy hates the term "gringo") do not even try to speak Spanish, they expect people here to speak english to them. Figure that one out, we are visitors in their country and they expect them to speak english, often raising their voices by an octave or two as if that will help. I will never understand that.

I have to admit that it is hard work and exhausting, always hunting for the word you want and almost always knowing that you are in the wrong tense; but at least try. I like having mini conversations while waiting for the bus. The other day a young lady asked me for the time and when I answered her in spanish, she then continued by asking me which bus I was waiting for, etc., or the conversation about the weather with an older gentleman one day. These are not long, involved philosphical conversations, just pleasant little interludes. The people are so friendly, they don't seem to care that you are making lots of mistakes, they seem to like that you are at least attempting their language.

I should get busy and start packing, as we are leaving for Albuquerque on Saturday morning. I need to get our jackets out and see if my jeans will still fit me. Too much good food here and not enough exercise now with our computers running at home and no scale to check in with. With the temperatures here, I have been wearing loose dresses and shorts, so will need to shake the dust off my jeans. I have a feeling that we will need our jackets for the evenings in Albuquerque as compared to here, we will feel cooler.

Fooling Around

Fooling Around

I am just fooling around with the slideshow thingy at the top this morning and would like some feedback. What do you think of it? Good--keep it or Too Busy--get rid of it. Leave a comment and let me know.

Shell Photos Mentioned In Previous Post

Shell Photos Mentioned In Previous Post

Now Webshots In Beta

Now Webshots In Beta!

We were told to expect the DHL shipment of our CDs and the shipment of the damaged piece of furniture yesterday. No one showed up, of course, just because we stayed home, if we would have left for even 10 seconds someone would have shown up. The furniture company phoned our landlord and told him that when they opened up the other piece at the warehouse, it was also damaged, so our delivery will be delayed until later on in September. Ciro said he will accept the shipment if it comes when we are gone. As for the CDs, who knows? They are not a big deal anyway as we have the originals .

I have the majority of our photos from last winter on the Webshots site (on the sidebar). I have been lazy about figuring out how to download them to my computer, never got past the thinking about doing it stage. Last evening I received an email from them extoling the virtuals of their new venture into beta as of today. Yikes, after the problems I had with blogger beta version a while back, I got worried, envisioning all my photos disappearing into cyberspace somewhere. I went over there and began downloading my photos onto my computer, 476 photos later, they are all safe on my computer. Or are they, what if my 'puter crashes? Maybe now I should burn them onto a disc. I did that with most of the pictures that I had on my computer before we came to Mexico. Just in case it got confiscated or something at the border or decided not to work once we got down here. Hmmmm......, is this really easier than the old way of 1 big photo album collecting dust somewhere. Sometimes I wonder. Well, not really, as it is nice for friends and family to be able to check out our pictures online, otherwise they would never see how great it is down here. Our bragging rights would go down several notches without photo proof!

Ciro and Irene came up for a visit last night, I was cleaning the sea shells that we had collected last winter. Ciro gave us a very large one that a fellow working on a shrimp boat had given him. It is gorgeous. I took a couple of photos to post on here; but after trying 5 times and it telling me that the photos are here and they are not, I give up! I will try and post them later.

Irene picked us a couple of avocados; but when I started drooling about making guacamole today, she laughed and told me I would have to wait a day or two as they are not quite ripe yet.

Maybe Rain?

Maybe Rain?

Here are a couple of photos of the clouds that blew in this evening. We were treated to a fine display of lightning; but so far no rain.

I Don't Like Spiders And Snakes!

I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes!

Yesterday afternoon and this morning reminded me of this old song, well not spiders exactly; but close enough. On my way from the computer to the kitchen yesterday afternoon I noticed a Scorpion just wandering in from under the door (despite the weather stripping that Ciro screwed on the door). Needless to say I IMMEDIATELY dispatched him with the fly swatter. I have been getting lazy and careless about jumping out of bed barefooted in the night to go to the bathroom and this reminded me that there are other beasties afoot besides me.

This morning on our way back to Guaymas from our weekly breakfast in San Carlos a large bird flew across the road in front of the car. In his/her (womens equality at work here) talons was a very long, very ugly (in my opinion) snake. In its haste to get out of our way the bird dropped the snake at the edge of the road. I have been afraid of snakes since I almost sat on a very tiny garter snake when I was young or perhaps it is just some of Eves DNA surfacing! Whatever the reason for my fear, I had shivers run up my spine at the sight of this snake. Needless to say we DID NOT stop to try and resuscitate the snake; although Roy did (very nicely) offer to.

Deliveries

Deliveries

We had purchased a Spanish language learning course when we were back in Canada. Included in the course were 2 discs to load on the computer and 12 audio cds. The course is quite good and has helped me learn a lot (http://www.spanishprograms.com/about_spanish_course.htm), no, I am not on commision. A couple of weeks ago I received an email from the company saying that on 2 of the audio cds there was a glitch, where there was supposed to be a time frame for you to answer the question apparently there wasn't. I had not noticed this, as have been using the lessons loaded on the computer mostly. They informed me that they would ship out 2 new discs to replace the glitched ones. Yah right, I thought, like they are going to ship me (free of charge) two new discs to Mexico. I did reply to the email with my new address, not expecting any result. I then received an email saying that the delivery would be sent by DHL. A few weeks later I came outside and Ciro asked me if I was expecting anything from DHL, as a truck was slowly disappearing down the street. Well, I thought there went my new discs! I went online to their tracking service and it showed that the shipment had been refused, refused? The fellow never came to the house! Oh well. Another week passes and I receive an email from the DHL service asking about the shipment. I knew that my spanish was not up to this phone call, so Ciro called them for me. After some number punching he got to a human and tried to explain what had happened. After he got it all sorted out, he handed me the phone. In english, he said. The lady could speak some english and wanted to confirm that Ciro was calling for me. The shipment will be sent out again on Monday, apparently. What a lot of fuss over 2 cds!!

We had gone uptown a few days ago and purchased a TV stand (which is actually more like a linen chest or hope chest). We thought it would work well for the TV, size wise and would also give us some extra storage for seldom used items, extra linens, our jackets (ha, ha) etc.. At the same time we bought a stand alone cupboard to put our dry good groceries in. When we asked when they could be delivered we were told Saturday, which was 3 or 4 days away. This was unusual as things are normally delivered the next day, sometimes even that day. I asked why it would take so long and was told the things would come from their warehouse. Still wondering, I asked where is the warehouse? In Hermosillo I was told, OK, now I understood. Hermosillo is the next large town north of us about 125 kms.. I was quite pleased with my spanish during this exchange, thanks to the above mentioned cds.

Yesterday we decided to finally get some groceries, as Roy is very ready for me to do some cooking. Ciros brother came over the other night and hooked up the stove for us, $17.90 for parts (copper pipe, regulator for the tank, etc.) and $15.00 labor. I had told Ciro and Roy that I was thinking of maybe never hooking up the stove, as I was enjoying not cooking for awhile. That got a chuckle from Ciro and a groan from Roy. Anyway once the stove was connected and working, Ciro looked at Roy, who was grinning from ear to ear and said, "tomorrow cake" and laughed.

Back to the grocery shopping. We thought that seeing as our grocery cupboard would arrive today we would stock up on some things. After buying a whole shopping cart full of stuff, ($40.00) and getting it home, we sat down to relax. A knock on the door. It was the delivery people and it was only Friday. Unfortunately, they only had the TV cabinet, the grocery cabinet was back ordered until September 20 th, "that is a problem", I told them as we will be away, "maybe it will come sooner", he said. They always like to keep the customer happy! They unpacked the TV cabinet and the top had a bashed in spot. The delivery men pointed it out to me before I noticed. Did I still want it, No, I told them. OK, they would bring another one on Monday, no problem. Laughingly I said and maybe the other cupboard too, maybe he replied with a big grin. So now, lots of groceries crammed into a small space. Oh well, we should have known better.

Roy requested spaghetti for supper. He loves the sauce I make with all the fresh veggies and a little meat. I also made a fresh salad and garlic toast to go with it. Stove worked well; no I haven't tried the oven to make a cake yet.

It is looking like home now with everything put away where it will stay. Still looking for our little table for between our recliners and for a night table for my side of the bed. These things are not a major rush, so will look around. We haven't been using the recliners as much since we are up here. With both our computers hooked up we have both been catching up on all the things that we didn't take time for when we were sharing one.

Tomorrow we will go to San Carlos for our Sunday breakfast and possibly meet the lady that we met through another Mexico blogger. She is going to borrow me some more books, my stockpile is going down and the library in one of the San Carlos "gringo" communities will not open for a month or two yet. In Guaymas there are no english books or magazines to be had. I told Ciro that maybe I should borrow some of Alans books to practise my spanish with, I might be able to figure out some of them (he is 6 yrs. old)!

Rain!

Rain!

We were treated yesterday morning to a massive rain storm. The clouds rolled in getting darker and darker, the lightning flashed brightly and the thunder crashed and boomed around us. The rain poured straight down in a blinding sheet. The street turned into a river and the 3 local street dogs had no idea what to do. We were all downstairs under the terrazo roof watching the storm and the dogs. The one red dog, who adopted us last winter and continues to sleep in the shade under the car, was the first to brave the street river to cross and run to hide under the car. One other followed him quickly; but the third was more timid. She stood hesitantly watching the river rush by her, pacing back and forth, afraid to cross. Then an enormous boom of thunder made the decision for her, she ran up the hill a ways and rushed across the road river and dived under the car. Unlike the people, they were not impressed with the rain, funny for us to watch though. Roy and little Brittany had fun playing in the rain, he was teasing her that he was going to hold her under the water pouring off of the roof. She kept getting closer and closer and eventually they were both soaking wet. We watched the storm until it finished and then back to work, finishing the move. The downstairs apartment is now cleaned and I gave the keys back to the landlord, so our home of almost 8 months is now awaiting a new tenant. I still have lots of sorting and putting away to do upstairs and we have a couple of things to get yet; but are in no rush. The basics are done and the rest is just fine tuning. Last night again clouds moved in and the thunder and lightning returned, putting on another show for us to watch. It hadn't started to rain yet when we went to bed; but it did rain at some point overnight.

I brought up our hummingbird feeder and hung it along with a bird feeder that Ciro had given us. When Ciro and then Irenes brother and his wife came up to watch the sunset last night the hummers were flying so close to our heads, that I said I might have to put up a sign to warn everyone to watch out for them. I may have to move it to the mango tree; but the ants get into it so bad when it is hung on the trees.

I used the Yahoo phone out again yesterday to call my mother in law in Canada and it worked great again. It was nice to chat with her and she was surprised to hear that I was calling her from the computer.

Today will be grocery day as we are out of almost everything. It is also tianguis day; but am not sure if we will go or not.

Sunrise This Morning

Sunrise This Morning

I forgot to put this on the previous post this morning. The sunrise was gorgeous; but of course by the time I got the camera, it was almost gone. Oh well, many more to come.

I will also post some photos of our new apt. when it is more viewable.

Moved In, Well Almost

Moved In, Well Almost

Luis, the construction fellow, left for home (Obregon) on Sunday. He had a 5 gallon pail with all his tools in, and all of his clothes, etc. that he had been using here. He loaded it all into Irenes car and away they went. We assumed that Irene was driving him home, Obregon is about 125 kms. from Guaymas; but a few minutes later Irene was back. She had just driven him uptown to the bus station. I am not sure how his tool pail would fair on the bus trip, maybe he took it on with him, who knows. Anyway, he is gone supposedly to return in November to do lots more work. Hopefully!!

We started moving upstairs yesterday. We got a fellow who lives up the hill from us to help Roy move the big, heavy stuff which helped; but they were sure hot and sweaty when they were done. The rest of the stuff we did in bits and pieces, putting it away and setting it up as we went. We went to look for a TV stand and small table for between our recliners; but didn't get anything, we will look around some more before buying. We did buy a small microwave; but I forgot to get popcorn! We were tired and decided to go out for supper, we realised just before leaving that our friends place is closed on Mondays, so decided to go uptown. The restaurant we intended to go to uptown was also closed, so we ended up at another place we hadn't tried yet. It is close to the Plaza in centro and we had never been there as we are usually uptown before it opens at around 4 PM. We tried the "papas locas", that had been recommended to us. It is an unbelieveable concoction, that is absolutely delicioso! They bring it to you in a tin foil packet and it doesn't look like it would fill you up; but by the time you are half done, you are wondering where you will put the rest of it! It is very rich. What it is--- a baked potato with carne asada(grilled meat) chopped as usual for here in tiny pieces, some niblets of corn, cream, cheese(melted), I think there were also some pieces of peppers in it too. As with every meal here it was served with tortillas, 2 different salsas, guacamole, cucumbers and radish slices and lots of smiles. The waitress was laughing as she saw that we were having trouble finishing it. The restaurant itself is painted a bright orange and you can either eat inside or outside. It is wide open, no windows with glass in, the openings are covered with roll down shutters when they close. The TV was tuned to a telenovela where the fast paced action went from a witch threatening some people to another fellow being tied up, to some women arguing about something I didn't catch (probably a man, ha ha). When we finally managed to finish eating, we decided to walk off some of our supper and strolled to the malecon and looked out over the water and then off to the plaza to watch the children feeding the pigeons, under the watchful eyes of their mothers, and the old gentlemen quietly snoozing and reading their newspapers. The church bells began to ring and some of the park bench people got up to go to mass. A nice relaxing time, before hopping the bus home and dragging some more of our stuff up the stairs. We were relaxing at the computers when Ciro came up to see how we were doing. He seemed to like the way we have fixed up the place (he had seen bits and pieces of what we had bought, but not all together). He left and returned a few minutes later with Irene, she was laughing as she told us that Ciro told her she had to come up and see it. They were teasing us that when we return from our housesit we will find him and Irene living up here and we will have to live in their house. Irene is excited about Luis building them a patio upstairs when he returns, and then we can be neighbors up here as we were downstairs. I sat outside and watched a fantastic display of lightning flashing behind the clouds and around the mountains, better than watching a movie! Absolutely beautiful.

Today we will finish moving the rest of our stuff up here and then finish cleaning downstairs, I did some of it yesterday, when I was tired up lugging stuff up the stairs. I will probably have to go and get some food now; although until I get the connections for the stove I won't be doing too much cooking. Hmmm..... wonder why I am dragging on getting those things?

What's New?

What's New?

What's new, well not too much. The fellows came yesterday and fine tuned the air conditioner that was leaking and so far it has quit. The vinyl blind that we bought for the door window is up and working, unless it fell off overnight, I haven't checked it this morning.

I was playing around with the new beta blogger yesterday, thinking to update the look of the blog. Supposedly everything was to have carried over from the old to the new and what didn't was to have been kept by them so that you could access it. Well, guess what? All the links to blogs, info., photos, etc. just disappeared. I have most of it back up; but not all so will continue working on it. What fun!

We Have Furniture

We Have Furniture

I think that I had mentioned that we purchased a wooden bed frame from a fellow who has them all sitting outside his house. He had said that he would deliver it to us between 8 and 9 AM Wednesday morning, he arrived with it shortly after 9 and he and Roy managed to get it upstairs. We decided to ask him if he could build the cover/lid for our storage box outside. A lot of what he told us I couldn't understand; but did get the idea that we needed a "specialist" or a "carpintario". OK, no problem we told him. To our surprise that afternoon a carpenter and his son showed up on our doorstep, apparently the bed fellow had called him for us (wonder if he gets a commission?). Or, maybe he is the fellow who builds the bedframes and the other fellow just sells them, who knows? Regardless, he measured and added and decided on a price for the cover. We asked him how long, as we are leaving around the 2nd of Sept. for New Mexico. Oh, not long he told us, maybe 3 days. Ciro was wondering what was going on, when I explained he just shook his head and said "Wow", he is having such problems with getting things done, mostly air conditioning stuff, though. Speaking of air conditioners, we are having problems with the new one in our livingroom, so have not moved up there as yet. The water just runs out of one side, well, it was just one side until Ciro tried to level it and must have done a good job as now the water runs out of both sides. Very funny, NOT! The fellow is supposed to show up this morning to rectify that, we will see. The stove, mattress and computer desks were delivered yesterday morning as promised and are upstairs now. I finished sewing the curtains and we hung the rods the other night, so the curtains are all up now. Originally, I was going to make green drapes in the bedroom as the bathroom is all done in greens (bathroom ajoins the bedroom); but when the saleslady gave us the gift of bedspread and pillow shams they were in a patterned navy. So I went with plain navy for the curtains. I hadn't been able to find what I liked in green, so perhaps it was fate. A lot of the curtain material here is large floral print, which is not my thing, so opted for as plain as I could get as the rooms are so small. It is beginning to look like home. I haven't been buying many groceries the last couple of days, so last night we went out for supper. We had missed our Sunday morning breakfast at our friends restaurant in San Carlos, so decided to go out there. On the way back we stopped at one of the large supermarkets and bought a blind for the door window and a shelf thing that fits over the toilet in the bathroom to hold our towels, etc.. We don't have too many things left to purchase, a stand for the TV, a small table for in between our recliners and are still debating a microwave. I have never used one very much; but there are times when it would come in handy, so we will see. I also need to get the connectors for the stove to the gas line, the tank to the gas line and also to the water heater (which so far is non-existent). We won't need hot water until around December or so, as the water coming from the tinaco (water storage tank on roof) is showering temperature til then just from the sun. I also will need to get some foam slabs and material to make cushions for our sitting/storage box outside and some material for slip covers for the recliners, etc.. So still some work to do; but lots of time to do it. We will wait until we return from New Mexico until we buy any plants for the patio, as we don't want to bother Ciro to water them while we are gone, besides it will be cooler for them when we get back. We won't have the partial roof over our deck or the floor tiles on it until Luis returns sometime in November or December. He leaves on Saturday to go home to Obregon to work on another house there for a couple of months. I hope he remembers to return here. He is excited about going home, reminds me of the kids counting how many "sleeps" before Christmas.

Yahoo

Yahoo

Things are moving along with the apartment, Luis has finished painting and the glass is in the door. The fellow delivered our dresser yesterday as promised. I went uptown yesterday and purchased material for the two livingroom windows and curtain rods. When I returned home we decided to catch a bus and go and look at another store in a different area. We had noticed a small side table there that we thought might work between our chairs in the livingroom. The saleslady at the shop gave us the top tier price so we left without purchasing the table, we then walked down to the home of the fellow who makes wooden bed frames, we purchased one from him and it is to be delivered this morning between 8 and 9 AM. The other things that we purchased on Monday are to be delivered tomorrow morning and we will be able to move upstairs. One of the items to be delivered tomorrow is the bed mattress. Luis was telling us that we should move up there today, I told him we were not moving until the bed came. He was laughing and said we could sleep on the floor (which he has been doing). I told him that Roy could sleep on the floor; but that I wasn't going to. He thought that was pretty funny, he must think that we are pretty soft. Later on in the afternoon, I got busy and made one set of curtains while Roy went upstairs to sweep the floor. He also swept and washed the deck off and the 3 guys were laughing as I guess Irene almost got a dirty shower when the water started coming off the deck and she was standing down below. Irene said they were all out to get her as they passed blame from one to another. All three of them were sitting on the step together and Ciro said they were like the 3 monkeys-"see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil",we all laughed at that one, as none of them looked very innocent. I told them they were more like the 3 stooges, which Irene thought was funny.

It really seemed hot yesterday when we were walking, so when we got home I put out the thermometer-39 C. or around 102 F.; still cooler than Phoenix, which I noticed one day hit 112 F..

I have been trying to set up Yahoo internet phone out service the last couple of days. Last night it was activated, so I decided to try it out. I called my mother in Saskatchewan, Canada and it was like talking to her right in the same room. There was no lag time, great voice quality, etc.. She was totally amazed when I told her that I was calling her from my computer. I then called my sister and brother in law and had a nice chat with them. I have to say that at the moment I am totally impressed with the service, I hope that it continues to work this well.

Today I need to go back uptown, after the bed frame arrives and will also try to finish the other livingroom curtain.

Un Regalo-A Gift

Un Regalo-A Gift

It has been a busy morning here. Ciro and Irenes youngest son Carlos headed off for Obregon last night to continue his engineering schooling. This morning Irene asked if they could have the small bar type frig that was here, to take to him for his apartment in Obregon. Since we purchased our own frig. we have been using the little one as a cupboard for our dry goods. So I cleaned that out quickly and Brittanys dad loaded it into his truck and away it went.

We headed out to catch the bus to the cable office and the bank. I managed to make the customer service lady understand that I needed the installation disc for the internet connection for the second computer. While I got that Roy went to a computer store for a longer cable, the one that the computer company fellow gave us is only a couple of feet long and when we move upstairs we will need a longer one. I then went to the bank for some cash for our shopping. We caught another bus downtown to the furniture store where we had decided on what we were going to buy yesterday. We looked for the pleasant young lady who served us yesterday but couldn't see her, so another lady decided to help us. In a minute or two our lady from yesterday appeared, which was nice as she remembered the prices that she had quoted us. Once everything was confirmed we sat down at her desk to do the business end of things; but first of course there is a time of conversation before the nitty gritty. She asked where we were from, if we had children or family here, etc. for a few minutes before writing up the bills. Then we were ushered to the back of the store where you pay. The salespeople do not handle any of the money. As we were leaving the store, I heard her calling me. I turned around wondering what I had forgotten to do/tell her-nothing. She was telling me that she had un regalo for us (a gift). She came back with a bag containing a bedspread and 2 small matching pillows. Nice, in Canada they just take your money and run, here they take your money, smile and give you a gift. We walked down the street and caught another bus, instead of going all the way home we got out at our second hand shop, where the fellow is holding our dresser. He is going to be going to Phoenix on Wednesday so we asked him to deliver the dresser tomorrow. More smiles and off to the mini market for some tomatoes. More smiles and conversation there and then finally home. A busy, fun, social morning conversing in Spanish.

After cooling after a bit, I decided to try setting up Roys computer with the disc. Managed to read enough spanish to figure that out and it is now up and running. So we are now both online, he is happily playing his games while I am posting this. What a spoiled pair we are!

Painting

Painting

I have been too lazy the last few days to post anything; but I guess it is time.

Irenes hairdresser came the other night so she and I both got haircuts, $5.00, it is so convenient to have it done at home.

Luis hammered out a channel in the outside walls the other day and installed the drain hoses for the air conditioners. He then cemented them in and repaired the damage. Sometimes it seems like as soon as something looks finished, it gets torn apart again to install something else.

We are still in the apartment downstairs; but today Ciro put the glass in the door and he and Luis started painting. Ciro said that "maybe" the bedroom door would be put in tomorrow. Once they are done painting we should be able to move in.

We went uptown to a few stores today and decided for sure on our stove, computer desks and mattress for the bed. We still need to find a TV stand and a couple of other smaller things. I will go to the bank tomorrow, get the money and purchase these things and they will hold them until we are ready before delivering them. When you pay cash you usually can get a discount, so the saleslady comes with her calculator in hand. I also showed Roy the material that I have picked out for the curtains, I am beginning to doubt whether I will get them made before we leave for Albuquerque; but who knows.

After relaxing for the afternoon we went out for a shrimp dinner. We both had Coconut Shrimp which were excellent. We got a huge plate of shrimp (15 large ones) with all the fixings for $11.00. We were at the same place last winter and had been looking forward to going back. Now I am looking forward to going back again!!

Laundry Day

Laundry Day

Sometimes even in paradise, reality intrudes, as it did yesterday. The pile of laundry was getting to where it said "please do me today", so I loaded it into the car and started off to the laundromat. On the way there I happened to see the man with the gas cylinder truck at someone elses home down another street. We will need a propane tank for our stove and hot water heater and I haven't noticed him on our street in the last while. I stopped and explained what I wanted and he said he would follow me home right then. So, I turned around and went back home. He followed me, brought a tank and took it upstairs for us, got paid and went on his way. I then started back to the laundry, this time I got there. While waiting for my laundry to wash, I always go down the block and look at a used furniture place. We have bought a couple of things from this fellow, he is friendly and he practices his english and I practice my spanish. There were two other fellows in the store today and they had a good chuckle out of our strange, broken conversation. He was struggling with english and I was struggling with spanish, I'm sure that it was funny from the sidelines. He had a decent bedroom dresser with mirror so I looked, bartered and measured (always have a small tape measure in my bag). It was marked 1500 pesos; but after much laughter he told me " for you it is barato" (less,cheaper), ah...the equivalent of frequent flier points. He will usually come down a bit with his price. I told him that I had to go home and measure there to be sure it would fit. Returned to laundromat, read my book for a few minutes and the laundry was done. On the way home, I happened to see a cable man in his VW bug with the ladder on top. I stopped and asked him if he had an install disc with him, of course he didn't and told me I would have to go to the office to get one. I think that I explained our need for one in a previous post. Then a stop at the mini market store for some groceries. The little girl that usually packs the groceries was not there, so I inquired about her. Apparently she is on vacation with her mother to Colima and Manzanillo. Finally arrived home with the laundry and got it hung up to dry. Roy and I went upstairs to measure where the dresser would go and yes, lots of room. So back to the second hand man. After some more laughter and meeting his wife whom we had never seen in the store before, we closed the deal. They will keep it there until we are ready to move upstairs and then they will deliver it for us. Again, there were other customers sitting patiently waiting and smiling broadly at our strange repartee. His wife happens to speak english quite well and explained to the other customers what was going on. Several necessary things accomplished just by going to do a load of laundry.

I got the chicken ready to fry for supper, along with potatos and carrots and then relaxed for the afternoon. Spent some time visiting with Ciro, Luis and Alan while watching the sunset from upstairs. It's funny because we usually go up shortly after supper to sit and look at the view and usually Ciro comes up soon after. He likes the view and the breezes up there. Last night he took quite a while to come up and laughingly I told him that he was muy lento. He laughed and told me that Brittanys dad had come to pick her up and delayed him. Brittanys papa along with being employed full time by the electric company CFE is also a professional wrestler. We were going to go and watch him in a match in July; but he ended up not wrestling as he said they wouldn't pay him, no one would fight against him. Apparently he held the belt here for 6 yrs., until they took it away from him, the reason I couldn't figure out. Anyway, the other day Irene brought us a poster with another match scheduled for August 12 with him in it. It is a tag team match and when he came for his daughter he was telling us that he had trained several of the other wrestlers participating in the match. We are thinking that we may go and watch it on Saturday. He had brought some pictures over one night to show us, in one of the photos he was bleeding profusely from a cut above his eye. Yes, he said and showed us the scar. He is so tender and gentle with his daughter, hugs/ kisses for Irene and handshakes for everyone else everyday on arrival and departure, it is hard to picture him in the ring. In case anyone is interested his "stage" name is "Halcon Ninja". Ticket price is 40 pesos, around $4.00. This evening we may go to the Guaymas Norte Tianguis with the people that we met for breakfast in San Carlos on Sunday.

Paying Our First Bill In Mexico

Paying Our First Bill In Mexico

We enjoyed our Sunday breakfast and meeting our email amigos in San Carlos, we have made plans to get together at the Friday night tianguis in Guaymas Norte. They own a boat and spend much of the winter sailing. It was a nice meeting. She is also just getting a blog up and running, the URL is here http://blissbloggin.blogspot.com/ and I will add it to my blogroll soon.

We are still waiting for glass in our door upstairs; but plumbers arrived in the late afternoon to do some work. It was not the original plumber, he has disappeared into the sunset. Ciro mentioned to his brother, who is a plumber that he was having trouble getting the work done, so of course, brother came over to help out and did the work. He had not asked him before as he is very busy at work. Along with him was his son, who is on vacation from university, he is taking an engineering course also (as is Ciros son Carlos); but he is going into computer stuff. Ciro told him about our 2nd computer not working on the net as the cable guy said it would. We had just decided to wait until we moved upstairs before calling the cable company to find out what is wrong. He looked at the setup and told us that we needed the install disc from the company for the 2nd computer to work, which of course the company did not give us. We will have to go there and get one from them.

Back to the plumbing. They installed the lines for the gas and the hot water and the rest of the hook ups will have to wait for the hot water heater and the stove to arrive. We had some interesting conversation while they were working and a nice evening sitting outside upstairs in the light breeze. Ciro likes the look of the storage box that Luis made for us out of bricks and then plastered over on the outside with cement as they also do the houses. He is thinking now that maybe he should have Luis make a similiar one (no lid of course) at the front of our patio to use as a planter box. We wholeheartedly endorsed this idea; but Irene was not in on this discussion, so who knows what will happen. It seems that her ideas for the stair railing may have changed when discussed with Ciro, so we will see.

We had asked Ciro how we go about paying our cable/internet bill, as here your bills do not come in the mail. He told us that you just go to the office anytime in the first 10 days of the month and pay. We decided that yesterday was the day to try this. Last winter we had to pay no bills as everything was included in our rent. I took the hook up papers with me to the office as no one there speaks any english. I stood in line for maybe 10 minutes and when it was my turn I told the girl I wanted to pay the bill, I also asked her if I could pay for 2 months (we will be away for almost a month in September and don't want our service cut off), she told me that I could pay up to September 30, which is perfect for us. I gave her the money, she printed up a receipt on her computer and that was it. I get a bit nervous about things like this as I don't like to hold up the line while I try to make myself understood; but maybe my spanish is getting better, as she had no problem understanding what I wanted and did it quickly. Painless!! Now to return there and try to speak enough understandable spanish to get the install disc. Another day, another blog.

I am finding that one of the biggest problems is that everyone is so polite that they will not correct my pronunciation, so I never am sure that I am saying words correctly; even when I point blank ask Ciro, I sometimes have to ask 2 or 3 times before he will tell me how to say a word properly. Sometimes though when he sees me having trouble getting my tongue around something he will feel sorry for me and say it over with me a couple of times.

We also stopped at a home yesterday, where we had seen them making bed frames last winter. At first there was only an old gentleman there, who appeared to have very little sight, and who was muy occupado (very busy) spitting chewing tabacco. He was very pleasant; but was having a hard time understanding me when I asked about whether they would be able to deliver it. After a while a younger lady came out of the house and I finally wrote the word down for delivery and with some chatting she said, yes, they would be able to deliver it and would not charge extra. We told her that we would come back in a week or so when we needed it. An interesting day.

Gone Fishing

Gone Fishing

I read many blogs, some daily, some not so often (some posters are not as prolific as others). Through reading these blogs and occasionally leaving a comment on some of them, we have made some internet friends that some day we hope to meet. Needless to say, bloggers are a diverse group of people. We have also emailed back and forth with people who want information about the area or other things. One of the blogs I read is written by a lady in Chacala, Nayarit, Mexico. The link to her blog is on the side panel here. One day I commented on her blog about how much I enjoyed reading it and she emailed me back asking where we live. When I told her, she told us that she has friends here. After a few emails back and forth, we ended up emailing her friends here. Again several emails flew back and forth through cyber space. Her friends actually live in San Carlos, the town 20 kms. or so away and this morning on our weekly trek in search of breakfast at our friends restaurant there, we will meet them. Interesting that this couple that we will meet this morning, has a copy of a book written about Guaymas, that I have been wanting to read and she is going to lend it to me. She is also an avid reader. He has written 2 books about Guaymas. The author is David E. Stuart, in case you are interested. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/104-3352701-7958366?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Guaymas+Chronicles+by+David+E.+Stuart&Go.x=9&Go.y=11 . How the world has shrunk. By the way, comments are always welcome on the blog, so feel free!

Roy went fishing with Ciro and Luis yesterday around 3 PM, Irene was beginning to wonder where they were when 7 PM rolled around and they were still not home. They arrived home about 7:15 PM happy as clams. They had sat on the beach in the cool sea breeze, fishing and enjoying their afternoon and then waited to watch the sunset. For anyone in Canada reading this, yes, the sunset at that time, as we are further south our daylight hours are much shorter than there in the summer; but in the winter it doesn't get dark until around 6 PM so it kind of evens out.

While the men were out of our hair, Irene and I had a nice visit. She speaks no english and usually I have trouble understanding her; but last night for some reason I think I caught on to almost everything she was telling me. She has major demolition/construction plans for their house also; after our part of the construction is finished. They have changed their minds about the steel railing up the stairs and are now thinking of putting the concrete balustrades up the stairs and across the front of our patio. I love these. She said that they cost 3x's what the iron ones do; but she likes the "colonial" look of them. Luis has told her of a place in Obregon where they can get them. She is hoping that the city will pave our street and if that happens they will lose some of their parking area, so they are going to remove part of their raised patio for more parking. They will then add a patio area on the roof next to ours, they love the breezes that float around upstairs and the views. They keep teasing us that they are going to move upstairs and we will have to move into their house below. When Ciro returned and we told him what we had been discussing, he laughed and said," yes, more problems". The pace of the construction, or the non pace of it, tends to frustrate him at times. Luis will be doing all of this construction, so I was teasing him that his family may as well move here, as he will be working here for 2 yrs. or so. He just laughed. This construction is not slated to start until November and he will live in the downstairs apt. where we are now. Lots of plans.

Luis built our brick storage box/sitting bench today, so now we just need to figure out what we need for lumber to finish it. That may have to wait until after we return from our housesit in Albuquerque, New Mexico. By the time we move upstairs and get settled, it will be time to leave for there. We are planning to leave here about the 2nd of September or so and will be gone for about 4 weeks, give or take a few dias and people wonder what we do with our time!

Irene said that the plumber is to come today to put in the gas line and that they will paint on Monday. She said we could buy our stove and bed anytime; but I think that we will wait until the painting is finished, so that there is nothing in their way.

We Have Air!

We Have Air!

Yesterday two different fellows drove up in a truck and began to install our air conditioning. Ciro got sick of waiting for the other guy to show up, he has been working on the one in their house off and on (mostly off) for 10 days now and it is still not operational. He hunted around and finally found these other guys. They came and installed ours and it is working all in one day, they are supposed to come back and finish Ciros today. Ciro had forgotten that there is no glass in the door window though, so that will have to be done before the air can be used. Luis has completed part of our privacy wall and will work on the other part today. We also asked him/hired him to build us a storage area by the wall. The apartment is quite small and we do not have much storage, so we asked him to build us a long brick box basically. We will put a wooden hinged lid on it and then I will make a cushion for it, so that it will double as a sitting bench. Ciro ordered the material for us and the men delivered it yesterday. Irene is thinking that we may be able to move up there proxima semana (next week), I doubt that though. We still need: the glass in the door, the plumber to do the gas line for the stove(he is also a no show for over a week now), the bedroom door, and the place cleaned and painted. We will see, the sooner the better for us as we are crowded down here with the things that we have purchased for upstairs. The railing for the stairs and for part of the patio upstairs has also not arrived yet; but that is not a major thing. Luis is upstairs doing something, I want to go and check to make sure he is building what we want as communication is iffy. It goes from me (part english,part spanish), to Ciro, to Luis with other comments in between-- could be interesting!

Tacos de Pesca-Fish Tacos

Tacos de Pesca-Fish Tacos

We had ordered some fresh fish (dorado) from Nancys mom, a couple of days ago. This morning Irene came over with our bag of fish. I don't know how much it weighed but there is enough fish for us for about 3 meals, the price $3.50. I love fish tacos, so immediately decided on the menu for supper . I still have some mango salsa left from the batch I made last week and that goes very well with the fish. Roy is not a great lover of fish, comes from working on a fishing boat in his youth; but even he enjoyed the tacos and decided that it was something that would bear re-making. After stuffing ourselves, we decided to go and sit outside and see what the neighborhood was up to. We sat on the step, relaxing and listening to the evening sounds. The sounds of the children on their way to the store, the neighbor getting some water from another neighbor, the songs of the crickety sounding insects. Sitting there just looking at the lights of the houses halfway up the mountains, the soft breeze whispering over our skin, the quiet evening sinking into our souls. Thinking how lucky we are to be living our dream. A Praying Mantis came and landed first on Roy and then on me. Ciro, Irene, and Luis came out and we teased Luis about watching the tele-novela (mexican type soap opera), then Carlos returned from an overnight trip to Navajoa, and some relatives of Irenes came over to visit with their grandbaby. The volume of the quiet evening turned up a little; but in the background the stars were still shining and the air remained still and warm. It's just a normal evening here in our new home.