She Said...

July 8, 2007 - waterfall in my bed?

For those of you who are interested in the continuation of my roof story: the roofers showed up on Thursday afternoon. Of course, they didn’t have time to do much more than remove the tiles, advise me that everything beneath them was rotten, and promise to return the next day to fix it all.

We went to the Lazy Lizard for Bingo that night. (I’m looking forward to this week’s version, with our friend Debbi of Choco Banana at the helm, and Los Bambinos presenting the “half-time” show!) Another fun evening it was, a prelude to the not-so-fun night to come.

I spent that night desperately trying to find sheets of plastic large enough to protect my bed, night table and desk from the Quimixto-style waterfall from above. My kitties were watching me with that look they have, you know, the one that seems to say, “What does that human think she’s doing?” The dogs, on the other hand, couldn’t care less, especially the Rottweiler puppy; she loves to go slip sliding on the wet floor tiles. I didn’t get much sleep…

Surprisingly enough, the men did return on Friday. They fixed the roof, removed some twenty pails filled with chunks of the rotten stuff, which they brought downstairs and carefully lined up in front of the house, promising that the boss would come by with the pick-up truck to take them away. He didn’t. His secretary called me on Saturday. Could I please give the boss half of the price of the job so he could pay his workers? Sure, I said. No one came. And the plastic pails filled with chunks of rotten roof decorated the front of the house throughout the weekend.

By noon, I had to leave the house anyways, I had promised Chef Ulf that I would drop by Trio’s Restaurant to pick up the gift certificates he and his partner Bernhard were donating to the Canada Day raffle to raise funds for the children’s shelter.

After sitting in the traffic jam on Insurgentes –with the motor turned off- for some 15 minutes, I began to think I would never make it to the event in the evening. I still don’t know what caused the tie-up, but I did count no less than 14 buses within eyesight …all of them nearly empty. Who knows how many more were around the bend, ahead of and behind me… And no one can say that I was at the end of a line or the beginning of one! I was on the northbound Cuale bridge, and nothing was moving.

On Monday morning, I called the roofer. Very sweetly, his secretary apologized for his no-show on Saturday, and advised me that none of the workers ever come to work on Mondays… they’re too hung over. But tomorrow, tomorrow for sure!

I went to see if there was anything in my mail box. Lo and behold, there was my Telcel bill, a mere three weeks late. It had been mailed from Mexico City on the 7^th of June, payable before June 25^th… You may recall that Monday was July 2^nd. So I figured I would make yet one more official complaint-report. I’ve been making them every few months over the last couple of years because we very seldom receive our Telcel bill on time. So this time, instead of doing it at the one and only Telcel office in Puerto Vallarta, I would do it by phone. Big mistake. It took a little over ten minutes just to get connected to a real live person. I don’t think that anyone who isn’t truly familiar with Spanish could have gotten that far. Telcel’s system has you pushing more buttons than any automated telephone system I know, just to get to speak with a representative. And in between each request for the pushing of more buttons, there is a message telling the caller just how important his or her call is to them… Surprisingly enough TelMex’ bill also came late this month, mailed from Mexico City on June 19^th. It was delivered to our mail box on July 3^rd. I guess one of Puerto Vallarta’s twelve postmen (servicing over 300,000 people now) must have taken ill…

In case you’re not aware, and you’re really into gardening, I would like to share some good news with you: Our friend Rick began a series of classes entitled “Introduction to Gardening in Vallarta” last Sunday. Had I known about it in time, I would have shared the info with you so that you may attend the first class… This was the first in what is planned as an extensive series of classes on gardening and botany in PV. To give you an idea, the topics covered that day were: 1. What grows here (and doesn’t grow here in Vallarta), 2. Choosing soils, pots, fertilizers and bug controls, 3. Choosing plants (edible, ornamental, useful), 4. Caring for the plants through our wet summers and dry winters. The classes are limited in size and held at the XPlantation in Colonia Buenos Aires, just upriver from Old Town in Puerto Vallarta. Parking is abundant and easy and there is bus and cab service to the door. Directions to the Xplantation are sent upon registration. Price: 50 pesos. “Classes should be running continuously from now on. Check the website for which ones will be running when. I don't plan too far in advance and will be responding more to need and interest than to schedule,” Rick said. You can email him at intro-class@xplanta.com for registration or questions, or visit his site at www.xplanta.com Good stuff!

I received an invitation to an art exhibit at Cathy Von Rohr’s gallery. It came (too late to advertise in the Tribune) written in French, from the artist himself. Turns out that this young, multilingual and very gifted artist was born in Romania -like me- and lived a good part of his life in Montreal, Québec - like me. So obviously, I had to go meet him and see his work. His name is

And talking of things Romanian, the Bran Castle in Transylvania, a medieval castle perched on a cliff near Brasov in mountainous central Romania - a top tourist attraction - is up for sale. (See the article I read, somewhere in this issue.)

Due to some cyberspatial snafu, we didn’t get the entire article from the Tribune’s new financial guru, Cordell Hicks. We did receive some of the text though, and I would like to insert Cordell’s first paragraph here, by your leave: “Accolades for Lyne for all the encouragement and ways to celebrate Canada Day. Congratulations to her and all the Canadians for taking pride in your country of origin while living and visiting here in Puerto Vallarta. The silence was deafening from the US consulate, now far removed from the center of Puerto Vallarta, in Nuevo Vallarta, with no plans for a celebration of the US day of independence on the Fourth of July.” Cordell assured us that all the glitches will be fixed and his Moneyworld column will resume in the next issue of the Trib.

I was looking through some of the July 4^th issues from past years and came across the following, written by yours truly 5 or 6 years ago… “I first read about the (former) owner of the Oasis and his “adventures” on that new PV forum I mentioned earlier, and then the next day in an article that was sent to us by one of our readers. Obviously, I have no pity for the man and I smile as I think of what my answer would have been if anyone had asked me what I thought of him... “Gee, he seemed like such a nice guy, organizing Canada Day for all of us Canajuns down here, chatting with everyone, playing good music, serving good food, etc. etc.” Just like all those interviews we see on TV when they speak with the neighbors of the serial killer, the suicide bomber and those folks. Oh, well, I guess we never really know.

To quote my friend Elinor: “The nice thing about living in a small town - When you don’t know what you’re doing, someone else always does!” Sure applies here in Vallarta, don’t it? This reminds me (talking about quotations), as I was perusing the local papers, I remembered that old, old little poster I used to have on the wall near my desk at work in Montreal, the one that said, “Committee – 1) a body that keeps minutes and wastes hours, 2) the unwilling, selected from the unfit, to do the unnecessary, 3) individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.”

We live in an age where such committees sprout like crazy all around, like mushrooms after a rainfall. And then they make babies called sub-committees that accomplish as much as the “parents” do…

In case you haven’t noticed, we are really, truly -and officially- in the heat of summer now. And it’s not going to get any better until October if we are to base ourselves on past years. Last week, it was 33^oC (that’s 91.4^oF for our American readers) in the shade. And if we take the humidity factor into account, that translates into 113^oF at 80% humidity, that’s what we “feel”! No wonder everyone was dripping... (I used to think it was hot flashes when I first got here, until I realized that everyone was affected the same way!) On the other hand, the rains we’ve had so far have been wonderful, and the first bolts of lightning of the season are, as always, truly an awesome sight.

posted by Anna Reisman @ 4:54 PM