Exciting Events

TV TIME

This installment of our newsletter has several parts.  We hope to send it on schedule – if we have such a thing – that is about the time of the events described.  But if it comes to you well after the events it is because we have been struggling with our internet connection.  About now you are noticing the style of writing is that of the editor, more journalist than storyteller.  The reason for that will unfold below.  And lots of photos.

 

In our last report there was a picture of Rebecca and friend Judy, a.k.a. Dr. Puzzle, working on the first puzzle of the season.  We noted that they were planning a shopping trip.  Indeed, they were not fooling around.  Soon they had bus tickets to Guadalajara and reservations at a hotel adjacent to the famous El Tianguis of Tonala.

 

Although Tonala is a city in its own right, it is known as the shopping mecca of Guadalajara.  The tianguis is a massive, sprawling market that opens on the sidewalks and streets Thursdays and Sundays, everyday leading up to the Christmas holidays.  It features seemingly endless stalls with many of the knick knacks and craft items that we can buy here in Bucerias but at greatly reduced prices because many are made there.  Everyone who stays in Bucerias for a few years makes at least one trip there.  And elsewhere in Tonala there are some really fine shops to buy furniture, lamps, vases, and other furnishings.  It pairs up with Tlaquepaque on the other side of GDL where fine arts abound.  We featured both towns in a story some years back.  So the ladies were off for an overnight shopping extravaganza.  (Ironically as they were completing plans for their trip, another yet-to-arrive shopping companion emailed suggesting the same thing for February.)

 

Meanwhile – actually beginning last year – Don, Judy's husband and one of Rebecca's boogie boarding posse, and a couple of his buddies were planning a deep-sea fishing trip.  They wanted to go out and catch the 'big ones'.  Don and Doug in particular are avid fishermen in their native Canada.  Like all good Canucks, they spend more time 'at the lake' than at home during the summer.  (Don is a catch-and-release person.)  The men did some comparison work and selected a company to take them out beyond the bay into the deep waters where occasionally there are trophy fish.  They got everything in order and were off to the boat early on the appointed morning.  It was no accident that shopping and fishing were scheduled for the same day.

 

Both fishers and shoppers had a good time, but the fishers were probably more successful.  They bought back a good haul that has been filleted and frozen for future consumption.  They had plenty to share.  The shoppers did not come back empty-handed, but not with the bulging suitcases that could have been expected.  Here are a couple of pictures of the catch of the day and more of shopping:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157647159368004/

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157649497928575/

 

 

 

Meanwhile, this intrepid reporter was in downtown Bucerias for the Revolution Day parade.  Like all countries Mexico has its calendar of holidays.  But we rarely put one to waste – days off with parades are always in order.  Fireworks are usually in the program as well.  This year's Revolution Day parade was full of enthusiastic youngsters – girls dressed in the styles of a century ago and boys made up as mustachioed members of Villa's forces.  There were also representatives of many sports groups, schools, and other organizations.  And like all our parades there were a couple of bands and 'dancing' horses.  A few pictures tell the story; the parade made a loop so there may be some duplicates:

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157649413657832/

 

 

 

This year our television picture has been lousy, even worse than last year when it was just plain bad.  The picture often has moved in and out of focus and on the good days the 'snow' has been getting close to a white out.  We have been getting our TV service through the cable provider that has a virtual monopoly and made a few people quite wealthy. The signal has really degenerated.

 

The programming never has been spectacular, but it has been adequate.  As we have related in the past, we had channels in Spanish, in English – sometimes dubbed, sometimes with subtitles – a German channel, and movies sometimes in other foreign tongues.  And for a while we had several music stations. You notice the 'sometimes' because we never quite knew what we would be getting.  The 'TV Guide' that listed the programming was often not working and valueless when it did, only showing what was on at the moment,  There was no feature to see what was going to be shown more than an hour in advance.  To its credit, last year for some unknown reason the cable had the Big Ten Network and we saw numerous Ohio State basketball games.  We don't sit around watching television all day, but we needed to make a switch and started investigating alternatives.

 

Strange as it might seem, except to Canadians, for some oddball technological reason folks up north of the US are able to use one of their satellites to receive programming down here.  Many places have sprouted dishes that provide Canadian programming.  Our fellow owner Randy had installed such a dish and generously suggested that perhaps our solution would be to piggyback off his system.  And it happened that he had a spare unused receiver.  We just needed to contact the folks that installed his system and see what could be done.

 

Joannes, our condo administrator and another neighbor, gave us the number of the installation person.  We called and set up a date for him to come.  We have become accustomed to some schedule 'slippage' here – not unusual up north as well – and so we were not too shocked when the date and time for the tech's appearance had come and gone.  Another call, another time, and another no-show.  But wait, it is after sundown and we get a call that he is outside our closed door.  We let him in and he was ready to go to work in the dark.  We knew this was a bad idea. We explained what we wanted, Mrs.T doing much of the talking as his English was not up-to-speed.  Naturally he wanted to look at the dish.  Fortunately Randy was at home and could tell him where to look.  But we needed a key to gain access to the area where he could get on the roof.

 

And then the big crash happened.  As she was calling to see if Joannes was home and could lend a key, Rebecca stumbled in the dark and fell.  The tech tried to catch her but she went down in a heap, whacked her head, and dislocated a shoulder.  Pain.  When we got her on her feet, R's arm was hanging like a broken Raggedy Ann doll.  We got her to a chair and bound her arm to her body with a beach towel.  (The tv guy was able to get on the roof and determine that he could hook us up to the dish but that he would return in the daylight the next day.)

 

Time to telephone Dr. Victor.  Yes, he was at the clinic.  And yes we could come right over.  Randy was kind enough to provide transport and we were at Clinica Santa Rosa in a very few minutes.

 

Dr. Victor took an x-ray and confirmed the dislocation.  More importantly there were no fractures.  Having watched a few too many ER shows, Mrs.T thought he would just yank her arm back into place and we would be off.  But Dr. Victor thought it would be much better if she would be out cold so as to be relaxed.  Although his anesthesiologist was available, R had recently eaten so fixing it that night was not possible.  We would need to come back in the morning the next day before any eating or drinking.  Dr.Victor gave her some pain meds and bound her more professionally than the beach towel.  And he asked what date we had returned and why we had not come to say hello earlier.

 

So just before 6am we were in a taxi returning to the clinic where Dr. Victor was waiting.  The anesthesiologist came in shortly after our arrival and R was taken into the clinic's operating theater.  She was in there a bit but everything went fine.  She was a little dopy for a while but in much less pain.  In the pictures you will notice she also has quite a shiner; maybe I should have put some frozen fish on it.  Unfortunately she needs to wear the sling for about three weeks; it should be off in time for Rita's holiday visit.  SCUBA and boogie boarding are off limits for a while.

 

A couple of pictures of the injured one:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157649482849021/

 

 

 

After we returned home and one more call we got the cable tech to show up and wire us up.  With Randy's assistance and a stable internet connection we were able to contact the satellite folks and get our box up and running.  Now we have a wonderful picture, too many stations to list, and a guide that is actually useful.  We are going to be more Canadian than ever.

 

Many thanks to Randy for his help through these travails.  Thanks also to D&J for the roses.  Now if we can get the internet working.

 

 

Gobble, gobble and keep warm up north.

Dan and Rebecca

www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com

 

Warm and Sunny

Ah, fresh tangerines and strawberries

 

As most of you know we have decamped from the north and have installed ourselves in The Winter Residence.  Turnaround took less than a week.  And it was not too long before Juan Carlos came by in his truck with fresh strawberries and tangerines.  The tangerines are simply splendid – sweet and juicy.  And we have already had fresh-squeezed oj from Mary Paz several times.

One of the first things we always do is purchase pesos for our phone; we have a cell specifically for Mexico.   Of course the first call was to Alex, R's dive buddy.  She has already been out with her fish friends and expects to go again next week.

Mrs. T gives a brief synopsis of the summer and our first few days south:

 

Now is the summer of our discontent made glorious by the sun of Mexico.

It was a pretty hard summer for me.  First I fell off a church pew.  (Those of you in a certain art organization will know where the pew is.  –dt) Then I was cured of bursitis in my shoulder by the longest needle in the world.   After that I fell off a horse.  (A previous installment -dt) Next I strained my other shoulder by overuse of my new chainsaw.  Finally, I had a rather large mass removed from my breast - not cancer, thank God.  (As The Voodoo Doctor had told her.  –dt)

After all that I am ready to relax lethargically in our Southern home.  (a.k.a. The  Winter Residence.  –dt) Most of our stuff has been arranged to its approximately correct locations.  We have bought a few basic supplies at Mary Paz.  I think Judy (Dual degrees in shopping and puzzling –dt) and I have created a monster because often when I want to buy something Dan says, "You and Judy can buy that at Sam's Club."  (Actually except for things in jumbo sizes I prefer shopping at the aforementioned Mary Paz, one of the best minisupers in town.  –dt) The thing is now he has broadened his sights.  He no longer wants large-sized mouthwash and toilet paper.  Now he wants a big screen TV. (Why not?  -dt) I guess I don't mind as long as we can take a taxi.  If he thinks I am lugging a 60 inch TV home on the bus he is seriously deluded.  Hurry Judy, Help!! Help!!

Judy has come and we went on a major supplies expedition - no TV.  But, alas it was not an unqualified success.  In all fairness, Judy warned me that those hot dogs looked pretty small but they were so cheap I bought them anyway.  When we got them home it seemed as if they had shrunk even more.  They were the skinniest hot dogs I had ever seen.  Still we thought we might as well try them how bad could they be?  Well, REALLY, REALLY BAD.  I took one bite and chewed and chewed but the bite would not come off.  I think the casings are made of heavy plastic.  Dan was not to be defeated by a mere tube steak.  He got a serrated knife and chopped the durn things to bits.  He proceeded to eat them and pronounced them "not too bad."  Well good for him because I am not going to eat them.  I told him he didn't have to eat them either but now he has a plan to uncase them and cook them in a casserole or something.  Hmmm?  Not only that, but the potato chips I bought, because they were cheap, taste funny too.  Not as bad as the hot dogs, but neither greasy nor salty nor anything bad for you.  Just to tell you how bad they are we have had the bag for three days and it is still half full.  They are mostly tasteless. I think maybe I got zucchini chips by mistake. (The backstory here is that Mrs.T has been known to inhale a pound bag of chips in just one or two sittings. –dt) I guess the moral of this story is you get what you pay for or don't pay for, as the case may be.

Well the US elections are over and as usual lots of people I voted for lost.  Sigh.  The good thing is being in Mexico we are spared many of the obnoxious TV ads.  We saw a few for Connecticut and New York when Dan watched the New York channels.  I figure they were all the same anyway so you could just take out one local name and substitute another, e.g., "My opponent voted for gun control!"; "My opponent voted against gun control!!"; "My opponent has a nephew getting food stamps"; "My opponent is a Nazi, a communist, a Christian, a Jew, or all of the above.": "My opponent mooned his high school Latin teacher at a toga party!"; or whatever.  We didn't get many election ads from New Jersey; I believe that the block captain came around the week before the election and told you who you will vote for or else he will break your knees. (R has watched one too many episodes of the Sopranos.  –dt) I sent in an absentee ballot before we left for Mexico.  Vote early and often I always say.  Isn't democracy wonderful!?

 

Only a couple of pictures.  Although the ladies seemingly are doing a puzzle, they are actually planning a shopping trip to Tonala.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157648773771048/

Anyone know the orange fungus/mushroom/??

 

Hope you folks up north are enjoying the first visit of the Polar Vortex.

Dan and Rebecca

www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com