Morning Thoughts

After weeks of packing, unpacking and moving furniture, I am able to take a couple of days off. I still have a lot of work to do on this new house in order to be comfortable. I do not have a working water heater nor is my washer/dryer hooked up. Rubin, the man who moved me over here, is coming tomorrow to help with a few things. In the meantime, I am going to try to rest today. After I get settled in here I will walk around San Antonio and take pictures and post them. 

I have a view of the sunrise out my kitchen window. It faces the back yard. I have a view of the sunset from the balcony in the front of the house. I feel so lucky to have a sense of space instead of feeling closed in. 

It is noisy here now because of the holidays. More fireworks will be going off as New Year's Eve approaches. I feel like I have a new life now. It was worth all the effort but for sure I will sell my heavy furniture before I move again. 

I wish everyone a very Happy New Year. I may not write again until after the holiday. I appreciate the e mails people have been sending to me. Maybe one day I can get the comments to work on here. That would be a good goal.  Until then, you can e mail me at: Petwalker40@yahoo.com

My kitchen

Mural painted on my wall in the living room.

Sunset as seen from my new deck

I sat up on my deck this evening and watched the sunset with Chico. We are very very happy here. Lots of work to do still but that is okay.

The mountains.

Chico is on my lap, watching the street. He loves to watch everything from above.

It is still a mess up on the deck. Needs cleaning and fixing up but you get the idea. It is so nice to be out of that lower apartment with my landlord and his wife living above me.

I think this will be my place every evening at sunset time. I feel free finally. It is wonderful to see the world again instead of being stuck with no view.

Morning Thoughts

Count Down. Two days before moving day. I haven't slept over three hours a night for the past week. I think and worry too much. This morning I told the owner of the local grocery store that I will be moving on Saturday. He said, "Why are you moving? Too noisy there?" 

I guess this corner is famous for noise. Or infamous, depending on your point of view. 

I said, "Yes and walking up and down this hill is getting too hard for me. I am getting too old."

 I figured it was more polite to say that I am getting too old for here instead of complaining about the neighborhood. 

I asked if he would save me some boxes. I never have enough boxes. I have too much stuff. Maybe after I move, I will be able to get rid of a lot of it. For now, I don't have the time to do that. I HATE MOVING! I probably would have stayed here until my death but my landlord tipped the scales too far to the bad side by raising the rent by one third and threatening that if I didn't pay it, he would make me move out because his relative wants to live here and is willing to pay what he wants for it. So I decided to move. I don't like to be threatened. Funny, the relative never showed up and he tacked a For Rent sign on the outside of the house.

Now the bad things far outweigh the good and it is time to go to a new place. I have put up with a lot in order to avoid moving. This morning when I walked out my door, again I saw a pile of dog poop right next to the step. The neighbors are rocking and rolling with loud music. Garbage is overflowing down the street from the dump area. Time to leave. 

I am not happy.   Maybe after I am in the new place and I have slept a few nights, I will feel better about it. But as I already wrote, I HATE MOVING!

Morning Thoughts

I picked up the Guadalajara Reporter and was sad to read the headlines: Violent four days leaves 40 dead in metro area.

Most of the homicides occurred in the metropolitan area. Nine on Dec 6th, nine on the 11th, Some were multiple homicides. Five men were massacred at one house. A couple were shot dead in their car while their two daughters sat in the back seat. Four men were killed on Sunday. There are few leads in these cases. 

Also, in the Lakeside area, there were a series of home invasions by armed thieves and break ins of at least three gated compounds. (I have always thought that living in a poor Mexican community is far safer than living in one of those gated compounds.) 

Two women were mugged on the streets in Ajiic while walking home in the dark after having dinner. The mugger grabbed one woman's purse and pushed her down. Ran off with the purse. This woman was an acquaintance of mine. She had her purse slung over her shoulder and in front of her. I always thought that was safe. But the mugger got it from her. She is okay but it was a bad experience. This happened in the area near El Torito, which is down the street from my area. 

I hated to read these things. Also some local businesses have been held up at gun point. Time to walk with caution here. I took everything out of my purse that I would hate to lose and now only have the few pesos in it that I need for the day. I never go out at night, so that isn't a problem for me. But people are desperate. Christmas season is always a time of more crime. Few of these crimes are ever solved.

Pay is very low in Mexico. Policemen in this area make a little less than five hundred dollars a month. That is what it would be in American dollars. Rents are high. Even my little hovel has gone up a thousand pesos  a month. I don't know how poorly paid Mexicans can afford to live here. I guess that purse snatching seems like a logical solution for some of them. Murder is another story. That is most likely related to the drug cartels. 

I keep thinking about that family in the car. And the two children witnessing their parents getting shot and killed in the front seat. Tragic. 

I won't be writing for a few days. I am moving. I found a little house in San Antonio, near the plaza. I have lived in this hovel for over three years. The noise is never ending. The sewer stinks. There is a pile of garbage a few yards away. I feel like I am living with my landlord and his wife. They have no door separating their apartment from mine. They come in late and ignore the fact that I am trying to sleep below them. I guess I have my landlord to thank for finally tipping the scale to the bad side and forcing me to move out. 

Cold weather soup

I spent my afternoon in my apartment because we are having some cold weather. I made a delicious bean, ham, fresh tomato and lots of other veggie soup. I also put in a bunch of grilled potatoes with a red pepper sauce on top that was from the barbecued chicken stand. Wish I could share it with everyone. 

Happy Virgin of Guadalupe Day

Today is a national holiday. Fireworks have been shooting off since four a.m.  The brass band has been playing in my neighborhood since six. Chico hates the band and is sitting in my lap, shaking. This is a very noisy time of the year. Happy Virgin of Guadalupe Day everyone.

Morning Thoughts

I have forgotten about my blog for awhile. Thinking about this big rent increase my landlord has landed on me. Either I pay one third more for my apartment or else I have to move. So, I have been looking around at rentals. Very discouraging. Inexpensive rentals are extremely difficult to find these days. 

Plus, my neighbor is getting into the Christmas spirit, which means he plays his music full blast day and night. So loud that I am driven out of my apartment. With all of this going on, the blog has taken a back seat. I will write after things settle down for me. In the meantime, HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE. I hope things are going better for you than in my life at the moment. Chaotic here in my world.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM CHICO AND OLIVE!

Greek Yogurt

These cold mornings have kept me in the apartment lately. I have been looking at cooking shows on Netflix and trying out different things. I love yogurt, especially Greek yogurt. I couldn't find a yogurt maker or cheese cloth for straining it or even a thermometer. So I experimented.

I bought a plug-in light socket and an extension cord and rigged up a warm spot inside of a large cooking pan. I did that by putting the light inside the pan and covering it with a towel. I guessed at the temperatures needed for the yogurt. I put the scalded and cooled milk along with half a cup of yogurt into a glass canning jar. Then I tucked the glass jar which had been wrapped in a wash cloth, inside of the pan with the light. Covered it and left it with the light on, inside the pan for eight hours. It worked. I had a jar of yogurt which I strained through a paper coffee filter in the frig overnight. Ended up with Greek yogurt. This first batch has some blueberries in it. Now it is on to the next batch. Living in Mexico where many things can't be found, leads to lots of creativity. 

Here is a photo of a small portion of the first batch that I made, with a few blueberries. No sugar. Delicious.

Maybe a picture will be worth a thousand words. Below is the Yogurt maker. Since I also couldn't find a light bulb less than 25 watts, I had to separate it from the yogurt by using my vegetable steamer and a microwave safe cereal bowl. 

I used a big glass canning jar like the empty one in the photo, but with the lid on. Below is a photo of the yogurt which is straining out the whey. I put it in the frig like that overnight and will come out like my first batch in that first photo. 



I need to figure out something to make with that whey. Maybe a soup? Don't want to waste anything. 

My Fish Veracruz

This morning Chico and I walked to the fish market on the carretera near Colon. I bought a big piece of fresh Mahi Mahi. Next door to the fish market is a nice vegetable market. I bought some small yellow peppers, onions, mushrooms, cilantro, mint, and a piece of nopal cactus. I made the fish Veracruz this afternoon. Here are a couple of photos. I am not a very good cook but I think I have perfected this dish.  Chico liked it too. Just the fish, no veggie sauce. 

Morning Thoughts

San Andres festival is finally over. But the beat goes on. Today is Inauguration Day, a national holiday. The new president is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, for short known as AMLO. From today's news I learned that he is the most left wing president Mexico has had in recent history. Lots of fireworks have been going off this morning, and yesterday, and nine days before that. San Andres holidays became Inauguration Day. 

Poor Chico. Some days he just wants to sit in my lap. He is a Mexican dog so usually these loud fireworks don't bother him but this has been a very long stretch, including three mornings of waking up to a loud brass band at our front window. When will it end? In Mexico, there seem to be more days of celebration than working days. 

It has also been very cold here in the mornings. I looked at the weather report and it is supposed to get nicer now. Yesterday Chico and I took a walk to the fish market. I bought a big slice of Mahi Mahi that was just delivered to the shop. I made fish Veracruz. It was the best fish Veracruz I have ever had. 

(Every restaurant where I have ordered it here serves a thin, soggy piece of fish that has been frozen and thawed.)

I have been spending a lot of time at home, looking at cooking shows and practicing my own cooking. Doing this makes me extremely critical of local restaurants. My friends don't like to eat out with me because I look too closely at the food, the service and the prices. Wish I had a nice enough place so I could invite them to my house to have some fish Veracruz, made with a beautiful piece of fresh Mahi Mahi. 

Goodbye brass band-----for now.