CARACOLES

 

We've seen a bunch of caracoles as stairs leading to second floors in houses we've looked at.  

But these critters are the real thing.

They're in the dirt around the lemon tree.  5 puntos for finding out if they're bad for the tree.  5 puntos for finding out if we I can eat them.

LA TERCERA LLAMADA

English-speaking people here have told us that Mexicans have a propensity for arriving late--to events, home-repair jobs, etc.  El sr J and I have a compulsion propensity for arriving early.  You may think of this as a virtue, but it's not necessarily:  for example, when we stand on a busy sidewalk for 20 minutes because we've arrived 10 minutes early to look at a house and the Mexican showing it arrives 10 minutes late.

We went to the symphony again on Friday at 8:30:

We were there at 8:15, even though we knew it would not really begin at 8:30.  At some point after 8:30 (thankfully, neither of us wears a watch or carries a cell phone, so we don't know exactly how much after) the disembodied announcer says, "Primera Llamada," First Call.  At this point there are only a couple of musicians on the stage (most seem to be out front smoking cigarettes), and only a few dozen people in the audience. About five minutes later, the voice announces, "Segunda Llamada."  Now everybody starts streaming in, both on stage and in the audience.  Then, a few minutes later, "ESTA ES LA TERCERA LLAMADA, TERCERA LLAMADA, COMENZAMOS."  And almost everybody is in now.

Almost.  After the orchestra plays the first short piece, the doors open and 20 or so people enter and look for their seats, causing other people in their row to have to stand to let them pass.  When the conductor re-emerges, he turns his head to check if everyone has found a seat before he begins the second piece.  Very annoying, I say.

We try not to deal in cultural stereotypes or "national characteristics," but here's a pattern of behavior that gives some support to the idea that there is a "Mexican time" that is different from what the clock says.  I just wonder how people who consistently arrive late feel inside.  Do they make excuses for themselves, or would they feel the same way arriving early as I would arriving late (stomach cramps, heart palpitations).

ELOTE

is the word for "corn" in Mexico.  This guy sells his from his cart outside an elementary school at noon.  On the way back from the gym, I bought a cup with cheese, salsa, and lime juice (hold the mayo, please).  Elote is also served on the cob, on a stick.  I ate one of those a couple of years ago.  Why did I think it would be better off the cob?

We have grown corn most of our married life.  Here's how we ate it:  When the corn (preferably Silver Queen) is just ripe (there's an art to knowing when this is), put on a pot of salted water to boil. Run to the garden and pick the number of ears you want.  Run back to the house and shuck it fast.  (You have to hurry because the sugar supposedly turns to starch in 20 minutes.)  Drop it in the boiling water and take it out when the water comes to a boil again.  Eat with melted butter and salt.  Tomatoes are ripe at the same time as the corn, so we had many-a dinner of just corn and tomatoes. I used to be able to eat a dozen ears at one sitting when I was younger and skinnier.  Elote, in my opinion, is not even fit for chicken corn soup.  The kernels are too big and old.  But the smell coming from the cart is very enticing. And the school kids love it.

LA CITA FAVORITA

In lieu of televised evening entertainment, a pastime we abandoned many years ago, el sr J reads aloud to me in bed until either his voice fails or I start to snore.   At present he is reading and I am listening to the Kindle edition of Quantum:  Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar.

Einstein

Bohr

Several of the physicists we hadn't heard of before, such as Wolfgang Pauli.  These men (and they have all been men so far, most of them Germanic) were theorists who required time and space to think (about time and space), and they needed to be able to communicate/collaborate/debate/argue with each other, a process hindered by two intervening world wars.  It was with Heisenbergian uncertainty that we undertook to read this book:  it could be bohring boring and/or pitched to a physics-trained readership, but it's not.  The formulae, however, are a little intimidating.

Pauli

Our favorite quotation is attributed to Pauli.  When asked why he didn't seem happy, he replied, "Happy?  How can a person be happy when he's thinking about the anomalous Zeeman effect?"  Indeed.

ALGUNAS CARNES Y EMILIANO ZAPATA

The meat first.  I still can't tell you how Mexicans pronounce T-bone, like English speakers, or "tay-bonay."  I asked for it both ways at two market meat stands, and they understood me, but they didn't have any.  They didn't repeat what I said, and I didn't want to be too gringo-ish and ask them how they say it.  So instead we got these rib steaks and some chorizo verde:

El sr J fried one of the steaks for dinner and the flavor was good, but it was a little tough (like the steaks in France).  So the next one will have to be marinated.  The chorizo verde, on the other hand, like all the chorizo here, is delicious.  I never was much of a sausage aficionada until now.  What makes it green, you ask?  According to my Larousse de la cocina mexicana, it's parsley, cilantro and chard.  And, of course, there are parts of the pig body in there that I don't want to think about.

About that bag.  Emiliano Zapata was a hero of the Mexican revolution, the centennial (of the beginning) of which was celebrated last year.  We needed another shopping bag, and, being revolutionary sympathizers ourselves, we chose this one.  Little did we know the emotions it would stir up as we strolled around market.  At the place where we buy most of our fruit and vegetables, we put it on the floor, out of the way, while we filled up a carton with our purchases.  When we went to the scales to figure out our bill, we saw Juan had it hanging over a shelf to display it.  At another stand the guy behind the produce produced a long elucubration* on which "heroes" sold out (Carranza se vendió, etc.).  We never thought about such reactions when we bought the bag.  But we wonder how many vendors in US markets could recount the history of their own revolution in such detail.  Or how many Congress-people (like Michelle Bachmann, who thinks the "Founding Fathers" fought hard to defeat slavery and eliminate it from our Constitution!).

*I used to use this word when I was translating from French to English because it is a cognate and I found it--elucubration--in the English dictionary.  Not a word I had ever used before.  El sr J asked me last night why I hadn't used it on the blog.  I said I never would, too pretentious, but it popped into my mind just now, so there it is.

POLLO ROSTIZADO

We bought this at a roasted chicken stand close to market.  The peppers and tortillas came with it.  Delicious. And inexpensive.  Made us wonder why we buy them raw and cook them at home.  It will provide various meals, especially since el sr J cooked the carcass for stock.  We each tried a pepper, but had to reconsider.  Too hot for us.  We wondered how many chickens it would take to accommodate that amount of peppers.  For us to survive the eating.    

VENGANZA SEXUAL

Venganza sexual was the title in Spanish for the Australian film, Alexandra's Project, which we saw the other night around the corner at the Centro de Arte.  A very bad title interpretation, if you ask me.  The revenge was much more than sexual; it was total.

The opening music made clear that this was a stalker movie, a genre I usually avoid.  But this time the tables were turned and the female protagonist was, it seemed, stalking her husband.  I don't know why, but this theme was much more interesting for me.  I wasn't really expecting the woman to jump out from behind a door or closet and attack her husband; I just didn't know what to expect.  At one point she gave their children some colored liquid to drink, and you know what we all were thinking.  Here she is contemplating her project:

This film followed Scenes from a Marriage and The Cook, the Thief, the Woman, Her Lover (Helen Mirren, aka The Queen,  naked!).  Seems like there's a "vengeful woman" theme.  

El sr J thinks they're compensating for Malinche.

SINFONIA, PARTE II

Remember the yarn store?  Hilos, estambres?  Well, over the past month I bought a lot of this yarn:

100% cotton

And here is what I made with it:

I just have to put a border on with the leftover yarn and work in all those loose ends.  Then it will be ready to keep Mimi or Alain warmish (but not too) at night.

FLOR DE CALABAZA

Happy Valentine's Day.  No, that is not what this is all about.  I'm holding a nosegay of squash blossoms, hoping el sr J will make something out of them.

And he did!  Sopa de flor de calabaza.  Some chicken stock (casera), some herbs, some vegetable stock (also casera), some white wine, some masa (in the form of old tostadas), y ya está.   

Can corn smut be far behind?

SINFONIA, PARTE I

We wanted to go to the symphony Friday night, but it was sold out.  A mostly pops concert. So we bought tickets to the same program today, Sunday, at noon.

I brought the camera and was trying to work up the nerve to take a photo while el sr J was looking through the program to find where it said "no photos allowed."  He didn't find it and I worked up my nerve, but very early on.  Some people took photos later, in the middle of a piece.  Hmmm.  In the background are the names of the men in the Constitutional Congress.  Note the name "Venustiano Carranza," our address.  We arrived early, as usual, and had fun pairing names on the wall to suggest to our hijo menor for the impending twins.  It's good they're boys:  there are no female names on the wall.

The conductor talked to us, encouraging us to come to the Friday evening concerts in the future, because the orchestra was not going to continue doing two concerts in one weekend.  Some people yelled out that they liked the Sunday ones better.  Hmmm.  Then the concert started.  There were babies and young children making noise.  The conductor turned around, displeased, twice, and then he stopped in the middle of a piece, turned around and asked the people with the loud children to take them away:  "sáquenlos, por favor." 

The audience applauded and that was that.  Which is probably why the conductor doesn't want to do Sundays.  Let them get babysitters for Friday nights.  It's true that orchestras everywhere are trying to attract a younger audience, which explains today's program, but there are limits to how young.  

PASTES

When we lived in the US, we used to make pasties (that's with a short "a" to distinguish it from those other things with a long "a."), a meat and onion and potato concoction baked in pie crust.  It's an inexpensive meal and the cooking process tenderizes cheap cuts of meat.  We understood them to have originated with immigrant Scandinavian miners working the iron and copper mines in the Lake Superior neighborhood.  Pasties were compact and nutritious and could be easily carried in a lunch pail and eaten cold, even underground.  The miners in West Virginia, primarily of Italian origin, had their own version

--pepperoni rolls.

This Scandinavian connection was confirmed when our hijo menor lived in the UP (the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, on the shores of Gitchee Gumee) and el Sr J saw shops specializing in this ethnic delicacy in Houghton and Hancock.  The population was predominantly of Finnish ancestry; the principal economic activity had been copper mining.

It turns out that pasties were not unique to the Scandinavians:  Welsh miners had them, too, and carried the recipe wherever they went.  Famous for their mining expertise, Welsh miners were in demand wherever mineral stuff was dug out of the earth.  Including, of course, Mexico.  Pasties were brought here by the Welsh (centered mainly in Hidalgo state, adjacent to us) and pasties, like so many other things of foreign origin, were assimilated into the local culture.  In Mexican cuisine the spelling has been changed to "pastes,"  with a pronunciation that closely approximates "pasties."

Here is the pastes shop nearest us, across from the Mercado La Cruz:

The fillings might not be recognizable to the Finns (green and red mole, chorizo, tuna???), but the pie crust is made by hand daily and they are go-o-o-od.  We don't go down in the mine, but we do dig into the miner's lunch from time to time.

LA LAVADORA

The outhouse (as mi madre calls it; el sr J says, "it's only two steps away") is getting full.  The newest addition is a lavadora.  Our lavandería is moving farther away and we were tired of lugging laundry anyway. Besides, there is nothing like the smell of freshly laundered, sun-dryed sheets.  There is no shortage of sun here.

Interestingly, those yellow stickers on appliances that indicate energy efficiency are scaled differently in Mexico:  in the US, the scale on the bar graph indicates energy used (the farther to the right, the more energy used); here, the scale is money saved (the farther to the right, the more you save on your electric bill).  This took a little getting used to, but we managed to get it right.  By the way, 5 puntos for identifying at least two ways (other than the yellow stickers) that Mexican lavadoras are different from those in the US. 

EL JARDIN DEL ARTE

All quiet on the andador today, so let's do a little sightseeing.  A couple of blocks away from us is El jardín del arte.  It is a serene spot, except when the music is loud.  It is also the site of a flea market where vendors sell, or at least display, old (mostly useless) stuff.  It is a little like the San Telmo flea market in Buenos Aires, where impecunious porteños sell off their patrimony so they can survive the vicissitudes of the economy there.  But here the stuff doesn't seem to be so personal, or so valuable. 

Here is the "arte" displayed in front of the taller that produces it.

This is more like it:

One of several orange trees:

Another view:

Looking up ( a perspective Alain will appreciate):

On Sunday there is dancing to live music in the nearby Jardín Zenea.  These people apparently couldn't wait and were dancing to canned music on a Saturday.  Or perhaps they were practicing their moves for Sunday.  One thing is for certain:  the nude, prone in the foreground, does not move.

DIA 5: VENUSTIANO CARRANZA DESTAPADO

This morning we opened our door, ready to set off for market, when we saw this:

I looked to the left:  an army of men in shiny black suits and pomaded hair were hurrying toward and then past me, leaving a trail of cologne, to converge facing this shrouded figure, whatever it was.

El sr J ran inside to get the camera, came back out and said, "let's go."  No way was I going to try to slip through that barricade of dignitaries and bodyguards sporting earpieces.  So I stood in my doorway and watched.  He left to join the crowd and photograph the event.  Eventually I saw his head above the crowd.  Here they are just about to uncover the bust of. . . .

You guessed it:  Venustiano Carranza, "hero" of the Mexican Revolution.

My knowledge of the Mexican Revolution comes mainly from Mariano Azuela's Los de abajo, translated to English as The Underdogs, a very bad novel in a series of bad novels I read at one period of my life.  All I remember from the novel is that groups of armed men roved the countryside, betraying and killing each other.  (Kind of like now, come to think of it).  Here is a brief history lesson from El sr J:

Carranza was the leader of one the factions fighting to control Mexico during the Revolution.  The others included Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.  They formed various combinations, none of them lasting, and issued various decrees and proposals for shaping the new society in an effort to garner support to form a new government..  Carranza's was the 1913 Plan de Guadalupe, a response to the recent coup in which General Victoriano Huerta overthrew and executed the sitting president, Francisco I. Madero.  Carranza called for a restoration of constitutional government and peaceful elections.  After a period of continued negotiating and fighting, which also involved U.S. incursions and bombardments, Carranza ultimately (with the diplomatic support of the U.S.) succeeded in overcoming opposition.  He organized and led a constitutional convention in Querétaro in 1917 which produced the current frame of government.  Not surprisingly, Carranza was subsequently elected president.  He was assassinated in 1920.  And so it goes.

Carranza, whose followers called themselves Constitutionalists, is considered a hero by those who decry the so-called excesses of the Revolutionary period, often associated with Zapata and Villa, whose popular support came primarily from the landless campesinos and los de abajo and who had a more radical approach to the problems confronting Mexican society.  I suppose one could say that Carranza's policies were fundamentally conservative, reflecting as they did an insistence on traditional governmental structures (Carranza was himself a long-time government functionary before the Revolution) and a cautious approach to reform.  And then there's that U.S. support, which traditionally has gone to the person or party most likely to provide stability and predictability and a good climate for business.

Today, 5 de febrero, is the anniversary of the promulgation in Queretaro of the Mexican constitution, a day celebrated throughout the country, and, not coincidentally, the date of the unveiling of his bust on the street named for him.  But those in attendance were not los de abajo.  They were los de arriba. 

APOSTROPHE S OR 'S

This morning at breakfast el sr J announced that he was going to edit to a previous post and change "Soriana's" to "Soriana."  This led to a discussion of that tricky and much overused "apostrophe s" or 's.  Why do we say, for instance, Penny's for J.C. Penny and Kroger's, but Walmart (not Walmart's), Costco, etc.  I looked up the logo for McDonald's and the McDonald part is in white, but the apostrophe is in red to sort of blend in the background.  That's hedging it.  And then I thought about how we say we're going to the doctor's, as in his/her office, but we never say "I'm going to the dentist's."  Or do we?  And then there is the whole other misuse of the thing:  creating plurals by adding 's, as in banana's.  And worse:  it's instead of its.  This is not a problem in Spanish, where there is no apostrophe.

I know there are some grammar fascists socialists (how about that new strike through function.  El sr J found that for us) commenting on this blog.  What's your take on this issue?  10 puntos for some illumination.

Day 4 on the andador

It was very windy today and we had to come and go in the opposite direction of the wind to avoid getting our faces covered with the cement polvo that their faces were covered with.  Is it OK to end a sentence with a preposition?  Or start one with a conjunction?  Just think of all the grammar rules we learned in grade school, and how they have been modified/abandoned through usage.  But the apostrophe remains sacred and its (not it's) misuse a pecado for us.   

MENONITAS EN QUERETARO

When we take taxis outside of the centro there are always people selling things at red lights on the main streets.  Candy, newspapers, incense, etc.  Sometimes there are young boys doing cartwheels in the middle of the highway and I have to avert my eyes.  Yesterday we were on our way to Home Depot and there was a girl of 14 or 15, blond and pink-cheeked, in an old fashioned dress, with a straw hat, selling cookies, car door to car door.  After we politely declined and moved on, the cab driver told us she was a Mennonite and that there was a community of them living in Huimilpan.

When we finished at Home Depot we went next door to Soriana.  There were two boys of about 10 and 12 inside the entrance, selling cookies.  They were dressed in bib overalls and they were very blond and fair-skinned.  We bought a bag.  Six for 25 pesos, pretty expensive.  I felt like asking them why they weren't in school, but I didn't.  The cookies taste to me like gingersnaps, but el sr J does not agree.  He thinks they have a molasses taste.  Here they are:

I don't think the Mennonites should be sending their young girls out on the streets.  This would not happen in Lancaster County, PA.

Day 3 on the andador

SECRETOS DE UN MATRIMONIO

Yesterday at 5:00 we went here, two blocks from our house, to see Scenes from a Marriage (1973), in Swedish with Spanish subtitles.  Sometimes the sound went out and I realized that even though I didn't understand a word they were saying, I needed the sound to enjoy the film.  Strange, huh.

 Both the marriage and the movie seemed interminable, but weren't, with lots of 1970s-style criticism of bourgeois lifestyles, boring jobs, family obligations, male entitlement, etc.  But I must say that Liv Ullmann was a delight to look at, fleshy but not fat, with the whitest skin I've seen in a long time.

I wonder what she looks like today.  Let's Google her and see:

Hmmmm. . . .

Here's day two of the project on the Andador.  They built a plinth.  Lots of concrete and re-bar.  Our neighbor, Rocio, said that it's going to be a monument in honor of Venustiano Carranza, hero of the Revolution and the source for our eponymous address.  It will also, conveniently and purposefully, block any motor vehicle from violating our walkway.  I'll keep posting progress reports.

¿DONDE ESTA EL MARTILLO NEUMATICO?

Look what we saw when we exited our house this morning.

Two hours later

Two hours after that

Where's the jackhammer? It's all done by hand. They're using a crowbar and a big hammer to prise out each paving stone at the upper end of the andador. We haven't worked up the courage yet to ask them what they're doing. Could it be a fountain? I'll never leave this place if it is. Or is it a barrier to keep al Qaeda car bombers from getting down to the government office at the other end? (In our old US home town, the government erected just such barriers around the federal building, which included the post office. We called it, among other things, the faux phallic phalanx.) Or maybe they know that I was running out of blog material and wanted to give me some exciting things to post? I will keep you abreast of the progress.

Congratulations to all the point winners. We have the smartest friends (and relatives)!