Sisters

My sister Hermana drove up from Taos to stay with me after my mother’s birthday last week. Denver was cold and rainy and snowy, not much of a welcoming reception—but that didn’t stop us from have oodles of fun.

Serious shopping was the order of the day.

We spent the next 5 days combing our favorite bargain and not-so-bargain stores for hours: Target, Tuesday Morning, Hobby Lobby, TJ Maxx, City Floral, and Chicos. We left with our arms full of merchandise, those merchants must have smiled all the way to the bank when we drove off. We filled our nights with take-out and dine out opportunities and enjoyed every bite. And after that we watched old movies until late at night—unusual since we are both go-to-bed-early types.

Lupita modeled all of her clothes and was fully enchanted with Hermana. Hermana decided that Lupita looked like a small deer, maybe Falene who was Bambi’s girlfriend, so now Lupita has two nicknames, ‘Pookie’ and ‘Falene.’ Sadly, Hermana left with a sore throat this morning which we still hope is only allergies.

Bambi before he met Falene

After she left, Lupita and I ran a few errands including returning some items to Target, and then stopping off at King Soopers to buy a few groceries. When I came back to my car an elderly Mexican lady was sitting in the passenger seat of the car next to mine on my driver’s side. I opened my door and greeted Lupita with ‘how are you, have you been enjoying sun bathing?’ Since Lupe was in her little crate on the passenger side she was not visible and I think the lady thought I was nuts talking to myself.

Lupita sunbathing.

Then up on the lady’s lap jumped Lupita’s twin, except aged about 10 years--a mature dog with a turning-white muzzle. I let Lupita out of her crate and showed her the other dog. They both started barking rabidly at each other. And here I thought they could be friends just because they looked alike—goes to show what I know. However as I backed out of the parking space, my little dog jumping up and down in my lap barking, my elderly comadre waved goodbye to me even though her dog was doing exactly the same thing Lupita was. We both loved our little Chihuahuas, they were exactly the same color and size. We were sisters in the bonds of Chihuahuahood, a deep liking recognizing our devotion to our pets. We could be friends even if our dogs couldn’t.

Parting Shots

When we drove out of Santa Rosalia last Friday my goal was to stop at the little marble shop Rancho Sonora at kilometer 149 just north of Catavina to purchase a few marble wind chimes for Esperando’s children, a small token of melodious sound from Mexico. I bought wind chimes there last year when the Brainy Blonde came for a visit and we were driving down from San Diego. It’s kind of a crappy little store all by itself out in the middle of dust and cactus, just a notch up from being a palapa. Then it was manned by a fat Mexican man about my age and his 30-plus year old son who put the hard sell on both of us to buy, buy, buy.

The out in the middle of nowhere marble store

This time Esperando opted to stay in the car for a small snooze since he had been driving continuously for the last 5 hours. I wandered by myself past the two ubiquitous dusty dogs that hung out on the porch, up to open the screen door and went inside. The room was dimly lit. Several shelves bore carvings of alabaster, and hundreds pale alabaster silhouettes hung from the ceiling in the form of wind chimes: turtles, dolphins, sharks, fish, whales, seahorses, stars, moons, suns, horses, seagulls, and so on. I knew already that I wanted sets of sun and moon wind chimes. A fat Mexican man about my age came out from behind the counter and asked if he could help me. So then I told him I wanted three sets of sun and moon chimes, but how much did they cost. Only 100 pesos per wind chime, such a deal! He had them prepackaged, wrapped up in sheets of newspaper. He sorted through them to find the ones I wanted and told me it would be 300 pesos, “What is your name?” he said. I told him. “I am Santiago,” he said.

Then I gave him 400 pesos and he started across the room to where he kept his change. Then he stopped dead in his tracks. “I don’t have change,” he said. “Oh ok, I will go back to the car, I think I have the right change,” I said.

Alabaster seahorse necklace

Out I bopped and said the to slumbering Esperando, “I need 100 pesos.” “Oh,” he said, “I thought I would get more of a snooze.” Wherewith he took his wallet from his pocket and passed the pesos over to me. I returned to the shop and gave Santiago the money. Before he would give me the bag, he started across the room to where he had some individual carvings, like the pieces in the windchime, that were hung on cords for use as necklaces. He chose a seahorse, and I thought he was going to try and sell it to me. Instead he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me to him, thrusting the seahorse in my hands and trying to kiss me on the lips. I turned my check to his lips, muttered gracias for the osequio, a little gift, the price of which was an undesireable kiss and a walloping waft of aftershave which he had applied liberally in my absence. I made a beeline out the door and ran back to the car to tell Esperando what had happened. As we drove off Esperando cackled over my mishap and Francisco’s dogs gave chase to the car. Lupita barked back as fiercely as she could. We both gagged for the next 3 hours on the fumes that adhered to my cheek.

The thing is when he stopped to say he didn’t have change, and I said I would go back to get some, he already had the whole thing planned. He knew he was going to put aftershave on the minute I left. He knew he was going to steal a kiss if he could. I was the fly walking into his little spider web. Ladies, be forewarned. If you stop to buy some marble—DON’T GO INTO HIS SHOP ALONE!!

Happy windchime recipient displaying her acquisition

La Duena de la Casa Learns More Spanish

Today I went to Marla’s, the fabric/craft/hobby store in Santa Rosalia. It is small, but surprisingly well stocked and would be our version of New York Fabrics. This is where I buy Styrofoam balls to make into ornaments covered with shells, seeds and beans. My friend Don Diego’s mother taught me how to make these last year and she told me to go there for my supplies. For such a small town, I never would have suspected that Santa Rosalia could have such a fine store.

Today my mission was to buy curtain fabric for our bedroom as I have been busily making curtains for our little house. I ordered some lace fabric on the internet which we brought back with us from the States, but I wanted heavier fabric for one of our windows that has a motion detector light outside it. Periodically during the night the light goes on and lights up our room, waking us. I hoped to minimize its offensive glare by hanging a denser curtain.

So my plan was to buy the fabric, more Styrofoam balls, and straight pins. I meant to look up the word for pins before I left the house, but I forgot. Esperando came by to pick me up at noon. The stores are all open then, but the streets are really crowded and parking is the pits by then. He needed some chicken wire from the hardware store. He had already tried several other hardware stores with no luck and one of them recommended that he go to this one. So he would drop me off at Marla’s and drive around the block until I was done, then we would change drivers while he went for chicken wire and I drove around the block.

We got to Marla’s and I went in to survey what my fabric choices would be. I had really never checked out their fabrics before other than to realize that they had lots. I found colorful knits and lots of satins, some printed cottons, some upholstery fabric, colorful plastic tablecloths by the yard--and chose a mod pink floral pattern that wasn't really me because it was the only one that had colors that would go with our hot pink bedspread. While the girl was cutting my 6 meters of yardage I said in Spanish to the owner, a man whom I will call Mr. Marla, and the other girl at the counter, “I need an item but I don’t know its name in Spanish.” Then I thought, aha, maybe they know this word in English—so I said, “Straight pins!” I got the deer-in-the-headlights look.

So I tried again in Spanish, “this item is like a nail but skinnier and you use it to fasten two pieces of cloth together, but you don’t sew with it,” (thinking of a needle which I couldn’t remember the name for that either.) When I spoke to him, I confused the word for nail (clavo) with the word for hook (gancho). What I really said is ‘this item is like a hook but skinnier.’ Mr. Marla gave me a puzzled look. “No, we don’t have anything like that,” he said. Then I said, “Oh yes, you do, it’s not really a hook and it is really common. I just know you have it here.” I cast my gaze all around the wall, covered with various merchandise and swept my glance over the counter, missing the one critical spot.

I should mention here that neither of the girls even remotely wanted to participate in this guessing game, it was only Mr. Marla that would play, and not with much amusement. Finally a lightbulb went on for him and Mr. Marla said, “Ah, do you want peens?” “Oh yes, yes,” I said, “that is exactly it!!” I was very excited and then I saw under my very nose as he reached into the glass counter, heaps of safety pins. If I had only seen those first he wouldn’t have had to spend the last ten minutes trying to read my mind. I could have said, just like this but not bent. Fortunately I was the only customer in the store. “Alfiler,” said Mr. Marla, sniffing slightly like a disapproving professor. “Here we call those, alfiler, with the head on them like this they are alfiler de cabeza and a safety pin is alfiler de seguridad.” Ah, I said, “Alfiler. Muchas gracias.” My bill came to
US$40, the fabric was at least 54" wide, plus the pins, an embroidery hoop and the Styrofoam balls--the fabric cost less than $6/meter, a real bargain!

I got back to the car and by then Esperando had found a place to park. We traded drivers and I told him about my transaction. When we got close to the hardware store, he walked a block over and by the time I got around the block (I had to drive seven blocks further before I could turn back as there are so many one way streets here) he was coming out of the store with chicken wire in hand. I am sort of embarrassed to go back to Mr. Marlas—no doubt he’ll remember that crazy gringa if I ever get up my courage to darken their doorway again.

49° 11' N 123° 10' W

We are in Vancouver now for the company Christmas party on Friday night. We are so lucky! It is not raining or snowing for a change; but still—it is really cold outside with a low of 32F this morning and not predicted to get much higher than 43F today; tomorrow the high is predicted to be 37F! Brrrrrrrrrrrr. It’s a good thing I bought a last-minute down coat before we got here. I seem to do a lot of rushed internet shopping with overnight shipping as we proceed on these little whirlwind tours. We had planned to be back in Santa Rosalia before coming here, so I didn’t have the warm rain/snow gear to bring along. I bought my coat at Lands End which I like for their reasonable prices and quality merchandise, but there were not many choices still left in my size so I had to settle for a white. Esperando tells me I look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy in my new coat—such kind words. Actually I had rather liked it but since he said Pillsbury Dough Boy I am now sure I must look like a blimp.

I had forgotten how expensive everything is in here in the frozen North, as my Mother refers to it! These people really get ripped off—at one time the Canadian dollar was about 75¢ to the US dollar, but now they are about even, which adds 25% to the price of everything (of course no one adjusts their prices downward) just for starters, and then that is also topped with a HST tax (sort of a VAT tax) which will be up to 12% by next July. This means real estate, restaurants, groceries and any shopping is just outrageous. I don’t know how these people afford to live here albeit it is a beautiful city.

This morning I went for a walk along Robson Street, the major trendy shopping district with stores like Gap, Banana Republic, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and so on. I could not resist wandering into Tiffany’s to admire the beautiful jewelry. Right before my very eyes two young blond things were buying a silver diamond-studded key with chain (apparently the new HOT jewelry item as seen in Vogue, etc.) They looked like teenagers to me, but I think they were probably in their early 20s. I am guessing they were buying this for their mother—in any event, with chain it came to a little over $1000, and they purchased it without blinking an eye. I was stunned. Maybe they were buying it for their dad to give her. Then, I looked at all the large carat diamond rings and drooled a little bit. The clerks assured that was fine as they had Windex to clean up the cases. They were all so kind and genuine, I really felt sorry not to increase their commissions by buying some nice bauble. Actually the store was quite busy. Guess its time to put some real effort into winning the lotto!

Santa Rosalia shops for Christmas

Here it is the 23rd of December, almost Christmas. Santa Rosalia is decorated to the hilt with lots of Christmas lights everywhere downtown including the main plaza and side- streets. Mechanical moving reindeer beckon from second stories as do lots of big outdoor inflatable Santa-type balloons including one of Santa flying an airplane. The store merchandise spills over onto tables edging the streets, as well as a guy selling fresh fish and shellfish out of the back of his pickup, a small stand with fresh strawberries (from where?) for sale, and tons of pedestrians crossing the streets as their whims dictate. There is even a sign advertising cockfighting on Christmas day--somehow that seems un-Christian. Traffic creeps along downtown’s 4 major east-west streets, and cross-hatched 14 or so north-south streets (that are only 4 or 5 blocks long). The east-west streets are one-way streets of alternating opposite directions. And the north-south streets follow the same pattern, except that there are two Calle 8’s a block apart both going the same one-way direction.

Just about every other store is women’s clothing or accessories with a few baby’s and men’s shops thrown in, about four major grocery stores (not very big), snow cone and frappe sellers, taco stands and a few stationary/sports combined stores (a rather puzzling combination). I drove downtown with Esperando today as we needed to go to the bank and the liquor store and parking is all but non-existent anywhere this close to Christmas. I drove around the block which actually ends up being about 10 blocks because of intervening one-way streets, then found a lucky parking place to pull into thinking to give him a bit of time to get in and out of the instant teller. What I hadn’t counted on was the continuous stream of traffic that wouldn’t let me back out onto the street for about 10 minutes. By the time I maneuvered back to where I could turn back up the street he was on, the policewoman directing traffic held me up another 5 minutes. So the poor man had been standing waiting for me much longer than I had intended.

Next stop was the liquor store, normally in a not too busy location. I found a parking spot in front of a nursery school which had let out for the day, just around the block. I spent 10 minutes wrestling the truck into a parallel park, called Esperando and said call me when you are ready. I am ready now he said. So I unparked and drove around the block to pick him up. Theoretically we are all stocked up and set for the holidays.

As tradition for us dictates, tomorrow night we will have guacamole and chips, posole, New Mexico style enchiladas, and tamales. I made a lucky find of beautiful dried red Anaheim type chiles, so we will enrich the good canned enchilada sauce they have here with that too. Christmas morning will start with a spinach and cheese strata. We are having a turkey and the all trimmings on Christmas. We will be sharing Christmas with Flaming Mike and his wife we are enroute to San Diego the next day. I hope we don’t all freeze to death opening gifts in the house, since we do not have heating. Who would be believe that I could be wrapped up in my warmest clothes because it is 62F inside and a balmy 74F outside in the sun. Praise God for the electric blanket that keeps me warm at night!

Power shopping in Santa Rosalia

Santa Rosalia keeps surprising me! Today I went shopping with Sr. Jueves to get Christmas tree lights. The grocery store we frequent most often is Moreno on Funeral Street. Although this street probably has a real honest-to-God Mexican name (something like Santos Degollados which you find in most cities and which means ‘Beheaded Saints’), Esperando and I refer to it as Funeral Street because that is where most of the funerals take place, at least that we know about. What happens is the street gets blockaded off with sawhorses so traffic cannot pass through whenever there is a funeral going on. This is because the funerals are open air with all the attendees sitting around on folding chairs. Traffic would be a distraction and probably noisy as well so they just block the street off. This is a one way street, so those wanting to get to the grocery store drive a few blocks below the funeral parlor and back up the street to get closer to the store.

In any event I was just telling Hermana that a glue gun would be really helpful in making the Xmas tree ornaments on which I have been working. First the cook brought me some really sucky rubber cement so I could get glitter on the gourds, then when I got pretty frustrated with that, I asked Sr. Jueves for something resembling Elmer’s glue. He brought me a VERY runny white glue that is so thin it easily spills on everything and makes quite a mess. Well as we were walking up the street to Moreno, he pointed out a florist shop that had some Christmas stuff. When we went into the store there was very little useful to me for Christmas purposes—except glue guns! I was so excited! I never thought I would find a glue gun here. Then we jaunted across the way to Moreno that had about 10 brand new really fresh Christmas trees on their front porch bound up with twine and quite a few boxes of strands of Christmas tree lights for sale.

Everyday the store gets more and more bounty to meet the Christmas demand. I actually found and purchased a squirty can of real Challenge whipping cream, some mandarin oranges, a few more really fresh yams as the ones Sr. Jueves brought yesterday were really tiny. But that is not all, no not all—what I didn’t buy were Bugles, chocolate covered cherries, tins of Christmas cookies, a large box of Francia white zinfandel (ugh!) Then as we were heading back to the house I noticed someone had put live poinsettias in a planter box. I asked Sr. Jueves, what is this red flower that is special here to Christmas—aaaah, a Noche Buena, he said. Do you want one, there is a man selling them here in town. Oh yes, says I. He turns the vehicle up another block and there is a man selling poinsettias right out of his pickup truck for $15. So I bought one. It is amazing what you can find in Santa Rosalia these days!

Feeling connected

Boy, oh boy, here come the guests— a full house of Korean investors! I have an extra helper for this week to assist the cook and the housekeeper. They have been polishing up the house within an inch of it life. I could never manage to do all this by myself without being utterly exhausted, but its hard managing all the details. I have been making list after list of things to do, who’s doing what as well as when and what has to be done. I have a carpenter here putting frosted windows in the bathrooms and replacing doorknobs for those lacking a key, the plumber here because the tub in one guestroom has extremely hot water and we have to fix it before our guests arrive, the air conditioner has failed again in the living room. The water is off one minute and on the next. Who knows what will happen next? This will be an extra busy week. Starting Sunday, the Koreans are here two days--Monday night we are having a big Korean bbq with the kim chee we brought.

I have actually been pretty amazed at the variety offered in the stores in what initially appeared to have been a very small town with very little to offer. I just ordered an emergency patio set from a local store which is being delivered today. We have been working to get uniforms for the household help. These have to be ordered in San Diego and brought down, they will take about a week to arrive. Then we get them embroidered locally with the Boleo logo.

Some chairs and a coffee table ordered from La Paz are still missing from the living room, but the coffee table for our sitting room is being loaned out there until the real one arrives. Full length wall mirrors are coming from Tijuana. I need a lot more small dishes, like for appetizers or dessert, small bowls, a sugar and creamer, but those I have to get in Loreto. We have an abundance of hibiscus flowers—double red, double white, single pink, single orange, and single yellow with orange edging— for guest rooms and the dining table; the cook can squeeze oranges to make fresh orange juice (its excellent!); Every night I wake up at 1 a.m. and think about everything until I can finally get back to sleep at 4 am. Actually I am not thinking, I just lie there in a stupefied but non slumberous daze. Last night was finally able to I sleep through the night only to be awakened by the His Majesty the Cat at 4 am for his royal breakfast.

Well I didn’t get this posted two days ago, so much has happened, but tonite I finally got an internet connection in my house. I am so excited I’ll probably surf all nite. I actually have cancelled the Koreans visit here. We are having water issues and the last thing I need is not for them to be able to bathe or flush the toilet. We will probably still go ahead with the bbq. I need to start marinating the meat tomorrow morning. Esperando will be back early Sunday morning. I can handle just about anything if he is here—and I have the internet too!

The whirlwind tour

So to our trip—we landed at Loreto on Sunday and went to check the dining table and chairs shipped from Monterrey to Conchita’s Curios. Although we were told the shop owner Conchita would be there, we found the shop shut up tight as a drum—she had gone to La Paz and no one could tell us when she would return. Cruised by the shop Bazar Loreto that sells Ken Edwards pottery, and it was also shut. This is the touchy one as that owner is an elderly lady who shuts down the shop for 3 months during the hottest part of the summer. Her health is not good and I am afraid she will croak off before I can buy pottery. So then we got on the road to Santa Rosalia earlier than anticipated. The 2 ½ drive did not seem so long this time.

We spent the next 3 days in Santa Rosalia walking through the guesthouse (Casa Boleo); taking measures and seeing what had been done; interviewing guesthouse staff; putting a down payment on our house (Casa Abeja) and measuring it. We found a cook and housekeeper out of 4 applicants. I am excited about the staff, I hope they work out well. Interviewing in Spanish was difficult for me not so much the speaking but remembering what I had said. After the third interview I could no longer remember which applicant I had told what to. I started out pretty well but dissolved into Spanglish as the interviews proceeded—the worst moment was when I said “week-o” instead of “semana.” Esperando Esposo also interviewed a couple of people for mine positions and tried to get REAL work done sandwiched around that and immigration issues. He has to get a his FM3 (like a Mexican green card) stamped with a domicilio or next time he goes into Mexico they will not let him leave the country—so he has been told. It is a complex issue requiring a lot of paperwork and 2-4 days to process. Fun, huh?

Then we drove back on Thursday to Loreto for the flight to La Paz for the furniture and appliance purchases. We probably chose appliances in about 15 minutes and spent another 40 minutes trying to organize the payment. Then on to Ramos, the furniture store where we purchased living room furniture. We stopped at Galeria de la Paz whose American owner is a red-headed wonder woman: she has great taste in furnishings and gets great stuff from all over Mexico. We bought a few pieces for Casa Abeja. After that, a night of great margaritas and food at Las Tres Virgenes and then back to Loreto for a day of R&R. Conchita is open and we check out her bedroom stuff and make another attempt at Bazar Loreto, still barred and chained. I will keep my fingers crossed that she opens her shop again in September.

Conchita gave us great pointers on a local restaurant supply distributor, Dali. We are so lucky! It is the answer to my prayers for how we are going to find the good food we will want to feed people. And it may be they will even deliver to Santa Rosalia if we order enough quantity.