Body Parts

No, I haven't seen any bodies in the canal...

My place is littered with body parts -- lizard tails and lizard bodies to be more precise. My cat Squeekers and her partner-in-crime Lily are the perpetrators. They deposit dead bodies in the kitchen, in the bedroom, under the coffee table. They're very proud of their hunting skills.

They're showing off, asking for praise.


It's not working.

When I see one of these cats with a lizard in her mouth I screech and tell her to drop it. I lecture, I nag. These tactics never worked with anyone else I've ever lived with, so I don't know why I bother. Habit, I guess.

My neighbors and I often comment on how lucky our cats are. They are extremely well fed. They get vaccinations and medical treatment. They spend their days lazing by the pool or sleeping on terraces. Their nights are spent in their owners' beds, protected from the wild cats and possums that take over the condo complex at night.

Apparently all this coddling and cosseting (now there's a word I don't use often) is not enough. No, these luckiest-cats-in-all-of-Mexico want it all, they want dead lizards.

They also want Whiskas Salmon Paté. They want naps by the pool.

I would be jealous if I weren't already living in paradise. Besides, I don't like lizards or salmon paté. And, like the cats, I can nap by the pool whenever I want.


(Note to self -- when you've run out of things to write about, just post a few cat photos. Who can resist?)

Assisted Living

Several years ago, my brothers and sister and I were helping my mom look for a new place to live. My niece found a really nice assisted living facility. We toured it as a family. Mom didn’t like it. The rest of the family was pretty much noncommittal. This was an uncomfortable time for all of us. We wanted mom to like her new digs. She liked living alone but we worried about her. Emotions were conflicted and conflicting.

I come from a family of conflict-avoiders and non-communication specialists. It was obvious that no one wanted to go out on a limb and say much of anything. I was the most vocal, in my usual self-absorbed way. I fell in love with the concept of assisted living.

It seemed like heaven to me. No need to cook if you don’t feel like it. Weekly laundry and maid service. A pool, a library, a garden and atrium.

All of these amenities maintained by someone else.

A few years later I moved to Mexico. I came here for the adventure of living in a different culture. I wanted to learn Spanish. I was offered a job here. My kids were old enough to take care of themselves (sort of).

What I found in Mexico exceeded my expectations. I found new friends and interesting co-workers. I found beautiful weather and lovely beaches. I found tropical flowers, iguanas, and the occasional scorpion. I found cockroaches.

And, hey!, I admit it, I found assisted living with a Mexican flavor -- it doesn't get much better than that.

Chiles Rellenos Calling

I think I've mentioned before that I have a favorite lunch place, which serves one of my favorite meals -- chiles rellenos. Unfortunately, the restaurant often runs out of chiles rellenos at lunch time.

The woman who runs the place (and does all the cooking) took pity on me the last time I showed up. She was serving pollo estufado, and it was good, but it wasn't chiles rellenos. She asked me for my cell phone number. Now she calls me when chiles rellenos are on the menu.

"On the menu" is a figure of speech in this particular case. There is no menu, not even one of the whiteboard-on-the wall menus. She just tells you what she has when you show up. Or, in my case, she calls you and tells you what she has.




My friend Terry introduced me to this restaurant, and he's afraid if I tell my friends about it the restaurant will fill up with gabachos. It will become upscale and trendy and drive away the working class Mexicans who currently eat there.

The Virgin and Baby calendar and the Last Supper painting would be replaced with hanging ceramic chile peppers, ferns and works by local artists.

So I hesitate to write about Rosa and her chiles rellenos. I just want to say that I never again want to hear anyone complain about service in Mexican restaurants. In all the years I lived in the U.S. never once did a restaurant call to tell me my favorite dish was on the menu.

Bugs and Flowers

I recently added FOUR entries to my bug log. That's a lot of entries in just 3 days. And I was just counting the really scary bugs. I didn't add the spider I saw in the shower. Or the crabs in the pool (not bugs, I know, but they LOOK like bugs).

Not coincidentally, this increase in bug activity follows the first real rain we've received since October. I'm happy about the rain. It makes things grow. Flowers bloom, colors are brighter, everything is greener.



Other creatures are making an appearance now too -- frogs and gekkos and lizards. I like them. (They eat insects.) Reptiles have never bugged (!) me like insects do. I'd much rather see a snake on the front steps (and I have) than a large bug.



So basically I'm happy to see the rain. Bring on the greenery and the flowers and the sweet smelling air. Bring on the lizards and gekkos and frogs. Just keep the bugs to a minimum, please, and let the few that do show up be on their backs, waving their scary antennas in the air, taking their last breath...

Poor Mexico, So far from God...

Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.

This remark from Porofino Diaz came to mind as we were driving home from Acapulco a few weeks ago.

We had several interesting, and very Mexican, experiences in Acapulco.

First, so that my friends don't think that my life is all about having fun,I need to say that I didn't go to Acapulco to lay in the sand on the beach, lounge around the pool drinking piña coladas, or eat Thai-Mexican food at fancy restaurants.

I went to Acapulco to see a dentist. Or, to be more exact, to see an oral surgeon. Sigh.

I did manage to do a few other things while I was there. Shopping at Costco and Home Depot are always high on my Acapulco to-do list. We filled Terry's truck with things that are unavailable or outrageously expensive here in Zihuatanejo: a table and two chairs, large plastic storage boxes, large bags of cat food, toilet paper, paper towels, plastic bags... the usual.

While we were in Acapulco the first news of the dreaded swine flu hit the international news. We started seeing people wearing masks -- even the statues were scared! Restaurants were empty, and we saw very few tourists, especially foreign tourists.

As we were leaving Acapulco we were pulled over by a traffic cop, who wanted to collect a "cargo tax" for the stuff we had packed into the back of the truck. A perfectly bogus and nonexistent tax, which we pointed out (politely of course). He wouldn't back down.

The officer insisted that we owed 5,000 pesos (yes, almost 500 dollars). We said we had no money, and once again we politely pointed out that there is no such thing as a cargo tax. He suggested that we could pay "half" the amount if we didn't want to go to the police station.

Eventually Terry offered him 200 pesos, he accepted it, and we were allowed to leave Acapulco.

Acapulco has a reputation for this sort of thing, and this was my first personal experience of "mordida" (bribery). If nothing else this trip to Acapulco (did I mention the ORAL SURGEON?) was a chance for me to experience another aspect of Mexican life.

The other thing Acapulco has a reputation for is headless bodies (usually the bodies of police officers). Something to do with battles between opposing drug cartels and between the drug cartels and the police. It's definitely not good for tourism or business.

Those headless bodies on the beach are SO unappetizing...

So as we were driving home and I was thinking about the effects of swine flu on the economy, and the effects of so many other " Mexican" problems, and how unfair it was that this flu was being blamed on Mexico when it probably just happened to be first discovered here, and how unfair the drug wars are for every day normal people, and how unfair the political corruption is... well, Diaz's quote jumped into my mind and here it is.

The most amazing thing about all of this unfairness is how most Mexicans I know are still the happiest people I know, despite the unfairness of it all.

It could have been a dead body

I peered over the canal bridge to look for crocodile babies a few mornings ago and all I could see was ugly green scum. Probably algae. Whatever it was, it wasn't pretty.

Only a week or so ago I had seen fish and birds and baby crocs at the same spot, so the green scum was a disappointment.

I told Terry about it.

Terry often responds to my complaints with "it could be worse." Once when someone asked about violence in Zihuatanejo, Terry's response was "it's safer than Afghanistan." Terry's response to algae in the canal? -- "at least you didn't see any dead bodies."

I like the canal. It's near my home and I often walk along it when going to el centro, or to Commercial Mexicana, or on my early morning walks with Nancy.

Algae in the canal reminded me that summer is coming. The sky is often hazy, not blue. We have cloudy afternoons and it often looks and feels like it's going to rain. And it is REALLY hot, and really humid.

But hey, maybe it hasn't rained for a long time, maybe I'm hot and sweaty 24/7, but there haven't been any dead bodies in the canal for a long time either, so who am I to complain?

Bug Log

I haven't added to my bug log recently, but that isn't to say I haven't seen a few bugs. It's just that the bugs that have crossed my path lately have seemed so ordinary. There's been the occasional medium sized cockroach, a few tiny ants, a relatively small spider in the shower.

Then yesterday, just when my defenses were down and I was all unsuspecting and clueless and oblivious to danger -- out walks the most humongous ginormous cockroach on the face of the earth. ON MY BATHROOM COUNTER.

Needless to say I didn't go back into that bathroom for at least 24 hours.

Then this afternoon I realized I can't avoid the bathroom forever. I do have a second bathroom, but the bathroom WITH THE COCKROACH is the one I use all the time.

So this morning I gathered my wits (what few I have left) and marched into the bathroom. I moved everything from the counter and under the sink to the secondary bathroom, and then I asked Moises, our helpful and fearless groundskeeper, to spray insecticide around the floor and counters and under the sink.

I didn't see the cockroach this morning when I was doing all this moving -- and believe me I was looking -- so it's probably already moved into my second bathroom along with my other stuff.

In other words, poor Moises will be spraying a cockroach-free bathroom, while the cockroach, in all probability, has moved into my second bathroom. And I will be treading lightly, and turning on every available bright light, the next time I walk into ANY bathroom.