September 23, 2007
It was all arranged, everything had finally fallen into place: a good friend had agreed to stay at my place to take care of it and the menagerie that comes with it, and two others had kindly offered me a ride to the city of Colima, capital of our neighboring state to the south (also called Colima), where we would attend the big ceremony led by that state’s Governor. The Guv would officially welcome those of us -foreigners- who have received our Mexican citizenship, then meet El Grito the night of
But, it just wasn’t meant to be.
As I logged on to confirm my room at the hotel in Colima, I found an email from their Department of Foreign Affairs, notifying me that the entire event had been cancelled, postponed until further notice… No further information was given.
So, instead, we decided that we would celebrate right here, in Party Vallarty, and Bonnie Sumlin, the lady who facilitated the voyage through the labyrinth of bureaucratic tape for those of us who wanted to acquire Mexican citizenship, would drive up here with Hugh, her husband, and the new President of the HELP! Association. We decided to hold our mini-event at El Arrayan. After all, this is the place that was voted Best Mexican Restaurant in the annual Readers’ Choice survey, three years in a row. You can’t get more Mexican than that - especially on Independence Day!
Needless to say, we had a fabulous time, everyone let their hair down and joined in the fun, costumes, games, the Frijoleros’ super music, and of course… great food! Including the pozole and
There was work being done on one of the houses in front of El Arrayan, so the owners had set up a plank of wood on two pails filled with cement. I figured that no one was going to work on Saturday evening, so I moved the whole thing and parked. I guess the spirit of the day didn’t permeate that particular household, ‘cause by the time the evening was over, I found that they had stolen my rear view mirror from its casing on the driver’s door. Oh well, Viva
Talking about façades, our friend Marcia, the lady who fought so hard last year to retain the parks in this town, told us a great story on Thursday evening, at Langostino’s weekly Charity Bingo. It was about her latest adventure at Banamex. As an account holder at that bank, she had gone in to request a debit card. When she got to the wicket, the teller had to fill out some sort of application form to initiate the process. Among the questions she asked Marcia was: a) how many windows she had in her house, and b) what color its façade was. In view of all the ATM scams that have taken place around here recently, we spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what importance her answers held, and how they would affect the outcome of her request. Curiouser and curiouser…
We experienced another curious happening this past week. We went to see Hairspray at Cine Versalles (excellent espressos and frappuccinos ... ) It turned out that my friend and I were the only two souls in the entire Sala 2. Sure, I’ve been to movies where there were only a few couples, but to be the only two women in that huge empty hall really felt weird. We decided we could basically do anything we wanted, talk as much as we wanted …but we didn’t ‘cause we were both either grinning or laughing out loud throughout the movie, to the point that our faces hurt when it was over. What a delightful film! What neither of us understands is why, when we went to see The Bourne Ultimatum, there were a whole bunch of couples with little ones, including babies, in the audience. And some of those babies were anything but quiet during that excellent, but very violent film. We have to show our "Senior Citizen" card to get our discounts, so why don’t those babies have to show their IDs to prove that they’re old enough to get into a PG-13 or -15 movie?
The drive home through the lagoons left along
And of course, how could an entire week go by without a TelMex anecdote? On Friday, two men began drilling a hole in the street in front of my house. I asked them what they were doing, to which they answered: "Digging a hole." :"Yes, I can see that," I said, "but for what purpose?" "To install a post." "Who are working for, the CFE?" "No, TelMex." "Oh, so why would you want another post when you have one two meters away?" "I don’t know, ma’am, we just do what we’re told to do." They sunk a wooden pole into the hole they had dug, and left. But the pole was not straight. It was leaning, like the
The following Wednesday, two other TelMex employees showed up to remove the wires from that now-obsolete post and attach them to the new, leaning one, leaving the old one naked, unwanted. And then they too left. Once again, I tried the various phone numbers from my cell phone (as they had disconnected my land line to accomplish their oh-so-important transfer) only to find out two things: a) in case of an emergency, you cannot dial the various numbers from a cell phone, and b) any complaint such as mine must be made in writing, and delivered in person at the TelMex office. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Never a dull moment in paradise!
Happy Birthday to all the beautiful, balanced Libras out there -including all my children- and to the rest of you, I wish a most wonderful week. Hasta luego. pvmom04@yahoo.com
posted by Anna Reisman @ 12:16 PM
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