DOMINGO CAMINANDO

Another marathon.  Who knew?  We should read the local paper more often.  Looks like Africans won again.

We decided to walk, not run, to our still unbought house.  We had hoped to close the last week in October, but an assessment, the necessity of which we were unaware, had to be done.  The gentleman who lives in the house seems to be unavailable, as you can see by the lock on the front door.  His daughter in FLA and her real estate agent are trying to find out where he is.  So Monday we'll pay another month's rent on the casita and hope something happens by the end of November.

The street and sidewalk the house is on are being repaved.  Wires are being buried.

The corner of Invierno (our street) and Universidad.  The small, triangular park on the right looks like a poor man's version of Parque Güell in Barcelona:

Universidad, which runs beside the "river," is very lovely with its new plantings (at least the surviving ones) and water features:

 And places to rest:

Ignacio Perez, the guy on the horse (below), was pointed the wrong way before the city redid this intersection; the guides in the tranvias (fake trolley cars) that take tourists around town used to joke about how he had lost his way.  He is now pointed accurately toward his 1810 destination, San Miguel de Allende, where he was rushing to warn Allende himself that the plot to rebel against Spain had been discovered.  The War of Independence ensued.  Tourists followed.  

EL SORTEO BANCARIO

Remember when banks in the US used to give you calculators or toasters or even computers when you opened an account?  In Farenheit 9/11, Michael Moore was even offered a gun.  Now they're charging you for everything, including closing your account.

When we got back from AL we had a letter from our bank saying we had won an iPod in a sorteo (drawing) that we were unaware we had entered.  It turns out everyone with a debit card is automatically entered in a continuing series of drawings.  When we went to the bank to pick up our prize, we saw a stack of blenders in the office, waiting there for the next drawing.  We don't need another blender.  But we could use an iPad, in case anyone at our bank is reading this.

  So now we each have an iPod for the gimnasio.  While sweating, I've been enjoying Nina Simone, Delaney and Bonnie, 3 Mustafas 3, the Louvin Bros. and, of course, Robbie and Jubal.

Mine is blue.  El sr J's is green.

DESPERTADOS EN ALABAMA

Wide awake in Alabama.  Babies that is, not everyone else.

We just returned from visiting our hijo menor y su esposa, who are the proud (and tired) parents of 4 month-old twin boys.

Abuelo, demonstrating left-handed feeding.  He must have put those socks on:

Doña Barbara with ? (can't tell who it is with the hoodie up) and Teagan, the feline overseer:

Mother changes from her baby vomit, wee wee-soaked clothes to go to work:

Who is this?  I'd have to check the right big toe.  Polished, it's Patrick; unpolished, it's Finnian:

Wake up, abuelo; it's time to play:

River walk along the Black Warrior:

Oooo. . . abuela's looking out of it:

Time to go home and sleep.

LOS GEMELOS EN AL

Start kicking, boys.  Here we come!

5 DE MAYO

Our andador ends at 5 de Mayo (pictured below).  At the end of 5 de Mayo is the Plaza de Armas.  This is what we see when we exit our casita and turn to the left.  We are fascinated with the construction process, most of which is done with stoop labor.  It looks like what they're doing is narrowing the street, which entails expanding the sidewalk on the left.  You can tell by the upraised curb blocks on the left-hand side of the newly-laid street.  This would mean a very wide sidewalk and no parking on at least this part of 5 de Mayo.  Excellent!  But where will all the important government functionaries park then?  (The Congress building is at the end of the street, and those black Chevy Suburbans favored by government functionaries and drug kingpins--not, we hope, the same people--used to park there, their open doors blocking the sidewalk.)  This will be the subject of a future post.

This guy is using a putty knife to clean excess concrete from between and on top of the blocks in preparation for inserting the red grout between the pinkish paving stones--the standard look in the centro histórico.

These guys are putting the red grout into a plastic bag with a hole in the end and then filling all the joints with it.  They have water to mix with it in plastic Coke bottles.

The guy bending over is using a stiff brush to clean up the blocks.  Yes, he is going to brush the whole street!

What's that they're using for spacers to keep the blocks the right distance apart?  Why, it's folded up paper from the bags the cement came in.

Next time your significant other tells you s/he doesn't have the tools for the job, say, "do it Mexican."

OESTE A MECCA

The first page of the Kindle looks like a bibliography for an South Asian studies course.  We've got:

Salar Abodh, Iranian American

Aatish Taseer, British/Indian/Pakistani

Tahmima Anam, Bangladeshi

Azhar Abidi, Pakistani Australian

Siddhartha Mukherjee, Indian American

And, best of all, Amitav Ghosh, Bengali Indian

I'm reading his Sea of Poppies, about, among other themes, the British opium trade in Calcutta.  

I think I'm going to be a Ghosh completist.

And where did I get the names of most of these authors?  http://wordswithoutborders.org/

LINDA SUE EVANS

Sounds like the name of someone from an all-white gated community (if that's not a redundancy).  And had she been born later, she might have been.  But Linda Sue was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, in 1947.  She went to Michigan State U where she became a member of SDS.  Later she and her friends developed a penchant for using arms and explosives in order to rid the US of racists, capitalists, imperialists and sexists.

Here she is, top left, with some of those friends.

Bill Clinton pardoned her after she served 16 years of a 40-year sentence.

EL PRIMER MARATON EN QUERETARO

No wonder we missed it yesterday.  It started at 7:00 am when we were still asleep.

10,000 runners.

Winner of 42K was Kenyan, Mark Kipkosgei.  A proliferation of Ks.  

Looking for José Biola in next year's competition.

DOMINGO DE PASEO

On our Sunday walk we were looking for the marathon that was scheduled for today, but I think we were too late.  All we saw was bedraggled post-racers wearing their numbers.  So here are some photos of the progress, or lack thereof, in the reconstruction of the Plaza de Armas.

See that machine on the left?  It says New Holland, the town in PA where the company began and not that far from our former home(s) in Lancaster County.

I pity the two restaurants who have to survive through the dust and plywood wall blocking their patios.

A long trench.  For drainage?

This is a small section of the finished part.  Beautiful colors and the smell of lavender.

Happy domingo to all.

CORNO FRANCES Y MISE EN PLACE

Friday night symphony.  The Mahler nearly took the azotea off.  Standing ovation and many "bravos."

The mise en place for tonight's cena:

Penne rigate with prosciutto, garlic, roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, and a smidgen of diced chipotle pepper in a sherry cream sauce garnished with fresh basil and parmigiano- reggiano.  

FRUTAS CITRICAS

On the left is the naranjo/orange.  Sometimes it is really orange in color, but this time of year it's greenish.

In the middle is the mandarina, which, unlike the mandarin or clementine we're used to in the States, cannot be easily peeled or segmented.  And it's very juicy.

On the right is what the woman in the frutería called a lima real, which I thought was going to be like a lemon, but it's not.  It's sweet.  It may actually be, appropriately enough, a lima dulce.

One of each for the morning citrus drink:

Lemons, those yellow, sour things that make such good salad dressing and sauces, are generally not available here.  Limes, large and small, are commonplace.

QUESO CREMA

It looks like a familiar brand of cream cheese:

But it's green!  Is this sold in the US?  We never thought to look for different flavors on the cream cheese box.  The first time we bought it, we opened the foil and thought it was spoiled.  El sr J  retrieved the box from the garbage to check the sell-by date, and it was then that he noticed the "Sabor Poblano" and realized we had a new item on our hands.  And tongues. 

Delicious and not hot at all.  The next time el sr J bought it, the check-out person alerted him to the fact that it wasn't the regular cream cheese, but the poblano variety and, therefore, perhaps not something a gringo would care to eat.  His response:  tanto mejor.

At last we have an answer to Frank Zappa's question:  "Suzy Creamcheese, what's got into ya?"

ANGELA DAVIS. . .

was born in 1944 in Birmingham, AL.  We'll be there in about a week.  She majored in French at Brandeis and then studied philosophy with Herbert Marcuse.  After that, she became a revolutionary.  

I'd love to sit down with her and talk about literature and revolution.

SEGURIDAD

How do you keep bands of marauding miscreants and feral cats from leaping into your patio or garden?

There are several methods, some of which are more aesthetically pleasing than others.

Below we have the broken bottle method, which is the most common deterrent.  I wonder if you have to break your own bottles or if you can buy them already broken and bagged up.  I don't think this is very attractive.  I also think that one could fling a thick blanket over the glass, wear some padding and scamper over.

Here the broken glass is augmented with barbed wire.  Even more unattractive.

How about rolls of razor wire?  Here the broken glass, all of it green, looks a bit like plants on first glance.

Bigger rolls, some spikes on the corner and chain link fence.  Serious crime-stoppers.

Chain link fence and electric fence.  Looks sort of like a prison exercise yard, doesn't it.

More razor wire, tightly wound, on top of a semi-attractive wrought iron fence.

Chain link fence with barbed wire.  Another prison scene, especially since the top is angled in--to keep the inmates from escaping.

I like this look.  Little metal spikes.  Nicer looking than glass, but more expensive.

Or even better:  a metal fence with spikes on top.  Orale.