This just in....

Climbed up and made a progress check a few minutes ago. This roof is happening!

Care and Feeding of Hummercita

Larry has made friends with the guys at Saratoga Car Wash, but from time to time knocks the dust off with our hose. Early Sunday morning is a good time. We normally keep Hummercita in the underground garage/basement, but as you can see, it's a pretty tight fit!

To market, to market

Yesterday it was Walmart in PV. Today it's the tianguis in La Penita. Tomorrow it will probably be the little fruit and veggie shop in Guayabitos, just because I like Miguel and his wife Janet. Miguel always picks out a good pineapple for me. "Para hoy, o para manana?" he asks. Today or tomorrow? It makes a difference. He'll get one that's just the perfect ripeness for just the moment I want it. Larry and I missed great fruit while we were in Boston. The hotel really tried, and if we weren't so spoiled, we would have been impressed by what they laid out for the breakfast buffet. But how can you compete with perfection?

We went to "market" while we were in Boston. I shopped for a new pair of jeans. One of the brighter spots in this summer of surgery and tooth extractions is the unplanned loss of a lot of excess Susan. I keep thinking of the tabloid headline: "210 Pound Woman drops 70 pounds: A Third of Her Left Behind!"

Well, my behind is considerably smaller, both right behind and left behind, though I can't say I've lost 70 pounds. More like forty. Like I say, the loss was unplanned, sort of thrust upon me by having to look at everything I eat and asking, Can I chew it? Will it process? Is it gentle, or will it make me cry later?

I've been asked to share. Here are the basics:

Nothing with corners or sharp edges. Absolutely no fried or breaded anything. No chips, tostados, whole nuts, seeds, popped corn, or chili peppers. (I KNOW! That bowl of salsa is off limits! )

Cheese in small amounts -- so I make it count. I go for the really intense flavor of brie, bleu, feta or goat.

Beef - NO. Pork -- Maybe. Chicken -- broiled, really moist. (I buy one of those rotisserie chickens once a week). And fish -- grilled, baked or poached. We live in shrimp heaven, so I've always got some on hand.

Eggs, yes. Hardboiled, they're a staple.

Corn, iffy. Beans, yes -- smashed (like in hummus). Rice, noodles, pasta, potatoes, bread, and oats -- yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Olive oil instead of butter, but when butter is better it's in pats, not vats.

Fruits: Just about anything without little seeds. My breakfast smoothie has three kinds, plus yogurt, plus peanut butter. Makes me smile just thinking about it!

Veggies: Anything, anyway. Though raw stuff can be challenging. I disinfect all produce in a ten minute bath laced with Clorolex or the stuff in the purple bottle they sell in the produce department at Sam's Club. I time the disinfection bath by steaming things in the microwave. Ten minutes for quart size Pyrex bowls of carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, winter squash, beets, green beans. I get a real rotation thing going. I also bake sweet potatoes, potatoes, apples, and chayote in the oven together. Yeah, it takes about a day's worth of preparation. But, hey, we're retired! And after all the work, everything is ready in the fridge for reheating, grilling, sauteeing, blending in juices, putting on flatbread pizzas or on sandwiches, or use in cold salads. It takes a lot less prep time for each meal.

To drink: No soda pop, diet or otherwise. Basically, lots and lots of water. Lemons, limes, a little fruit juice makes it interesting. And sweet. Because.....

.....Refined sugar is pretty much out of the picture. Lots of sweet comes from the fruits and root vegetables just by themselves. Honey is good -- and a piece of really good dark chocolate after dinner.

That's pretty much it. How it goes together and what makes it interesting -- the smoothies, the soups, the sauces, the spices and herbs -- that probably merits a separate blog. I've had requests to share -- and I like getting ideas from others as well. If I get one started, I'll announce it here and put a link on the sidebar. Anybody interested?

blogus interruptus

I was ready to blog! I leapt out of bed, sped to the side of my loved one, and jiggled her mouse. Ah, but my desktop, roused from her slumbers, must go through a morning ritual that rivals any aging beauty queen. She retreats. This will take a while. Excluded from intimate contact by a frosty screen, I find myself staring at her hourglass figure and wondering....What's she doing in there?

Evidently I'm not the first to approach her this morning. She's already been in the arms of Microsoft for some internet "update" intercourse. It's always like this. My rival leaves a note behind, saying my computer had to be "restarted." I think she fell asleep instead. At any rate she is not responding to my advances with the same urgency I feel coursing through my creative loins....

OK, that's what I wrote in a spiral notebook while waiting for PC Desktop Nellie to get it in gear. My ardor has diminished. On my list of things to do today: Hooking up with that new macbook I just brought back from Boston. And maybe start writing a romance novel..... But where did this guy in my head come from??!!

Some stories are better in English

This is the little plastic mouse I got from the dentist a few weeks ago when I had a tooth extracted. It has my tooth inside. Yuck. Hilda saw it and explained. Mexicans don't have the tooth fairy. They have the tooth rat. The tooth rat carries away your tooth, and if you are a child, revisits you every night to bring little pieces of tooth to replace the one he took away.

I'll take a tooth fairy any day over a tooth rat, especially if the rat is going to be poking around in my mouth. Now that's creepy!

Día de los Muertos

Last Friday night the graveyard was the place to be. The Panteón Municipal on the highway north of La Peñita is now filled with fresh ofrendas, wreaths of flowers both fresh and plastic, relics of a night spent remembering the nearest and dearest dearly departed.

For myself, I was at a party. (Larry came, too, but only for a few minutes. He’d spent five hours in the dentist’s chair that day, but that’s another story.) Even there, there was an altar for a departed member of the community. I never met Bob Howell, as he was ailing and in seclusion when we arrived last year, but he was known for his good works and for bringing out good works in those around him. The altar with the bright pink cutouts behind it was set up in the entrance room to the newly opened Xaltemba Gallery and Restaurant. It had photos, notes from friends, things representing what Bob liked most (evidently good cigars and good tequila) – and the ubiquitous candles, sugar skulls and marigolds.

There was also a loaf of the dome-shaped sugar-dusted pan de muerto. They were selling that bread everywhere prior to the holiday. Sam’s Club, Walmart, every bakery and corner grocery. Evidently no Day of the Dead altar is complete without it, including the much more modest altar built on an old adobe oven around the corner and down the street from us.

Friday afternoon I talked to Rosario, the old woman who was setting up the ofrenda. For a long time I’ve wondered about the outdoor oven under the huge huanacaxtle tree. It turns out that her husband used to bake bread there, as well as camotes – sweet potatoes. He sold them to people who passed by. But he was killed just a few years ago while walking down the highway between La Peñita and Guayabitos. I asked her permission to take this photo later that night. It was dark on my way home from the party. No moon. But I saw the candles glowing in the dark.. There were his hat, his huaraches, and a few personal items the family had saved. Rosario, her daughter and granddaughter seemed to be enjoying themselves remembering and reminiscing.

To be honest the idea of this holiday used to really creep me out. Not so much anymore. I still have both my parents, but Larry’s parents are no longer on the scene. They were not just inlaws to me. They were great friends. I think about my mother-in-law Chloe every time I use a particular teapot or see the books we shared on my library shelves. I think about Hank every time I see his hat still on our coat rack or when I peel a hardboiled egg. He loved hardboiled eggs. I can see how setting aside a day to celebrate and remember together who Hank and Chloe were and acknowledge their continuing influence in our lives would be a joyful occasion – not creepy at all.

And as Chloe said to the lady at the Neptune Society when she heard how Hank's body would be sent to the crematorium in Santa Ana in a panel truck along with five others: “Well, Hank always did like company.”

Excuses, Excuses

I've got about six good blogs in my head, and I WILL get them down and then posted. But I've been involved with getting another blog up and running, namely the Guayabitos Zona Residencial Homeowners Association newsletter. (I don't think that's the official name of our organization....come to think of it, I don't KNOW the official name of our organization! Actually, we're not a very official organization anyway.)

Finally sent it out this past week to sixty-five members, and a whole bunch bounced back as undeliverable. That and a few other glitches. If you want to take a look at my efforts the link is over on the side, titled "Life En La Zona." Or you can click here: Life En La Zona