blah...blah...blah... Ginger! » Day to Day

Street Scenes

Jonna — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:03:08 +0000

When you aren’t blogging, there’s nothing to do with the cool pictures you happen to take. Yea, I can keep them on my phone and make my friends look at them but they are much better on a computer screen.

I do miss blogging when I go into these dry periods. My motivation just sort of dries up, not sure how or why or I’d fix it. I’ve even stopped reading blogs, mostly because I can’t comment anymore.

Anyone else have this problem with blogs on Blogger? I do all the sign in ritual and then it just goes blank and back to the sign in screen. It’s frustrating, I haven’t found a solution for it, and so I stop reading.

I like commenting, I like the conversational quality of blogs, and I hate it when I can’t figure out why something doesn’t work. I even googled the problem but none of the responses seemed relevant. The WordPress blogs still work fine for me but… if I don’t open my blog reader I don’t see them and I haven’t gotten to the point yet of dividing all the blogs I read by program.

I’ve been busy, that’s not an excuse as I always seem to be busy, and I’ve been trying to carve out more time for the garden. If you asked me what is my favorite thing to do, I’d say pottering around in the garden. So, why is it that I have so little time to do that? Bad scheduling decisions is what I think, and I’m trying to change that. I want to keep 4 hours in the middle of the day for the garden, to lay a bit in the sun, swim, play with the critters. Success is elusive.

Instead, I spend a lot of time in traffic. The traffic is horrible right now here in the centro. They are closing streets seemingly at random, rerouting buses, removing all parking on other streets. It’s gridlock in front of my house every day at 1:30pm and traffic is heavier all day. Sitting in traffic can be entertaining, I try not to let it bug me. For instance, this chandelier delivery truck was in front of me for blocks the other day. I maneuvered to try and get a better picture and the guy in the back finally noticed me and started posing.

Maybe I’ll start posting more about plants and the garden, it’s what seems to interest me the most. If anyone can solve my commenting problem, I’d be grateful. I miss my bloggers.

a little better, a little worse

Jonna — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:59:10 +0000

First off, you guys are GREAT!! I’ve had many offers of thermometers, real ones with mercury, and some friends here in town spotted one and bought it for me. So, I’m set on the thermometer thing. A little more embarrassing, showing how out of it I can be with new things, when I was at the doctor they had one of those new, digital ones with the pointy end… and they stuck it under my arm! It didn’t poke me like they do under the tongue, it seemed to read accurately, I felt kind of stupid. I’d no idea that the new ones are apparently designed for under the arm not under the tongue. I suppose putting a thermometer under your tongue is as old fashioned as a clock with hands.

So, that was the good news. This past weekend was pretty bad, I didn’t even get downstairs at all. The fever is pretty much gone but the headache is debilitating, my energy level is below zero and I’m having a serious shortness of breath problem. So, today we went around the corner to the lung clinic. A friend has a cousin who is a doctor there. He was great, his news was not so great. Probably this has less to do with the dengue anymore and more to do with my decreased immune system from the dengue as well as my COPD. I had a very, very low oxygen level. That probably explains the headache as well. He has me going for a nebulizer treatment twice a day for the next 3 days, taking some antibiotics, he changed my inhaler and promised he would have me feeling normal again. That would be really nice.

I was up and about all day today for the first time in over a week. I’m pretty tired but holding up. I took a pic of me hooked up to the nebulizer but it is soooooooo horrible that I had to put a filter on it. When did I get this old?

argh! I’m sick

Jonna — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:56:07 +0000

Mimi took this picture of me the other day, I’m under the comforter below the cat and next to the dogs.

I started feeling punk last Friday. Everyone laughs at me because I’m always cold but this was worse than usual. We had gone to lunch in the warmth of the afternoon but as it got closer to dusk I started getting chills that wouldn’t stop and I was so cold I was really miserable. I was pretty close to stealing some of the tablecloths from other tables to wrap around me when we finally left.

This week is the big spay and neuter clinic and Mimi is very busy. We got to the airport at 9:30pm to pick up two volunteers that are staying with us. I was trying to be pleasant but as soon as I could I went to bed. I’ve not left it for long since then. The headache is not horrible but it is constant and that wears me down. The fever is not super high but it is also constant and gives chills and aches.

Speaking of fever, can I just say that I hate digital thermometers and all I really want is a REAL thermometer, with mercury and a smooth glass bulb at the end? We don’t get sick very often so every time we want to know if we have a fever we seem to have to go and buy a new thermometer. The one my mother used when I was a child was still working 40 years later, I wish I knew what happened to it and could get my hands on it. I was hoping that we could buy one here in Mexico since this is not as bad of a nanny state as the US. When we decided to find out what my temp was, we located two of the digital ones. One wouldn’t even turn on, the other turned on and after 3 minutes of that sharp pokey end under my tongue said I had a temp of 104.4F I knew that wasn’t right, that’s approaching brain damage and I just wasn’t that delirious. So, Mimi went out and could only find another digital, in fact it looks exactly like the previous two except this one is in Centigrade and the others Fahrenheit so they must be pretty old. All that so that I now know that I am running somewhere between 100°F and 101°F, I had to use my iphone to convert from Celsius because I just don’t do body temps in C. Why I needed to know this I’m not sure, I think it makes me feel less guilty about just staying in bed for days.

By last night, Mimi was mentioning Dengue Fever fairly often. I don’t think that is what I have, the fever is not high enough and I’m not is horrible pain. I ache, my head hurts, I’m chilled but none of the dramatic stuff that you hear about with dengue. Still, better to know. So, today my friend took me over to the lab at a hospital nearby and I got the dengue test. We were in and out in under 10 minutes and the cost was $129pesos, less than $10us. She will pick up the results this evening and drop them off. Just another thing to file under the ‘better to know’ label since there is nothing they can do for dengue anyway. Actually, I will probably go to the doctor if this isn’t dengue and if I continue to have this fever since it might then be something they could actually do something about.

All this tossing and turning and shivering has made me a bit over emotional. Last night about 6:30pm I heard people come in downstairs, I thought I heard Mimi’s voice and I was waiting for her to come up and see how I was. 15 minutes went by, then 20 minutes and I started to get mad. I knew that I was really just upset that I was sick and that having someone else to get mad at was putting the blame elsewhere. I couldn’t seem to help it though. I heard laughing and what I was sure was Mimi’s voice. Finally I sent her a snarky text message, ‘when are you going to come up and see if I’m still alive’ or something like that. No response, more laughing. I fell asleep. My phone woke me up and it was Mimi telling me she was still at the clinic and hadn’t gotten home yet but would be up to see me as soon as she got here. I was so happy that she wasn’t home, I kept telling her how glad I was that she wasn’t here and ignoring me. I may have been a bit delirious.

I’m off to bed again, I’ve been up for almost an hour and I’m getting cold. Wish me luck and if you see one of those real thermometers with the mercury and the glass – buy it for me or tell me where it is. I promise not to break it just to play with the mercury, even though it was a lot of fun.

Happy New Year

Jonna — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:58:51 +0000

Warm and cozy in front of the fireplace TV

I feel bad that I was missing for so long without at least leaving a note. I’m fine and everyone else is fine too. I didn’t mean to disappear, it just happened. This is a busy season here, lots of parties and visitors and events. I also was feeling a bit overwhelmed by how much time I spent on the internet. It seemed that a bit of a break was in order. I had some good times and some bad times in the last month and I needed to just attend to life in person. I do appreciate the emails I got and I apologize for worrying some of you. I won’t do that again, if I need to take a break I’ll at least leave a note, or little cookie crumbs of information so you know I’m still out here puttering and pondering.

I have lots of pictures and even some short movies, all of them can be clicked to enlarge. They will have to suffice to catch you up on what I’ve been doing.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends.

Our best friend visited for 10 days. We went to the Yucatán State Fair and had a blast. It was one of the last days so the sale barn was really intense. I took a short video so you could hear and see it.

From Yucatan State Fair

We attended the most beautiful and elegant wedding of the season, perhaps of the decade. Really a spectacular event at a spectacular location. It was at a nearby Hacienda, the chapel was the location of the wedding ceremony and the huge lawns nearby were filled with glowing tents and elegant table service. There were bands and a dance floor, a fabulous dinner, around 500 guests, everything perfectly done.

These are two of the special cocktails of the evening, a tamarind-chile daiquiri and a mango-chile daiquiri. Sorry I forgot to take a picture before Debi and I had tried them.

Luminarias were lit and floated over the chapel after the ceremony.

The dinner tents and bandstand, it was a perfect night with warm breezes and stars shining.

The first dance of the bride and groom.

Two videos I took from our table.

From Boda Carlos and Maggie

I hope you enjoy these catch up peeks into our life over the last month. Lots of love to all of you and I hope that 2012 is wonderful year for all of us.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jonna — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 22:47:45 +0000

This is my favorite holiday of the year. No guilt, no religious mumbo jumbo, no presents, no ostentatious shows, no decorating, no costumes – those are all things I dislike about other holidays. Thanksgiving is just about being grateful for what you have and spending time with family and friends, good food and football. What’s not to like?

I gave my Kitchenaid mixer a workout yesterday, making a tropical mince pie, walnut bars and lemon bars. I didn’t feel like searching for canned pumpkin or baking a whole one so I skipped the pumpkin pie, I hope my friends forgive me.

It’s time to get ready and figure out how to get the desserts a few blocks away safely. I hope that all of you are enjoying this day, and that your lives are full and that you are thankful.

Oh Canada! and real culture shock

Jonna — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 05:49:44 +0000

Have I mentioned, I’m sure I have, that we have Canadian TV? I’m not at all sure I’m similar to other Americans* but being from California my concept of Canada is minimal. I know Vancouver which is hip and cool and kind of like Seattle. Other than that, not much. I’ve never lived where it snowed, never even lived where a freeze was not an odd occurrence. So, you could also say that I know very little about the eastern and northern parts of the US. I’ve been there of course, but I flew in and I complained endlessly about the cold and then I flew out. I have never shoveled snow, never had to change my tires twice a year, never lost my entire garden under a blanket of cold stuff so that you can’t even tell where the pond is, never really believed that any plant could survive living half the year under ice and then come back in the summer. Basically, I’ve never lived where Mother Nature was trying to kill me for at least half the year.

Watching Canadian TV I’ve learned some interesting stuff. Like, it seems all Canadians have cottages and there are areas designated as ‘cottage country’. These are houses out in the boondocks usually on a very cold looking lake but they are only occupied for a couple months a year. Some people actually have all year cottages but they have to spend a whole lot of money to spend the weekend on a frozen lake and survive. Some of these cottages you can’t even get to in the winter. I watched an episode of Design Inc tonight where they were decorating one of these cottages and it was inaccesible after Thanksgiving. At first, I forgot that Canadian Thanksgiving is in October and thought that wasn’t too bad. It really put an extreme deadline on poor Sarah Richardson.

Did you know there is apparently a large market in Canada for illegal cigarettes? I’m not sure what makes them illegal but I’m pretty sure they aren’t pot, they look like Marlboro’s in the government warning ad. I suppose it is possible that Canadian pot comes with a filter, I’m beginning to realize that my impression that Canada was just a sort of northern extension of the US like Alaska is not true.

I’m admitting my ignorance here but I’m not sure I’m the only American with this misconception. Because most Canadians speak the same language, look similar to Americans, live next door, and don’t make much of a fuss about us – I think we tend to think they have the same culture. I’ve met more Canadians in Mexico than I had ever met in my life. They are from all sorts of areas that I had never heard of, they are just as opinionated as Americans, they are patriotic, they are proud of their country and their traditions and they have different traditions. Yea, I know, so hit me over the head with a brick.

Even knowing so many Canadians now I didn’t really get it that the culture is so different until I started watching their TV shows. Of course, you have to remember that most of my TV watching is on HGTV and that means I watch a lot of design and renovation and house hunting shows. I had no idea how difficult it is to keep all warm air inside and all cold air outside before this. The amount of caulking and sealing and insulating not to mention the mud rooms (I’d never, ever heard of a mud room) is daunting. I have to admit that the idea of living in a sealed up house kind of grosses me out, all that stale air… yuck. However, if the option was freezing to death or paying thousands of dollars for oil (who knew? they have tanks of oil in their houses that they burn for heat!) I guess I’d get over the aversion to stale air. Especially since I would be unlikely to ever leave the house once that killer snow arrived.

There is one ad that got me to write this post. I am kind of dumbfounded by the idea and can’t seem to stop pondering it. They have these drops, D Drops, that they put on their food to get enough vitamin D because they don’t see the sun enough and they’d get rickets or something. They put it on the baby’s bottles, the kids cereal, for all I know they put it in their gin and tonics. D Drops! I can’t really get my brain around that. No sun, no sun for a long, long time every year. Well, maybe a little sun but low and grey and not sending the vitamin D. That is the weirdest ad of all, I got over the ad where they say that 38% of Canadian women admit they wash their sheets less than once a month. Yea, it’s gross but I kind of figure they are lying to sell their detergent that is so much better at removing old body oils from sheets. But… NO SUN!

So, I started contemplating culture shock. I didn’t really get any of the normal symptoms when I moved to Mexico. Mexico seems familiar to me, I grew up not far away and it’s always been somewhere I’ve gone a lot. Yes, there were adjustments but none of the real, slap you in the face, how friggin odd is that, classic culture shock. On the other hand, I’m now fairly certain that I would be locked in the throes of full blown culture shock if I ever moved to Canada. Let’s be honest here, I’d have the same problem if I moved to New Hampshire. I don’t think I could easily adjust to a life built around surviving the elements. I spent a summer in Alaska once, I thought I was very brave. Actually, I hated it. It was the coldest summer of my life and I lived in San Francisco for years.

I’ve now decided that my easy adjustment to Mexico does not show my cosmopolitan sophistication but actually just shows that it wasn’t much of a challenge. I guess I’ll just go and put on another Jimmy Buffet song and pretend I’m hip.

*American. Yes, I know that there are 3 countries in North America and that people in both north and south America can call themselves Americans. Cool, go for it. The truth is though that the English word for people from the USA is American just as the English word for people from the Estados Unidos de México is Mexican. If you want to pronounce USAian then more power to you, I’m not interested.

Missing in Action

Jonna — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 07:10:47 +0000

I've missed my couch and TV

Yea, I’ve been MIA for a bit. It’s not that I have been wallowing on the couch watching old MASH reruns, well, only one night. Mostly I’ve been too busy to spend any time on the computer. I talked about it a lot, does that count?

The Blogger Conference was fabulous! We talked and talked and I learned a lot. I had huge resolutions to revamp almost everything and research other things I’ve now forgotten. It was great to meet the next generation of Mérida bloggers, they are energetic and inspired and interested in everything. I felt a bit old hat to tell the truth. I need to get inspired again and start carrying my camera with me and share all the things I still love about this wonderful city.

Nancy and Paul from Mazatlán stayed with us the weekend of the conference and we had a blast with them. The day after the conference was a benefit house tour for an AIDS group and we all indulged our house voyeurism. I love looking at other people’s houses, I guess that’s why I spend so much time watching HGTV. I’m happy to say the benefit was a huge success and the houses were fabulous. The after party at Hennessy’s was great but we had to get Paul and Nancy to the airport so didn’t stay long.

The next morning I was off to Akumal for the annual owner’s meeting. Mimi is deep in the late details of a huge benefit for Evolución, the shelter she volunteers at, and she couldn’t go. My friend Sheila went with me and we spent a day in Playa del Carmen looking at furniture for her house and eating Thai and Indian food. The rest of the time there I was meeting with the other owners or the management or talking to friends. We returned to Mérida this afternoon and I’m exhausted.

Tomorrow I need to get my hair cut again, get some food in the house, check on the damage from another leafcutter attack and meet with the tech from the company that made the light for my inside pond, the one that I loved and that died within a week. Saturday is the big benefit party for Evolución. Sometime in there I really need to do some laundry or I’ll be wearing the same thing everywhere. Right now I need to go and snuggle with my furkids and lounge on the couch watching HGTV.

Latin American Bloggers Conference

Jonna — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 05:26:32 +0000

I’ve been remiss in not posting sooner about the 4th annual Blogger’s Conference on Nov 5th here in Mérida. I think I’ll consider this a reminder post. If you can make it, you really want to come. It’s always fun, always informative and it is a great chance to meet and talk with other bloggers.

Here is the official site with all the information Latin American Bloggers Conference.

I’m excited about the conference and about seeing some of my blogger friends from around the country and meeting some of the new bloggers I’m enjoying. Go and check out the official site, Debi has been updating it with interesting things to do in addition to the conference. See you there!

My new toy

Jonna — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:54:45 +0000

Isn’t it beautiful? I’ve never had a kitchenaid stand mixer before, I didn’t even know about them until a year or two ago. It’s not something you would consider if you live in an RV, it weighs a ton.

I started seeing references to them at some point after we got the house and I even started looking at them in stores here. When the guys from next door brought it to me as a gift, I pulled out my cell and showed them a couple pictures I’d taken at different stores with the price tag. Doesn’t everyone take pictures of price tags in stores?

It’s a pretty cool gift. I was almost speechless. Even a Porsche in the driveway wouldn’t shut me up but this came very, very close. It’s like a Porsche for your kitchen, and it matches the wall too!

I was a little intimidated by it at first. I moved it around, admired it, looked at the different hooks, and didn’t turn it on for a few weeks. Meanwhile I scoured the internet for things to make with it. I was not quite ready to tackle bread so I started with the stuff that everyone raved was easy to make with this wonderful machine.

First, I made pie crust! …and the apple pie to go inside it but really I was after the pie crust experience. It was easy, not only that but it was good. I long ago gave up making pie crust because it usually tasted like cardboard and even then wasn’t easy to manipulate. This one was easy, not sticky and tasted good. Wow!

Then I made banana bread because we have another banana bloom and I have to start getting rid of the frozen bananas from the last one. That was good too, so good that it seemed to disappear before I got a picture of it.

Next, marshmellows! Malvaviscos in Spanish which was my new word for the day. Coffee flavored marshmellows actually and they are very good. Who knew home made marshmellows were so different from the store bought ones? Now I want it to get cold immediately so I can make hot chocolate and put in my coffee flavored malvaviscos.

Bread is next, but I might take a break first and regroup. I’m a little intimidated by the idea of making bread. I haven’t done that since my hippy days and frankly, what with all the stone ground and seeds and nuts, it wasn’t very appetizing. Maybe I’ll make something really Mexican, like hot dog buns.

Mexican bureaucracy… it works!

Jonna — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:58:07 +0000

Ocho in his favorite spot, cuddling with the mama jaguar

Remember how I was beating myself up for screwing up our visa payment? We filled everything out for a refund and were told by Hacienda (Mexican IRS) to wait until the papers were received in Mexico City and they sent someone to our house to verify our address and then we would get a voucher to refund the money we had paid erroneously. Remember that?

I admit, I was not overly optimistic that we would get our money back anytime soon if ever. I had no faith, I would have felt about the same in any other country. Governments are really good at taking money in, rarely are they very good at sending it back.

Since my visa renewal extension expires tomorrow, we went off and paid the fees again this morning. I was kind of happy that the better exchange rate had given me almost exactly that amount more than I usually get for my check every month. Still, paying twice is no fun.

This afternoon the doorbell rang and who could it be but a guy on a motorcycle from the federal government here to check our address and issue us a refund voucher! Wow! He came in, he looked at our passports, he wrote a lot of stuff on forms and he issued us the voucher right then and there! Tomorrow we are off to the bank to cash them. I’m incredibly impressed, it’s been almost exactly one month. Pretty damn good México!