Wednesday, December 30, 2009

¡Three turkeys!

Feliz Navidad! Christmas was a busy time. I had Christmas Eve dinner with G&L in their gorgeous home with a dozen other merrimakers. As always, there was way too much food - delicious of course - followed by Carol singing, then dessert - wow, 4 kinds including Christmas pudding from Canada with rum sauce!.
I had a pretty busy Christmas day. I started the day with an 8:30 beach walk with my Friday walking buddy, Cathryn, then, being biz as usual in MX (regardless of the day), the tianguis sellers set up their wares in the square. I opened the used bookstore which is really close to the square for my Friday volunteer stint and sold quite a few books to tourists. I dropped by Pam & Greg's after I closed and was in time for a fruit and fritatta brunch there - lucky me, yum, then to the beach to touch base and say Merry Christmas, I didn't stay long as I had not thought to put on my bathing suit when I left the house at 8AM. Back home in mid afternoon, I made up a Mex chayote/corn dish to share when I joined friend, Marcia, at her beautiful year-round home with another group of pals for a champagne C dinner.
Boxing Day was a turkey free day (it was music night/open mic at Palapa Joe's - lasagna was on the menu). But the next day I stopped by Rose's to sample the peanut butter pie (yum) she had made for the Christmas Dinner which I didn't get to taste and came home with a plateful of her delicious left-overs. I have certainly had my fill of turkey for the month. Anyway, those were my Christmas dinners.
Brook and Terri rolled into town about 7:30 Wed night Dec 23 looking a bit road-weary but certainly in time for C dinner with Rose and her cast of thousands. I managed to not have my camera on hand for any of these occasions. Next time, for sure.

The run up to Christmas


Friends, Barb & Jack, rolled in off the bus from PV on Tues Dec 8th so we got to play and do things together. Barb helped me get my tree together for the Silent Auction, we made a couple runs to Melaque together (plus they did a couple on the bus - ever the explorers ). We had Sunday brunch and swims on the beach here at Quinta Valentina's, joined pals for an afternoon at Tenacatita Beach where the wave action is a bit lighter and the beach is just as good for walking. We sampled the tacos at Chop-chop's and cruised the square. It is our new habit to have bebidas a la playa (drinks at the beach) at Figaro's on Fridays and they joined in on two Fridays. On Sat, Dec 19, I delivered them to the bus stop in Melaque for the continuation of their trip. They overnighted in Colima, changed buses in Guadalajara and arrived at B's bro's in Patzcuaro in time for Sunday dinner. Barb reports that it is really cold in Patz (it's in the mountains of Michoacan) at nights and, in addition to her brother's fireplace, she's happy for her fleecy, long pants and socks!
For us in LM, the weather finally has cooled a bit - I've even put the duvet on the bed. Perhaps the end of dengue mosquitos for a while. I'm back to joining the gal pals for cocos and swims at Valentina's in the afternoons. The cocos, we're told are good for almost everything (has lots of electrolites) and with dengue so prevalent we are triyng to keep our immune systems at the ready. I guess it is working as (touch wood) I am still healthy.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Christmas Tree Fiesta


This was the brainchild of Kate and Mary three years ago. A fundraiser to benefit local schools, it consists of members of the ex-pat community signing up to design a Cristmas tree of whatever ilk - anything goes! and bringing it in to Cafe de Flores for a silent auction.
On Thursday, Dec 10, a crowd of eager locals arrived to sample the sumptuous creations of Alex while making choices and bidding on their favourite trees. Dennis was the busy mixologist and you can't not try a cup of Mary's rich and foamy Eggnog.
This year there were more than 30 trees on auction and while people fought to be the highest bidder, waitpersons strolled about offering tasty appies. After an hour or so, the bidding sheets were collected, winners were announced and folks happily paid up and went home with an 'interesting' tree for the season.
For my tree I used a small 24" pretend fir tree and decorated it with homemade chocolate rum balls and peanut-butter balls which with visiting friend, Barb's, help I wrapped in bright red and yellow cellophane. We added a bit of tinsel and there it was - done. It went for a good price and managed to survive the evening intact - not a ball missing.
I was the lucky winner of Rusty's copper coco palm with one lone coco (red marble) in the sand beneath it. At approx 1 foot in height, it is exactly the right size for my space and will certainly not blow over in the wind. The fundraiser met its $10,000 peso goal toward ceiling fans for the primary school which will be installed next week.

Cafe de Flores Artist Show Opening

Cafe de Flores opened for the season on December 1st and had their first monthly artist opening from 5 -7 pm on Sunday Dec 6th. FIve artists showed at least three pieces each and these will be on display for the month. Alex, daughter owners, Mary and Dennis, is the chef at Cafe de Flores and as always created some delicious appies to add a party atmosphere. Some of my work can be seen here. It is great to have a venuwe like this to showcase budding (we hope) talent. Anyway, we are not bad for oldsters.

Oh, swell!!




...and swell it did! Wow, it was a week ago - time flies. I slipped on the stairs and mashed the outside of my right foot on the step below. Ouch! I was hurrying to get to the beach for a morning walk. Well, I got there with my rapidly swelling foot to find (fortunately, I guess) there was no beach. It was a very high tide so my friend and I went back to her casa for coffee and a bag of ice for my foot. Her hasband did his Boy Scout best and suggested getting an x-ray - it looked like I'd broken something, so I did what I was told. The only x-ray machine in this little town is at the vet's and that's where I went, mewing piteously. Happily, the xrays showed nothing broken and now, a week later, I am limping, the purple is still there but the swelling has mostly gone down. My best solution for icing the foot comes courtesy of my sister who had way back given me this nifty wine chiller. Turns out it works as well for wounded feet as it does for white wines!
At least I don't have dengue like half the town! Yet.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

No Rain Here - Wrong!!

Well, who knew?! On the last official day of the hurricane season, last night was a very soggy one. rain on and off until about 6 :30 AM when it was definitely 'on' = .5" total. Happily, my road, Calle Frida Kahlo, is still passable so I was able to drive down to a planning meeting for Art Walk 2010, and take a couple more pieces of my art to the walls at Cafe de Flores. There will be a showing of several local artists on Dec 6th (yours truly included) for the month. More on that later. The rain set in again on the weekend and by Sunday morning we'd had another 1.5 inches. Yikes, in December! Those dengue carrying mosquitoes will be all over us in time for Christmas, I fear.