I am grateful for my family. Grandma Conchita and Tío Lynn bought a steak and are bringing it over to grill and listen to the election results. We are ALL Trumpistas tonight! The dynamic down here in Mexico is VERY interesting. With Trump putting pressure on Presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum to stop the human and drug trafficking of the cartels or he will impose huge tariffs on Mexican imports, she is in a really tight spot because no one has a lot of control over the cartel. If the tariffs don’t work Trump says he will send the Marines which changes the equation dramatically. Interesting times.
I spent a few hours this evening running some measurements on images captured by a PhD student as University of Kansas using the GRIME2 software advanced during my doctoral research at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She did a great job gathering the images. I actually acknowledged her in my dissertation defense and used a couple of picture of wildlife (bison and deer) that wandered in front of her camera during the course of her research. It truly is a joy to be part of this greater community of Natural Resource Sciences research in the Midwest–could not find a nicer group of people anywhere. Jessica plans to use these results in one of the chapters of her dissertation.
One of the nicest things about living here in San Pedro is the opportunity we have had to just hang out with Lorena’s family. The one’s we see the most are Grandma Conchita and Tío Lynn with Tío Lauro a close third. We now have a couple of really nice places to hang out–the living room of our apartment and, when the weather is nice, the main terrace where Lynn usually grills us something. It is amazing that we are now in November and the weather is still just amazing. It is currently 83° and is expected to drop to 73° at about dinner time.
The entire apartment building is really taking shape. We really could be at the point where we need to move out from the apartments and up the hill to our house remodel so that Lynn can rent out what where we are living now. We have been accumulating all the little things needed to just live daily life like an electric tea kettle, art (mostly from Tío Lauro), house plants, a small oven (no of the apartments have one) which also serves as an air fryer, etc., etc.. We have never had an air fryer before and we are honestly amazed by the thing. We are getting to like the neighbors so much here that is hard to think of moving. We are not sure if the culture of the neighborhood will be as friendly, but this is Mexico so it probably will be.
This image was captured the night of the Festival of St. Jude when the street was blocked off for a Mexican brass band, dancing Matachines, and a quinceñera. The group of kids playing soccer grew and shrank over the five hours of the festivities, but it never stopped. This same group of kids plays street soccer every evening their parents let them until 9:00 PM. It is just amazing. There are a couple of really privileged kids among them that have portero guantes which seem very, very cool to me and I wish I had some, too.
My brother-in-law, Lauro, took this photo last night of an event that was organized just by the people on our block. It was actually kind of a double event consisting of Matachines dancing to the music of a Mexican brass band with an excellent singer and a quinceñera after party. This was certainly not an official city event, but the people blocked off the street, there were lots of onlookers in lawn chairs on the sidewalk with food and drink everywhere. The setting was incredible with the colorful house, colorful dances, mountain backdrop and lots of happy people. I went out to see what was going on and a bunch of people, known and unknown, made sure I knew I was welcome and would I like to have a beer. It surely seems like we are living in the right place.
I am missing my Barcalounger, but I have finally found a pretty reasonable work-around until we can get into our house up the hill–God willing, I will be able to buy one. I am amazed at how much we are enjoying our apartment. Lorena has been adding plants and other touches and doing her OCD cleaning thing, so it just keeps getting better and better. We think we will have to move out to the other house because Lynn will have one floor done up there and wants to rent the apartment as he prepares to put it on the market and sell it. In the meantime, I am enjoying my new reading station quite a lot.
Every night at about 10 pm, a guy walks through our neighborhood pushing a cart and screaming, “Elotes!” He is in the corn-on-the=cob business and from all we can tell, it is booming. We have taken to buying one or two ourselves one or two times per week. It is not nearly as good as fresh corn-on-the-cob in season in the Oregon, but it is pretty good. The only rub is that he only sells it with chile sauce and mayonnaise. Lorena likes it that way, but I have to add my own butter and salt. This is just another good reason to lover our neighborhood.
I finished reading the Volume 5 of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus last week and started on a collection of works titled The Beloved Works of C.S. Lewis. I have been looking forward to reading Surprised by Joy, the first work in the collection after having been impacted so greatly by C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity but wanted to finish the Jewish Objections series first. Dr. Michael Brown does an admirable job with this series and, just like Mere Christianity, I attribute God’s providence to the timing in which a read it. Mere Christianity seemed to apply directly to my own personal need for guidance on how to live a life of worship given my belief in Jesus and the scriptures while the books on Judaism helped me to understand toxic pathologies common to many varieties of religion, especially the judeo-christian variety, due to the enforcement of tradition by religious elites that has little or nothing to do with scripture. The reading of these both Mere Christianity and the Jewish Objections series were both timely and, I believe, necessary although I have to admit that the former was edifying and optimistic while the latter was a warning not to regress to how I have lived most of my life nor let it take hold again in some other form.
I have now read the first several chapters of Surprised by Joy. So far, it seems to be taking me on an optimistic path. I just read several paragraphs on prayer that were kind of a gut punch. C.S. Lewis, one more time, described a defect he felt he suffered in his effort to pray that mirror what I perceive to be my own defect. I am looking forward to reading what he did about it.
Lorena and I got married in Monterrey 32 years ago today, not too far from where we are living now in San Pedro. It was one of the very best decision I ever made and am more thankful than ever that Lorena was willing to marry me. We are going to go out and celebrate tomorrow night.
Still marveling at what a great place we have to throw a party. We are rapidly getting to the point where the place will be finished other than for regular maintenance and then we will move out and put the whole thing up for sale. We are hoping to have at least a minimal setup for having dinners in an area with a view by the time the kids get here for Christmas, but we are not sure we will make it.
Lorena and I pick up habits easily. Sometimes they are good ones. For the last three Sunday’s we have visited Aló Café in the center of San Pedro Garza García for brunch and then walked to Casa Casco for a coffee and a cookie. We plan to keep it up while we are here and cannot imagine that we will get tired of it.
Lynn grilled steak, lamb, and hot dogs for the whole family at a party thrown for me on our terrace. It was an amazing evening. Everyone sang “La mañanitas” before I blew out the candles on the cake at the right which is a mango cake, my favorite by far. The only way the party could have possibly been better is if Kelly and Christian would have been there. I am thankful to be here with my Mexican family and particularly thankful on my 69th birthday to have time with Grandma Conchita at this stage of our lives.
Lorena and I started in Genesis and have been reading through the Reina Valera 1960 version of the Spanish Bible together, two chapters at a time during the time we set aside for devotions on Wednesdays and Sundays. We are getting toward the end of Exodus and have been enjoying it immensely. We should have read straight through the Bible together a long time ago, but I guess better late than never. We want to kick up the number of days we do this, but we have not decided yet whether we want to use the other times for other parts of the Bible or topical studies. In that spirit, we read Psalm 37 last night. That Psalm is a true gift.
The plans for the house we hope to construct, God willing, came three weeks late, but very nicely the arrived the morning of my birthday. We love the plans. We are not going to do much celebrating today, but have plans for our Pad Thai cooking class on Friday, a big family blowout (not unlike those of Grandpa Milo) on Saturday with lots of meat (Cordero a la Griega, chuleton, Mexican hot dogs, etc.), and a visit to Aló Café early, maybe Sunday afternoon. We heard from both of the kids and lots of friends so it has been a very nice day so far!
Lorena bought tickets to a class on how to cook Chicken Pad Thai, Coconut coated shrimp with spicy mango sauce and papaya salad with cucumber. I am sure it is authentic because the instructor is from Mexico, exactly like all the Thai food chefs in America. The class sounds excellent. Everyone brings their own drinks and you can either eat the things you cook at the end of the class or you can take it home with you.
Lorena spent the night with Grandma Conchita last night so they could get up early to get ready for a bridal shower for the bride-to-be of one of Lorena’s youngest cousins. They had a great time, met some new people from the bride’s side of the family, saw Lorena’s Tío Abel, ate some good food, and are all a twitter about going to the wedding itself with the whole family, including Kelly and Christian over Thanksgiving weekend.
We now have a roof over parts of both the upper and lower terrace of the apartments. It is really nice, but that is not what this post is about. The post is about the working class area where we live and how it seemed like the whole neighborhood was involved in the installation of the roof. First, Milton (is that a Mexican name) the welder Lynn hired came over with his son and put up the framework with the help of one of Lynn’s regular employees, Rodolfo. He could not reach some of the higher stuff, so he went across the street to ask his friend, Jesus if he could borrow some scaffolding. Of course, Jesus brought that over and stuck around to help. Lynn was about two hours late with the actually roofing materia, so rather than go home and wait until he got here and then come back, they went over to the convenience store on the corner, bought some caguamas (Mexican slang–look it up), and brought the owner of the convenience store came along to join the fun. We all proceeded to talk about politics, religion, neighborhood drama and to berate Lynn while enjoying the caguamas while Lorena brought out a tub of refried beans, salsa, and a stack of tostadas for us to munch on. They all stuck around to finish the job when Lynn finally arrived. In the middle of all this, an older, retired neighbor who lives in the house with the green trees came over to the apartments to water OUR trees. There truly is community here–it is not all goodness and sunshine, but people do know and look out for each other in this neighborhood. I love Mexico.
I am profoundly less political this presidential election than I was during the last election in 2020 and I was profoundly less political in that election than the one previous to that. Lorena and I are watching the debate tonight, but for me, it is with a great deal of ambivalence. I am currently reading through the Old Testament of the Bible and it seems like we are in an era where the leadership of the USA is not dissimilar from the weak and evil kings of Judah and Israel. The political choice is a choice for the lesser of two evils. This is a time to focus on Christ. The culture at large is immersed in sin. Jeremiah and Elijah understood this. Part way into the debate, I am saddened by both sides. I am glad Jesus is King and God is the only true God. That is my politics today.
Christian’s birthday is past, but I have thought about it a lot of the last few days. It is a gift to have him as my son. It is not so much that he is so accomplished although few attain to the heights he has achieved at a young age (Summa Cum Laude Honors Applied Mathematics BS at 18, PhD in a VERY mathy aspect of Electrical Engineering–information theory, probability, and statistics–at age 23, 100% research appointment at MIT at 24, etc.), but that he is kind and not aggrandizing in the least. He got his PhD five years before I got mine and was instrumental in helping me with my publications, dissertation, and dissertation defense. He did stuff like help me get going on LaTeX, assure my equations were consistent, and all kinds of moral support. He attended both my dissertation defense and my graduation. The picture above was taken after my graduation last December. He always shows up. A gift.
One of the best days of my life was when Christian was born. He continues to be a gift that keeps on giving. It is hard to describe what has done, what he is doing, and who he has become. It is not necessarily talent and intelligence that got him to where he is, but attitude and work ethic. A book came out when Christian was 12 years old about doing hard things. I suppose the premise of the book was not so bad, but it did not seem like the two guys that wrote it had done anything that was truly hard. It was more about pushing an agenda, bragging about things just about anyone with a modicum of ability could do, and building a platform to pontificate. Christian actually DID hard things and he did them quietly in a way that contributed rather than sought self-aggrandization. He still operates that way. Few really knows the effort that was required to get to where he is and do what he does.
