Will I Be Known As THAT Lady?

After a great month of being a hermit, I decided I needed to shake things up a bit.

Then I realized that the Fourth of July was rounding the corner and I hadn't celebrated it for four years.  Time to break that tradition.

Over the last few months, and particularly weeks, gringos have just been coming out of the woodwork in Saltillo.  In April, I met a fellow gringo at our OXXO (convenience store) who lives a street away from us.  He and his wife have been dividing their time between Saltillo and the US for 10 years--how have I not run into them before?!?  Then a few weeks ago, not one--but two--new gringo families started going to the International Church. I've met one family.  The other family has been slipping by me.  However, I almost ran into them at the grocery store checkout.  I think the wife/mom recognized me from church.  She seemed to smile at me (we were a good 30 yards apart, so I couldn't be sure) and I was about to yell, "HEY--WANT TO COME TO MY FOURTH OF JULY PARTY?"

Then I decided that I didn't really want to be known as That Woman Who Yelled At Me At The Grocery Store, so I let her go about her merry way.

Then again, maybe I do want to be known as Crazy Gringa, as I met another half-gringo/half-Mexican family a few days later at the vaccine clinic (seriously, we're coming out of the woodwork).  We exchanged pleasantries as we were leaving the clinic, "How long have you been here?  Where are you from?", etc.  It was on the tip of my tongue to invite these complete strangers to my Fourth of July party.  Like me, she has been here since her marriage in 2007 (which she did not seem to think it was the amazing coincidence I thought it was, *sigh*).  Unlike me, she had the air of someone who had an outside job (ie:  engages in adult conversation on a daily basis) and yelling at them across the parking lot to invite them to my house might make me appear odder than I already appeared.

OK, maybe it doesn't take a "real" job to make that seem real odd.  

But despite all my missteps, we did manage to gather some friends, both new and established, and we celebrated the US, in our own ways, 3 hours south of the border.  I'm not usually one to be an organizer, but I'm glad I did.  It turned out to be one of my favorite weekends of 2013. 

On the other hand, with my Permanent Residence card en route, it been getting clearer to me that this odd focus I have on finding gringo/foreign friends is a bit skewed.  Not that I don't love my international community here--I do, and I sure don't want to lose any of you!  However, I do speak Spanish fluently and I do live clear across town from the "international" section of town, so having a clear preference for English-speaking friends seems a bit silly.  (Which I don't know is a real preference.  It's simply easier to make friends with others who don't already have family and scores of friends based on a lifetime of living here.)

So, in light of this, perhaps I'll host a posada at Christmas for my neighbor friends.  And my gringo friends.  It's a rather all-inclusive time of year.
 

Mario's New Cologne

Last night, as I plopped on the couch, ready to watch a movie with the hubs, I caught a whiff of something different.  Something I couldn't quite place.  But something that smelled amazing.

Not one to wear anything scented, I cautiously asked Mario, "Are you wearing perfume?"

"Nope, I'm wearing mosquito lotion."

Ahhh . . . of course.  I've never thought of mosquito lotion as an attractive scent.  But some of my fondest memories have been spent outdoors, in the woods, at camp--covered in mosquito lotion.

So I guess there is an upside to the insane amounts of mosquitoes we've seen this week.  I'm hoping that Mario puts on that mosquito lotion every night.

And last night I even dreamed that I was spending the summer at Homestead again.  I'm not seeing a downside to this.



Yet.

      

Weighing In

Every now and again, little, everyday common occurrences remind me how many things I've learned in the last few years.  Little things that I take for granted now that seemed so difficult a few years ago.  Little things, that--once I've got them down--make life so much easier. 

Take the metric system, for instance. 

Six years ago, when I was living in Toluca (where they sell tortillas by kilo, not package), I asked my tortilla lady for a quarter kilo of tortillas.  Mario ate at work, so I was just feeding myself at the time, and there are only so many tortillas I can go through before they go bad, right?  The tortilla lady gave me a funny look, and I got my quarter kilo of tortillas. 

Now that I am an expert at ordering deli meat, I realize that ordering any fraction of a kilo (beyond half) is pretty strange.  If I wanted a quarter kilo of tortillas, I should have asked for 200 grams or 300 grams.  Once I finally figured that I can ask for things in grams instead of awkward fractions, life got so much easier.  Or less awkward, at least. 

Another case in the same vein:  when my parents came to visit, Mario and my mom found themselves cooking in the kitchen together.  My mom was teaching Mario how to make something.  I don't know if she was halving a recipe or simply using quarter cup/third of a cup measuring cups, but Mario was all of a sudden turning into all thumbs in the kitchen (not usual, as he's a very good cook).  Furthermore, he's an engineer, so his math skills are quite strong, to put it mildly. 

It took me awhile to wonder why he was so thrown for a loop, and then it dawned on me--thanks to the metric system, most of the world hardly ever has to deal with fractions!  While he has to deal with the empirical system at work, he just isn't used to it at home, in the kitchen.  OK, let's face it--he's just not used to measuring things when he cooks.  (Never mind that measuring things is essentially what he does for 12 hours a day at work.) 

But enough on the oddities of my husband!

Want to know what really made me a convert to the metric system? 

My bathroom scale.  In kilos.  Oh, yes indeedy!  Knowing that there are 2.2 pounds to every kilo, the metric system works in our favor when weighing ourselves.  I'll always fondly remember the first time I stepped on my in-laws' bathroom scale.  Oh dear sweet heavens, I just lost HALF my body weight!!!  Instantly!  Effortlessly! 

Honestly, 10 years later, I still get a bit of a thrill. 

So, for those who want to learn the metric system this fall, I'll be happy to import metric bathroom scales to Texas, Arkansas, southern Illinois and Indiana this summer.  Just let me know.  It's pretty exciting.   

Lazy Days

This is our fifth spring in Saltillo.  You'd think we'd have things figured out by now.  But we don't.  At least, not when it comes to the weather. 

Spring 2009:  quite warm, but pleasant.  Sometime in April or May, Mario (who loves warm weather) gave me an ultimatum:  either we were going to get air conditioning or a pool.  We both hate air conditioning (I'm still shocked he even suggested it), so 3/4 of our patio is occupied by the pool every spring and summer.  It makes me feel like I live in a resort. 

Spring 2010:  much like 2009, but spring came on like gangbusters, making it seem like winter got shoved out of the way in favor of summer. 

Spring 2011:  freakishly hot.  Above 30 degrees Celsius from March until October.  Joey was born at the end of July.  Awesome.

Spring 2012:  the heat never really reared its ugly head.  We set up the pool at the beginning of May, just because we knew that, sooner or later the heat would start.  It never really did.  We got in the pool frequently, but were also frequently cold because of it.  I began to resent that pool taking up 3/4 of my patio. 

Spring 2013:  downright cold!  When I was still wearing sweaters at the beginning of May, I had dreams that perhaps we would not feel the need to put up the pool at all this year.  I was starting to get kind of excited about that idea.  We could watercolor the patio's walls, learn how to jump rope, do yoga at night under the moon . . . oh, the possibilities! 
       
                       The kids and I went to Mexico City for two weeks in the middle of May.  One of the first nights I called Mario, he reported that he was bundled up, it being a mere 5 degrees Celsius in the house--5 degrees above freezing!  In MAY!!!  Then, then night before we came back, me mentioned that it was 35 degrees Celsius--in the house.  That's well into the nineties, for those of you stuck in Fahrenheit. 

                       I gave myself a week to figure out what was going on with the weather this spring, in order to make the big "do we put up the pool?" decision.  That Friday, when Mario came home and laughed at me as I was visibly melting at the kitchen table, the decision was made. 

                       The pool went up.

                       It's been glorious. 

                     

Friends brought over a bubble machine one day.  It was just fascinating.  We may have to get one and tease the daycare center on the other side of our patio wall. 

 

  

                      As irony would have it, it began to rain about two weeks after we put up the pool.  This cools things down considerably.  But I'm still glad we put it up. The kids now get in regularly at about 11, when it's still nice and warm, swim until 12:30, and then after lunch, when it really threatens rain, they nap (and rain makes them nap particularly well). 

 

So even if I only put up the pool in order to draw the rain clouds to this part of the world, I'm happy to have done it.  This desert needs all the rain it can get!

Gran Bosque Urbano

Today was yet another Saturday that Mario had to work, so were we going to stay home and boo-hoo ourselves?

No way!

We had a lovely morning at the Gran Bosque Urbano (the Great Urban Woods).  We only stumbled upon this park a year ago when friends invited us for a picnic.  But in our defense, I didn't have much access to a car until a year ago, so our park options were limited to those within walking distance--the Alameda and Venustiano Carranza.

This prarie dog is the park's mascot.  There's a giant prarie dog right at the entrtance, and this one is at the entrance to the children's area.  Joey thinks he's the greatest thing ever and gets so excited every time he sees the prarie dog--both at the parking lot and here, before the playground.

As much as we love the Alameda, the Gran Bosque Urbano has replaced it as our favorite park in Saltillo.  Why?  For me, it's all about the trees and grass.  I'm still astonished by how many trees and how much healthy, luxurious grass is in that part--grass that we're allowed to sit on and walk in!  (As opposed to the Alameda and far too many other Mexican parks.)

For the kids, it's all about the sandbox.  Today, we didn't even venture out to the swings, slides or other play equipment.  A solid two hours was spent in the sandbox.

Heaven.

For those who have kids older than sandbox-age, the area with the play equipment is really well designed.  It's a fenced-in circular area, and smack in the center is a covered area with picnic benches, so parents can sit in shady comfort while keeping an eye on the kiddos.  There is a special area for very small children (which includes the sandbox) and this had an additional fence around it.  Very nice.  They even boast decent bathrooms which are almost always in service and drinking fountains which sometimes work.  And often don't.

The park overall isn't that big, despite its grandiose name.  A circle track winds it way through the woods, good for a walk or jogging, or frustrating a four-year-old who's not used to going up hills on a tricycle.  It boasts a teeny-tiny lake, which has a concession stand and picnic tables with which to comfortably view the lake.  Swimming, wading, boating are verboten--unless they do begin to rent boats in the future, which they've had rumors of at the Chapulin and Deportivo parks.  I've never seen it, but near the lake there is a labyrinth, which older kids seem to like to run in and out of.   One of these days we'll check it out.

If we ever get out of the sandbox.

Old Wives' Tales Taken Out of Culture

I've been meaning to confess this for awhile, so here goes:

My small children drink coffee.  *gasp*

In the US, we're fed on the myth that coffee is just for adults, that it will stunt kids' growth, they'll get all hyped up on the caffiene and won't be able to sleep, etc, etc.  All our predjudices about coffee are part of our culture, not entirely based in fact (execpt that the effects of caffiene are pretty well documented, I'll give you that).

When I worked at a chilren's home and new volunteers from the US would come and see the small children drinking coffee right before bed, they were all generally out of their minds concerned about this.  "I've got to put a stop to this!  Kids drinking coffee before bed!  Tsk!"

But trying to stand in the way of culture is like trying to stand in the way of a moving train.  One person, no matter how concerned, can no change someone else's culture.  Everyone does it.  Everyone goes to sleep at night.  The average Mexican is, indeed, usually shorter than the average American, but that's thanks to genetics, not the effects of early coffee consumption.

Clara and I spent a month with my mother-in-law when Clara was about a year and a half old.  My mother-in-law LOVES coffee.  She also has a collection of child-size mugs.  After a month with the abuela, Clara decided that she loved coffee, too.  (She got half coffee, half milk mini-mugfuls.)  At the time, I was more concerned about her sugar intake instead of her caffiene intake, and would give it to her without sugar.  She still thought it was a best thing ever.

And now that I'm more liberal with the sugar, she's still a sucker for coffee, anytime we make it.

The Boy, on the other hand, is against hot drinks of any form.

Ironically, or perhaps because of this early exposure to coffee, Mexicans in general don't have the same addiction to coffee that gringos do.  I could be mistaken, but the Mexicans I know best regard coffee as a nice treat (a daily treat, if you're my mother-in-law, but a treat nonetheless).  Starbucks and the Italian Coffee Company do abound here, but I can't say I've met any Mexicans who have the same dependence on coffee that so many gringos have.  That, "Oh-My-God-I-Can't-Function-Without-My Morning-Coffee" dependence.

You know what I'm talking about.

Witnessing these two cultural views to coffee, I think I'll stick to the safer, less addicting route, and give my children coffee early in life.  True, there's no gaurantee that their gringo side won't rear up and they will become addicts eventually.

But I'll take my chances.  

Baby School?

Every now and then I think about going out and finding a job.  Or, as I have the luxury to wait a few years and ponder this question, what is it I REALLY want to do once the kids are in school?  Here in Mexico my options are pretty limited.  Teaching English is pretty much the only option.  I like kids, often the younger the better.  So as I continued down this train of thought I stumbled upon the idea of "English Daycare"!   Hmmm . . . this has possibilities. 

However, offering daycare services wouldn't bring in much money.  A lady down the street was advertising daycare for about $125 a week.  That's in pesos, people.  Maybe $10 bucks a week.  The daycare behind my house offers FREE daycare (they're co-sponsored by a church).  Obviously, because I'd be speaking to the kids in English, I could certainly charge more.  But would it really be enough money to be worth my time? 

Then I thought about play dates or English Gymboree or something like that.  Therefore, I wouldn't be tied to the long hours of daycare and could quite likely bring in about the same amount of money.  But who would really pay me to spend 3 or 4 hours a week with their kid so I could talk to them in English? 

It turns out, there is a market for this!  (And not just way out north where all the richies live.)

The man who owns my tortilla store stopped me the other day and asked me how young is too young to learn English.  "The earlier the better!" I replied.  It turns out that his daughter is 8 months old.  I"m interested, he's interested (and willing to pay me), so we'll work something out.

Or perhaps we'll simply exchange services, as I've been wondering how much Spanish Joey really understands.  Maybe in exchange for English "lessons" for tortilla store man's daughter, I'll send my son over to his house a few hours a week so they can fill his head with Spanish.

And if others are interested, perhaps we'll grow from there!

Oooo--the possibilities!