Monday Monday, so good to me

Monday Monday, so good to me,

Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be
Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee
That Monday evening you would still be here with me.

Monday Monday, can't trust that day,
Monday Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way
Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be
Oh Monday Monday, how yould cou leave and not take me.

Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time

Monday Monday, so good to me,
Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be
Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee
That Monday evening you would still be here with me.

Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time

Monday Monday, ...
Mama and Papas

We thought we were going to have workers here today. Last week we received our FINAL approvals for the construction we want to do to the front of our property.
We have a set back, or front parking area, fronted by a steele post fence with gates. Through this fence we get lots of dirt, lots of car exhaust fumes, lots of trash, and we can hear the young girls across the street entertain the current round of novios well into the wee hours. They entertain by opening the front door and hanging out on the front stoop. They laugh, they giggle, they laugh some more. AND we put lots of glass on the front of our house, well it's actually no more than we had before, it's just different. Boy if I knew then what I know now we sure wouldn't have kept all that glass area. When the evening sun hits those windows that glass heats up to the point you can barely touch it and it in turn heats up the rooms. Consequently, for the past year or more we have had most of the windows covered with cardboard. Very classy, and a great way to display all the money we spent having new windows made. Anyway, it's a REALLY long story which I'll probably do someday, but not today.

So, our engineer/contractor said he'd let us know on Saturday if he could/would start today. Sunday mid-afternoon we sent an email letting him know that since we hadn't heard from him we had made plans for the day.
Here's where the Blog really should have started.

We got an e-mail from the Grimsrud's, Jane in particular - asking if we wanted too meet with them at their favorite coffee shop at 10:30, then toddle off to their favorite cantina later on for lunch. Are you kidding me; first to have a visit with the Grimsrud's is enough to get us off our duffs, but throw in coffee, beer, and botanas.... You couldn't keep us away - heck we'd have canceled our construction start date for this.

So we meet with them at the appointed time at Caffe Latte in Itzimna. This really is a lovely little coffee house. The jubilado's that are regulars here are not to be believed. I won't resort to shameless name dropping, well except I already dropped the Jane and John namecard, but it really is quite the crowd of retired, but not retiring dignitaries.
So we order, are served, and are enjoying our visit. As the other 'Regulars' arrive we are introduced and they join us for a brief visit until their group becomes enough to move to their own table. The coffee is very good, as are the Smoothies.

About noon we decide to head over to the cantina

Here we are after our first round of beers are served.
Check out the botanas in this place. YUMMMMMMY!
(refritos, bread with hummus and garlic cream, tostados, zicil pak, marinated potatoes, pasta in tomato sauce)
As is typical, on ordering your next round of drinks you get more botanas. We also had, in addition to what is listed above, betabels, jicama, kibis, and taquitos.

The cantina is La Carreta Cubana II, Calle 27 esquina 20, Colonia Mexico Oriente, Merida

So we had a really nice visit. Had some great coffee, and then botanas, found a few new places where I am sure we will return. And got home in time to quick up this blog so I can get in a siesta before the evening activities, which tonight should keep us up into the wee hours.
Friends coming in from out of town.
Another blog for another time, I hear my hamaca calling.

Angélica Balado

Once again the cultural activities here are amazing. We went to an orchestral event a few nights ago, gratis of course. As part of the distributed program was a flyer for a concert to be given by Angélica Balado to be held at the Teatro Peon Contreras. We absolutely love the music of Angélica and percussionist partner Melina Ruz. These two perform regularly at Amaro (a local downtown restaurant), and frequently as part of the lineup of musicians performing on street stages during the regular Saturday nights activities. Angélica and Melina have also performed at a number of other venues around town and we always try to go.

Angélica is a contemporary 'Trova' style singer/songwriter with a beautiful smoky voice; she plays guitar, sings, and is most often accompanied by the percussions and voice of Melina.

Last nights performance was sponsored by Instituto de Cultura de Yucatán. It was an acknowledgement and recognition of Angélica's 30 years in the music field here in Merída. The performance was indeed a treat as Angélica was backed up by a band of eight talented musicians one of whom was of course Melina Ruz. There was also a brief photo homenaje of Angélica's musical career which was very enjoyable.

The repertoire this evening was of new works by Angélica that haven't been widely heard yet. And they were great. There was also one costume change.

At the end of the evening Angélica was presented a plaque recognizing her 30 years in the local musical community, and unfortunately my spanish isn't what it should be, and my knowledge of local dignitaries also is severely lacking so I don't know who the 'guy' was that made the presentation. He was however recognized by the crowd who were pleased and enthusiastic at his entry to the stage. A number of flower offerings were also presented, and then we had a lovely encore (otra) performance.

Another bonus to the evening - we didn't realize you could get tickets before hand, so showed up at the box office 30 minutes before the doors open. The ticket agent and I were making our way through the seating chart, starting of course at stage level and moving ever higher; we were at the 3rd level when a man walked up and sort of pushed past me to reach a hand under the window partition to hand the woman 5 tickets that had been returned. We got 2 of these tickets at sat Row 3, stage front. WOO HOO! We could look Angélica in the eye, and she saw us as well. Also in attendance were friends Lida and Diana who were able to join us in Row 3 after the performance started.

Cultural Note Here! It is not uncommon here to say Yes to an invitation and then not show up. This is true for events at theaters like this and equally as common for invitations given and accepted for activities at your home. There is a lot of speculation about this phenomena but no clear consensus on the why's! Therefore, even though the seating chart indicated ALL the seats were taken when I was at the box office, the theater had plenty of open seats once the performance started

If you GOOGLE, or Search the internet for Angelica Balado you will get lots of 'hits', some of them are even vids of performances on YouTube. I could stick one in here, but which one - so if you want to see/here Angélica you can do it for yourself.

Should I list the band members that performed? Sure, Why Not!
Victor Lopez (Bateria)
Jorge Julian Gomez (Teclados)
Pepe Rivera (Bajo Electrico)
Melina Ruz (Percisiones y coros)
Jonathon Rojas (Guitarras y Direccion Musical)
Roman (Piano)
Lenny Sanchez y Victor Martinez (coros)

la vida buena

The orange trees are in bloom again - Now, say that with a slightly Katherine Hepburn accent - Actually it's not just the oranges, but also the limes.

I have a naranja agria (sour orange) right out my backdoor, and I've planted a dulce (sweet orange) and a persa limon (large sweet lime) in the garden. We get our indios (native small green limes) from the parts of the neighbors tree that hang over our fence.

Most of our neighbors also have citrus trees of some sort and they are all gloriously in bloom right now. The scent is absolutely intoxicating.

I can't believe I'm living this life, where I can take my coffee cup and sit under an orange tree in bloom and just sit and enjoy it.

Life is good!

Veterinarian House Call (Servicio a Domicillo)

We had the Vet come to the house recently.

It was time for the boys' annual exam and round of shots.

We could have bundled them into their respective carriers and taken them to the vet, but what with Matt being 23, and the fact that vets here routinely make house calls it just seemed right.

We are currently using a Vet that speaks English; we had been using a Vet that only speaks Spanish, but it is really scary when you only 'think' you know what was being said. So for medical stuff; us and the boys, we pay the premium and seek an English speaker.

Anyway, I called and made the appointment, and at the appointened time the Vet showed up. We weren't ready because, well, it's Mexico ...

So, the Vet comes, he has his bag of stuff with a cooler bag for all the medicines, stethescope, thermometer, bright light, etc. I so wish had thought to take pictures. The only thing missing from the at home exam was the taking of their weights.

The boys got their shots, exams, and bill of good health all for 300pesos each. In the States our vet charged close to 80dollarsUS per cat for the same exam, that was before we left in December 2005. Scary to think what it is now.

So the boys have been deemed healthy and fit, the Vet was REALLY impressed at Matt's good health; he has never seen a cat that is 23 years old before.

Here's a recent photo, from just last week, we were eating grilled fish and apparently neglected to ask them if they wanted one as well. As you can see Mattie is giving us a piece of his mind. Or is he just simply asking for fish????

Tom's Birthday

Well I think Tom had a pretty good birthday;

It started out with his favorite breakfast - bacon, ham steak, grits, red-eye gravy, eggs over easy, bisquits n gravy - all carefully desguised as a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and almonds. Cuz I love ya hunny bunny!

Then he spent nearly the whole day in front of the computer in his undies, drinking coffee and reading e-cards, and answering birthday phone calls.

By 2:30 he/we HAD to be dressed because he was being taken out for a 'special' birthday lunch by friends Cherie and Greenwood - Here they are waiting for us to be ready

So off we went - to

I forgot to take photos of the meals, which were absolutely de-lish, and I forgot to take a pic of the birthday group, but here are the 2 desserts we ordered.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Tom

TS Arthur in Belize

Well Arthur sure has been a good thing for us in Merida, well except that I need to do some laundry and of course it won't dry in this weather. Our temperatures have really cooled down, and the water was much needed

But poor Belize, TS Arthur is really making a mess of things there. You can check it out at Belize's National Emergency Management's webpage. (NEMO) Really a mess.

Buena Suerte a los amigos en Belize!

Happy Birthday to Tom!

Well, well, well.......................I wonder what day it is?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm is it the day I think it is?
Could it be?
Is it really?

Oh my goodness it's your birthday.

Well you know what this means dontcha? yep - I gotta sing....

So here goes...............

to you,

to you,

dear TOM!,

to you!



I love ya honey bunny!

Road Trip to Becal Campeche

We decided to go to Becal in the state of Campeche today.

Who cares that Tropical Storm Arthur (Arturo) is also expected there. We checked with the National Hurricane Center for the storm forecast, and felt safe we wouldn't be in harms way.

So we took off this morning at 7:30, yes AM, to pick up Lida y Diana. First order of business was to get to Uman for breakfast. Uman has a GREAT market. It is really clean and full of beautiful produce, flowers, dead animal stuff; you know chicken, pork, beef, etc. They also have lots of household stuff for sale, and great food stalls. We had an assortment of salbutes and tacos, as well as agua frescas. YUM YUM!

Once sated and after a quick stroll, we were off to Becal.

Becal is just across the state border between Yucatan and Campeche.
Becal is famous for its jipijapa hats; aka Panama Hats. The artisans work in caves/cuevas, because of the humidity which keeps the palm fibers moist and supple.
We found an artisan don Baldonado (I can't remember exactly what his name is). He was a very pleasant, soft spoken fellow,
and gave us a demonstration of his weaving skills. Unfortunately Tom's head is a tad bigger than he seems to have anticipated in a potential purchaser and none of the hats could accomodate Tom's gargantuan noggin! I can't complain cuz you know what they say about the size of a man's head; oh wait that's feet, the size of a man's feet - Never Mind!

Well we checked out a few artesanal exhibitions (stores), and then headed over to Holochó, back in Yucatan, where they were having a street fair. We were hoping to find hand crafted baskets here, but alas not a basket was found. We did have a good wander around, and gave most of the locals something interesting to see and talk about for later. Gringos are not typical at their local Sunday markets I guess.

Once we had seen what we came to see and it was time to blaze a trail we decided to head back to Merida.

We were all getting hungry again by this time and decided to head to Tommy's Cockteleria for lunch. Tommy's does great seafood without having to go to the shore.

sidenote for Merida locals - Tommy's has 2 or 3 locations, but the one we've been to is in Fracc Chenku, calle 11 x46y48.

We had a great day, visited fun new places, with good friends, and enjoyed yummy seafood.