Man, I miss México. It was an awesome thing to have Lynn with us many if not most evenings to describe México and cultura Mexicana. From life in the working class Mexican neighborhood of the apartments, to the doings of the cartels in places like Culiacán, Durango, Jalisco, and the individual neighborhoods close to us, to the culture of the albañiles who remodeled the apartments and are remodeling our house on the hill to the neighborhood convenience store that was willing to sell us a single egg or a single stick of celery. We are grateful for our seven months in México and are very much looking forward to spending some months every year with our family in Nuevo Leon.
We are missing México right now. Especially we are missing Grandma Conchita, Tío Lynn, and all the really cheap red meat. That one inch thick steak Lynn is holding is all of the ribeye and an additional strip next to the ribeye that we bought for around $5/pound. Most of all we miss Lynn’s stories about his legal work and his encyclopedic knowledge of all things related to the culture and current doings of the Mexican narcotrafficantes.
I am not sure whether life and world events just seem surreal because we are living in Mexico with interesting new tensions between Mexico and the United States, but my sense is that something important has changed worldwide. Who knows whether that is good or bad. The situation with the cartels seems to be a very hard problem because the are embedded in much of society and, with some notable exceptions, the are not really located in one place. I heard today that the Sinaloa Cartel has 60,000 employees, not dissimilar to what happened in Columbia during the cocaine heyday. The war to control that took literally decades. I hope that does not happen here. It is such a beautiful country and people are the friendliest in the western hemisphere.
In the meantime, the fraud and waste being discovered up in the States is unprecedented and there will be a lot upheaval before things start to get better. My own work might not even survive what is coming. That will change my retirement plans somewhat if it happens, but long term, we will be find. And this is not just a fiscal/greed problem. Cultures within the States are colliding and one of the other will win–at least short to medium term. I am so glad God has his hand in all this.
It has been a very interesting day. Lorena and I finished up the book of Numbers in our read through the Reina Valera 1960 Bible this morning in our little Sunday morning meeting, then went to Shake Shack at the Galería mall–what a surprising gift it is to have that available to us just a few minutes away from the apartment. When we got home, Tío Lynn told me to check the value of the Mexican Peso against the US Dollar. Amazing. It dropped an entire peso due to the tariffs Donald Trump is imposing on Mexico to try to stop the fentanyl from entering the US from Mexico.
He did the same thing with the Canadian Dollar. It dropped to its lowest value ever against the US Dollar, also to try to stop the movement of fentanyl from Canada to the US.
Who knows when this will end, but I cannot imagine it will last very long because it is in the best interests of all three countries to work this out. I am especially optimistic about the future of Mexico if this helps them get the cartel problem worked out.
One of the things I find very interesting here in our neighborhood is the standard way to announce your presence when you arrive at someone’s doorstep is to yell out that you are there and/or the name of the person you are there to see. There are no knocking or doorbells anywhere that I have seen so far. Even UPS, DHL, and Amazon operate that way. Pretty cool actually.
The mayor of the city where we live here in Mexico sent out blankets to the middle class and poor neighborhoods because of the below freezing temperature. Lorena and I both got one and they are pretty nice with the San Pedro city logo and all. They also sent out a television reporter and photographs and publicity people to make sure everyone knew about the great kindness of our mayor. We WERE appreciative.
We have been celebrating Lorena’s birthday for the last week or so and we only have about a week more to go! Here birthday was on a Tuesday and I had to work so all se really did on the actual day was to run down to Shake Shack to get a hamburger. We made up for it big time on Friday. Grandma Conchita and Tíos Lauro and Lynn came over and we went to our favorite taco place, Sonorense in the El Centrito neighborhood of San Pedro. Afterward, we all came back to the apartment to sing Las Mañanitas and eat mango cake from Pastelería Leti. I definitely did not adhere to my diet in any of this. Today, we ran down to the Chili’s at the mall where Lorena had chilaquiles and I had chicken fried chicken–a very nostalgic moment because that is one of the places we frequented when we were first married. Tomorrow, we are going to have our church meeting together, then probably have lunch with Lynn and Conchita. On Monday, we are going to watch the inauguration of President Trump and then head up to the hill to see the remodel progress on the house because, supposedly they will have hit a major milestone in the work on the first floor.
I am truly grateful to have spent more then thirty years with this beautiful woman. Each year just keeps getting better. We hope, God willing, that 2025 will be our final, big, cross-country move, close to the kids in a place that has easy access to a lot of infrastructure. We are looking forward to one more push to make that happen, but the good news is that we have done it so many times before that we do not get too stressed over all of the little things that go wrong because they WILL go wrong. Good thing we are just passing through in this life–it is great to have such a spectacular partner with him to take the journey.
This is the view from the terrace at the apartment tonight. It really is spectacular. Lynn made a guisado (stew) tonight in the ceramic pottery bowls on the grill. It was fabulous. A calm and fun evening.
Kelly arrived here Sunday afternoon and then Christian arrived last night. There amazing Tío Lauro ran to the airport both times (and hour each way, plus and hour to get from his house in Santiago to here). Both times we went to Rincon Sonorense in El Centrito de San Pedro to eat tacos. That is turning into somewhat of a tradition. Afterward, everyone, including Tío Lynn, slept at the apartments. It is just an amazing gift to have everyone here in one place. Today, we are going to head out to do some shopping and to show some parts of San Pedro to the kids.
You can see the house we are remodeling up on the hill from our apartments in San Pedro, but just barely. Tío Lauro took this picture this afternoon. We have such a great view from where the picture was taken, we are excited to get move up there to an even better view. Tío Lynn is, little-by-little transitioning from the work here on the apartments to work on the the house on the hill. Lorena and I have not been up there for a few weeks, but hope to run up there to see the progress.
Grandma Conchita brought me a brilliant new Caterpillar coffee/travel mug tonight as a surprise. I was really night expecting it. She is the best mother-in-law in the world. I will use it DAILY! After she got here, Tío Lynn grilled us up some milanesa (thinly sliced steak) to make sandwiches. Loren had previously purchased bolillos from the drive-by bread truck that were perfect for that application. Now we are waiting for the elote cart to drive by so we can by some fresh corn-on-the-cob for desert. It does not get much better than this.
Lynn contracted with our neighbors, Richie and Chuy to install the doors on the cabinets below the kitchen counters in our apartment. They did a great job. Richie introduced himself to me as “Richie” and now everyone in the neighborhood calls him “Richie the gringo” and laughs. Before that, they called him Ricardo and think that Richie sounds extremely pretentious. Actually, it is kind of not Richie’s fault because he spends a lot of time building houses up in the States and that is what they call him there. I LOVE this neighborhood.
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.
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.
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.
