city slickers duding it up

The house with no name has changed. A lot.

For the past four months, our little situation comedy has hosted a long list of cast members disguised as friends and relatives. My Mom. My "second" family: Laura, Josh, Jeremiah, Eddy, and Culprit. My Air Force friend Robin. Christy and Darrel's friends: Lisa, Mark, and Diane.

And, of course, Darrel and Christy. I dropped them off at the Manzanillo Airport this afternoon. Early tomorrow morning, they will be back home in Bend. In the cold.

My blogger pal Jennifer Rose has a theory about the visit from my brother and sister-in-law; they were trying to do me in. And they tried again yesterday.

Over three years ago, I joined Ray Calhoun, the owner of The Only Tours, on a scouting trip following our rainy season (i never do anything twice). He was interested in which trails were still open and which would require work to repair.

It was one of the best days I have had in Mexico. I ended the essay with a promising thought: "I intend to take a few more runs myself." It turned out to be a promise not kept.
Until yesterday. Darrel loves anything with an engine that can crash through the bush and put the rider on death's doorstep. Since his arrival in December, he has talked of little else than taking an ATV ride.

And so we did. Ray has a standard tour that takes his groups through our "jungle" up a dry river bed (at this time of year) ending in a hike to a waterfall.

It sounded enticing to the three of us. Because I wanted to capture as much of the adventure as I could for you, I took along my digital SLR and my telephone. I looked like one of those improperly dressed news photographers who tried to tag along with American troops in the Gulf War.

Racing across open sands with a guide and two family members is one of those experiences I will remember for a long time. One reason I drive as fast as I do on Mexican highways is to get a taste of that adrenaline rush. On the river bed yesterday, I drank a tray of those cocktails.

And no outing would be worth doing without a little injury. On my last trip, my legs were whipped with some sort of nettle. The result was more annoying than painful. To avoid that this time, I unwisely wore long pants. Instead, I ended up with a small scratch on my bare arm.

This area of Mexico offers a cornucopia of enthralling sights. The river bed was not one. It simply looks like a desert. But it forms a utilitarian highway for the ATVs.

Along the way, nature offered up several sights new to me. A cow giving birth to a calf in the river bed. Four partially-grown great white egrets still hanging around their mother for additional protection. Three yellow-blossomed primavera trees putting on a late season show. And boulder after boulder that the river had incredibly pushed down stream.

We were soon to encounter more of those boulders. Ray stopped us near what looked like a dam of boulders, and announced that we were at the trail head. When Darrel told me we were going on a hike, I thought Psalm 23. "He has me lie down in green pastures,/ he leads me beside quiet waters,/he refreshes my soul." That sort of thing.

The reality was a bit more prosaic -- and far more challenging. To get to the waterfall, we had to cross a series of boulder dams that would have felt quite at home on Frodo's journey to Mordor.

But we were not going to Mordor. We were headed to a spectacular waterfall that made the effort worthwhile.

When we first caught a glimpse of the waterfall, it struck me as an Indiana Jones compilation of the rock scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the gap leading to the temple in The Last Crusade. My mistake of wearing long pants kept me from finishing the last climb to the waterfall. They were simply too tight on my legs. And neither my camera nor my telephone were happy with the abundance of water.

And it was the water that made all the difference. The contrast between the arid bed down stream and the clear, refreshing flow at the waterfall perfectly contrasted how quickly our local landscape can change.

It was a perfect way to wind up my visit with Christy and Darrel. The trip and a well-executed dinner for all three of us at Marlena's put a great coda on their four month visit.

They will be back. I suspect when they return to the 20 degree winter weather in Bend, they will be looking forward to their next appearance on Mexpatriate.

I know I am.

this little piggy had roast beef

As Darrel and Christy's time in Mexico draws down, we have been trying to eat at some of their favorite restaurants. (There are several where they will never eat again. But that is for another story.)

One of the first places I took them (and Mom) was the pozole place near my house. So near, that if you could walk through the wall in Christy's bedroom, you would be in the restaurant owner's house.

"Restaurant" may be an adjective too grand for the place. It is a house where the front has been dedicated to selling pozole. Three tables. A few chairs.

But her pozole is the best I have eaten in Mexico. I say that advisedly. Pozole is one of those foods like potato salad and lasagna where even the criteria for "best" are highly disputed. For my money, though, it is best.

I am not certain why we have not eaten there more than twice. Probably because, in the northern tourist season, there are a lot of choices on offer. In a couple of weeks, that will no longer be true.

All foods have stories associated with their origins, and pozole is no exception. The hominy meat stew we know as pozole was a favorite of the Aztec elite. Not simply because it was a tasty meal, but because of its religious significance.

The Aztecs, like most Mesoamerican cultures, believed the gods formed humans from maize. But, the Aztecs added an additional culinary treat.

The cult of Huitzilopochtli demanded human sacrifices to honor their tempermental god. Those chosen for that honor were usually captured enemy warriors. After the hearts were cut from the living captives, the body would first be tossed down the steps of the temple.

But the honor did not end there. The bodies of the warriors were cut up, cooked in a broth with hominy, and then consumed only by the Aztec elite. The theological theory was that the spirit of the dead warrior would revitalize the eater.

And thus was pozole born.

The hands of warriors no longer adorn contemporary pozole. It is usually pork. (The Pacific Islanders refer to human flesh as "long pork" for good reason.) Or chicken.

There is a butcher about three blocks from my house whose sign is an apt commentary on how the various roles in making pozole can be reversed, as only Mexican humor can.

I can feel a short story coming on. A mix of my pozole restaurant -- and a little Sweeney Todd.   

plugging pesos into telcel

For those of us who do not use automatic bill payment, travel can serve up surprises far more original than a hissing cockroach in the bathtub of that charming hotel in Saigon.

Whenever I am going to be away from the house-with-no-name, I try to remember to put advance deposits on my electric, land line, and cellular telephone accounts. That always presents two problems.

The first is logistics. I can pre-pay my TelMex account (my land line) here in Barra de Navidad. But I need to drive to Manzanillo to prepay my TelCel (my cell phone) account, and to Cihuatlán to prepay my CFE (electric) bill.
The second problem is estimating how much to pre-pay.

Take my electric bill. When I left for Australia, I left my brother and sister-in-law in charge of the house. I also knew they were going to have two sets of friends down while I was gone.

I had no idea how to plan the electrical usage. But I have had visitors at the house since December. I simply doubled the cost for the previous two months and deposited it.

Not surprisingly, I overestimated the cost. I now have a healthy balance in my CFE account when I head to Colombia in a week.

I was not as fortunate with my calculations for my cellular plan. My usual monthly plan costs $360 (Mx).

I have heard of horror stories of cellular telephones eating up data on cruise ships. Cruisers return home to find bills in the hundreds of dollars.
To avoid that, I deposited $2,000 (Mx) in my account to cover my January bill, with over $1,600 (Mx) as a deposit -- just in case something went amiss. As you may recall, I spent nearly $600 (US) for internet access on the ship. I left my wi-fi on, and turned off my data usage.

In theory, I should now have a healthy balance left in my TelCel account. I don't.

My TelCel bill arrived on Sunday. That is a portion of it at the top. Not only was all of the $1,600 (Mx) eaten up, I now owe an additional $1,569 (Mx).

While I was in Australia, I checked the website to see if Telcel offers an international package for travelers. It does. It is a bit expensive, but it is far less than the $3,100 (Mx) I have shelled out for cellular telephone service for the past two months.

I take Darrel and Christy to the airport on Wednesday. On Thursday, I will drive to Manzanillo to work out whatever I need to do to get on an international plan for the Colombia trip.

Even if I do not consciously use the telephone, some applications keep on ticking on their own -- like my step counter.

And, yes, I know, I could solve the deposit issue if I simply joined the twenty-first century and signed up for automatic bill payment -- just as my credit cards are paid up north. But, I have told you before why that is not currently a possibility. There is no need to plow that ground again.

For all of these small travails, it feels great to be back in the traveling saddle.

just kidding -- this time

Christy loves animals. Of all sorts.

When I returned from Australia, I discovered that a small pack of dogs would line up at the front door each day. They looked as if they were waiting in line at a depression-era soup kitchen.

And they were.

Even though every dog amongst them was chorizo-fat, they had managed to convince Christy that they were poor street dogs with no homes and certainly no regular meals. She had been feeding them table scraps and dog biscuits.

But that was not the oddest supplicant. I have written before about the goats that hang out in the lot across the street (stop kidding around). The flock has ranged from one to five. There is an occasional culling when one (or more) heads off to the birria pot.

The longest-lasting resident has been a brown and white nanny goat. Somehow, she figured out that Barco's dog biscuits were just what a goat needed. I would give her one now and then. Not being very original with names, I started calling her "Nanny."

She tolerated Barco's antics. Even after she gave birth to a kid, she would let Barco sniff around. Eventually, Barco and the kid grew up together. I tried videoing their antics, but both were far too swift to be confined within a viewfinder.

Barco died. And the kid, now grown into young adulthood, either ran away and joined a circus, or was sold off to a butcher. I like to think the former is true.

While I was in Australia, Christy decided to adopt Nanny. She took Nanny water. She fed her vegetable peelings and watermelon. And she greatly increased her dog biscuit intake. My front door does not open without a tethered Nanny dashing toward it -- usually bleating for attention.

Yesterday afternoon, there was a new kid on the block. I knew Nanny was pregnant -- very pregnant. But I had no idea just how pregnant she was.

Without any notice (or at least none that I could discern), Nanny decided it was time to get the furry beast inside her out into the world. I have always been amazed at how quickly kids accommodate to their new environment. They are helpless at birth.

But, within an hour, it was up and capable of running at an unsteady speed across the lot. Of course, in the wild, there would not be a group of admiring neighbors standing around. It would be a pack of wild dogs or the odd lone great cat.

That is not the life this goat will lead. It will enjoy a somewhat sheltered life (even though Christy will not be here to spoil it) until it is time to send it off to market.

Until then, it will be fun watching it grow up.

no more trump

In a surprise move, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced this morning that he had signed an executive order effectively blocking the import of news of the Trump Administration effective immediately.

"Mexico is a land where visitors come to enjoy our weather, our beaches -- and, yes, our tequila. It is a happy place. Maybe the happiest place on earth.

"We are in danger of losing all of that because of what is happening up north. Some Americans and Canadians are now coming south -- importing with them political discontent. We Mexicans have plenty of political discontent. We do not need any more. No mas."

The executive order relies upon one of the administration's reform acts (The Practically Perfect Telecommunications Act of 2015) that authorizes the president to "temporarily block, inhibit, or annul telecommunications signals at events and places deemed critical for the public safety." According to the executive order, all digital and written communications that mention the following words will be blocked in Mexico: "Trump," "wall," "not my president," "sobbing softly in the corner," "emigrate."

A source who must remain anonymous due to his simultaneous positions in Mexican and American intelligence services, reports the software and implementation of the program would have been impossible without the help of altruistic private persons in Russia, Cuba, and China.

President Peña said he was confident that the new program would put an end to the emotional political outbreaks amongst the tourist and expatriate communities. "Happy tourists will enjoy Mexico -- and spend more money. The very brand name of Mexico is at risk."

When asked how long the order will remain in effect, he responded: "It depends on what you mean by 'is.'"
   

prime rib and red sails in the sunset

It is Christy's birthday. And we celebrated in true Cotton style.

All four of us marked birthdays during the past four months. Darrel's and mine were in December and January. Mom's birthday was in February, but she was back in Bend by then. And here it is March -- and it is Christy's turn.

We had talked about dining out at one of several local restaurants. It did not take us long to realize we could put together a better birthday dinner here than at any other eatery. And so we did.

Christy is a meat lover. Prime rib, in particular. And we now have a dependable provider. Mind you, it is choice, rather than prime. But it turned out to be one of the most tender pieces of prime rib any of us had ever eaten.

With prime rib, I usually prepare some classics. Of course, there is my cabernet au jus that almost always complements prime ribs here.

When we were in Manzanillo on Monday, I bought some baby asparagus, but it had already gone off. Instead, I opted for blistered green beans. But all of the green beans in town were woody. I could not even find a package of peas for my famous mint peas.

Instead, we decided a Greek salad would do nicely for the vegetable. Potatoes would be our starch -- cooked on the grill with onions.

And dessert? The meal would be heavy enough. So, we threw together an arugula watermelon goat cheese combination with an Israeli seed topping. It was far better than birthday cake.

We all had a hand in the meal. And it met our goal -- to beat anything we could buy locally for Christy's birthday.

As luck would have it, Mother Nature gave Christy the best gift of all.

We decided to bike down to the beach to watch the sunset. Most of the sunsets this week have been rather disappointing. Not tonight.

With the exception of a sunset in 2009, this was the most spectacular sunset I have seen here. Christy was enthralled.

So, happy birthday, Christy. I am glad the day was as memorable as it was.

all dots -- no dashes

I love games.

That may be why I became an attorney. The search for truth is always a bit of Chutes and Ladders with very little Sorry thrown in.

Several years ago, my upstairs neighbors taught me to play Mexican train -- just one of the multifarious versions of dominoes. And I learned something very important about myself.

Even though my legal career was all about winning, I do not play board games to win. I play them to enjoy the social intercourse.

My Mexican train trainers were quite patient with me. But they each approached the game differently.

The husband and I thought it was solely a social occasion. We would be riffing on a comparison between Locke and Wittgenstein when the wife would remind us we were not at at a university faculty party; we were playing a game.

I get little thrill out of winning Mexican train. But I do like playing it.

Darrel and Christy brought the game down with them in December. Mom thoroughly enjoyed playing it. But she plays to win. I play to chat.

Next week Darrel and Christy head back to the cold temperatures of Bend. So, we decided to take advantage of a very pleasant day at the beach to break out the tiles with the colored dots -- and to simply enjoy what passes for wit in the clan Cotton.

In a month, I will not remember who won which bout. But I will remember the fun we have had as a family.

Now, they just need to decide to spend more time here in Mexico. After all, what is this situation comedy going to be when it is reduced to a solo stand up routine?