Golfito

Last weekend, Patty expressed a desire to check out the ecotianguis.  I had been curious about it for awhile, as I haven´t visited it since it changed locations to the Biblioparque Norte.

So off we went.  The ecotianguis feels much more at home in their new space.  I´ll take pictures and post another week.  But, as we had never been to the Biblioparque Norte (I believe it just opened earlier this year), we wandered a bit.  They´ve got basketball courts, soccer fields with beautiful fake grass, tennis courts, and a baseball field.  Being that it´s the BIBLIOparque, they´re supposed to have a library.  Perhaps they do, but we went late enough on Saturday that the building was closed.  Looking through the windows, I spied shelves.  But they were empty.  Nice try, Biblioparque.

But really, I´ll get there during the week and get a better feel for the place.  They do offer yoga classes, tennis lessons, etc.  But what called our attention this last week was the miniature golf course.

I know I haven´t seen miniature golf in Saltillo--heck, in all of Mexico, now that I think of it.  But we now have a sweet, little course in Saltillo.  And it´s FREE.

So we had to play a round.

Saltillo has its ups and downs, but it sure puts some effort into its city parks.  Thanks, Biblioparque Norte!  I´ll be back!

The park must have once been a factory and this colossal tower must have been too big to remove.  Thank God Coahuila is not near ANY earthquake-prone areas!

The girl rocks out golf on the wii, so she was psyched to try it out in real life. 

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Where is the Biblioparque Norte?

Just north of the intersection of Isidro Lopez Zertuche and Colosio.  (By the Quinta Real.)  Look for a large but simple blue and white structure (sculpture?) on the south-bound side of the road.  That´s the entrance.  Plenty of parking.

Sniffy

I have a number of friends who regularly take in street dogs until they can find a good home for them.  I have other friends who just have a number of dogs from taking in so many.

It was merely a matter of time before one of those little critters took up residence in our cochera.

And last Tuesday, it happened.

This guy followed us home from school.  I gave him some turkey.  Let him into our cochera.  He has dug up some of our plants.  I´m still letting him stay in the cochera.

We bought him a collar, a leash, dog food, a vet visit.  Unless someone comes looking for him, he´s here to stay.

At first, it seemed like the right thing to do.  And, now that I´m getting familiar with this dog´s personality, I´m really liking him and think he´s a great dog for us.

But sometimes I wonder, is it really fair of me to keep him?  Are we doing him any favors?  Sure, he gets fresh water and regular meals and isn´t bothered by scary dogs a lot bigger than him on the street.  He no longer has to worry about getting run over by cars.  He gets petted and played with and a walk or two a day.

But would he rather be on the street?  Clearly, I´ve seen Lady and the Tramp too many times.  That, and he was pretty reluctant to get back in the cochera after our walk this evening.  But maybe that was because he was reprimanded from digging up my plants AGAIN this afternoon.  (The plants will be moved to the patio tomorrow.)

Am I keeping him around just to be a big toy for myself and my kids or is it really in his best interest to live in our cochera?

I´ve never had a dog before, so these questions are bothering me a bit.  I realize that they aren´t questions that necessarily have right or wrong answers.

My original reasons for inviting the dog to live with us?

      1) To scare away my schizophrenic neighbor who throws bags of nearly rotten food into our cochera because he thinks his mother lives with us (yes, that´s a whole other story).  And it didn´t work.  The dog just eats whatever David gives him.

      2) My kids are every bit as terrified of dogs as I was as a kid.  If there´s any way for them to get over this fear, I´d love to help them through it.  Keeping a dog seems to be a logical step.  Even though Joey keeps a death grip on my shorts each time we step into the cochera, we seem to be making huge strides in this area this week.  After awhile, Joey will let go of my shorts, maybe even pet the puppy, and often hop on his tricycle (which I think makes him feel bigger and braver).  Clara has blossomed marvelously and likes to feed him, give him toys, pet him, boss him around . . .

So despite my nagging doubts, I am glad we´ve got him.  I even just like playing with him myself.  And since this is a long-haul project, I´m sure the answers will get clearer over time.

It´s all just a little overwhelming now, as I week ago I didn´t have the slightest idea that we´d be ¨dog people¨.

Vintage 2011

At our house, we like wine.  A lot.

Whenever I´m in the US, I spend far too much time dallying in the wine aisles of the grocery stores, in awe of the sheer volume and selection and countries and varietals represented on most large grocery stores´ shelves.  It´s overwhelming, and often I can barely make a selection.  Or, when I do, it´s pretty much because I played eeiny, miney, moe.

Here in Mexico, our wine options are a bit more limited.  Wine aisles in the grocery stores here have come a long way in the last decade (at least, in the fancy-pants grocery stores).  The limited selection does make choosing a wine much easier.

But, as the town of Parras is a mere two hours from Saltillo, we make our wine purchases even easier and get almost all our wine from Casa Madero.  It´s the oldest vineyard and winery in North America, and, I believe, the second-largest.  Despite its size, it pumps out some pretty awesome wine.  Let me state for the record here that I´m no wine connoisseur.  However, a few of Casa Madero´s wines (merlot and chardonnay) have made me step back for a second, give them a second look-over and say, ¨Wow--that´s GOOD!¨

Thanks to us getting almost all our wine from the same place, I´m getting better at guessing what we´re drinking without looking at the label on the bottle.  So, last week, as we were eating, I was a bit stumped to what we were drinking, gave up guessing, and had to ask Mario which wine he choose.  It was a cabernet suavingnon--what I usually think of as standard, red wine.

¨But this is so . . . fruity!¨ (For lack of a better word.)  Forgive me for trying to sound all wine critic-y, but I usually think of fruity wines as wines that are a bit young, and sweeter than cabernet suavingon.  That´s not what I meant by calling that cab fruity.  Cabernet usually bites back a little.  This one didn´t.  It tasted all . . . balanced.  Smooth.  All those irritating adjectives for wine that really give one no sense what it actually tasted like, except that it was good.  Think of Tim Allen growling, ¨gooood¨ here.

Mario´s response?  ¨Yeah--that´s what a cabernet sauvingon should taste like.¨

Huh.  Really.  Well, I´ve liked all the apparent cabernet flops that I´ve tasted, but this one?  Yeah, it stands out.

Now, we´ve drank what must be a few gallons of Casa Madero´s cabernet sauvingon in the last 5 years.  Why on earth was this one be so exceptionally different?

The clue on the tag told us that this wine was from 2011.  A-ha!  Why was 2011 such a stand out year?

It was the worst drought in the last 70 years.

Whatever grapes survived that drought, they had to fight hard for their survival.  Grapes that have to work extra hard tend to make kick-ass wines.

And that philosophy kind of translates to people, too.  When I´m together with friends and we´re discussing life, we often wonder why life has to be so hard.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  And, of course, there´s not really any good answer to that question.  At least not one that I´m fully satisfied with that doesn´t sound trite.

But it seems to be a general pattern that when we do go through hard times, and we manage to come through those tough times with our souls intact, our caracters do not come out unscathed.  We´re often transformed, more compassionate.  Just like with the drought affected the grapes and made a more flavorful wine, our characters can be made more beautiful by tough times.

Now, I´m not one to romanticize suffering.  No way.  If I can somehow get through life with less than my fair share of suffering, I won´t complain.  But when I do go through those times, here´s hoping that I, too, get more beautiful on the inside.




And not just shrivel up and die, as I bet a lot of grapes did in 2011.

Fruit Truck

Years ago, a friend of mine mentioned that a fruit truck drove regularly through their neighborhood.  I loved this idea.  A truck full of fruit that drives right up to your door?  Brilliant!  Why don´t I have one of those?

I´ve always been a been fan of my vegetable man at the market, but that´s a pretty hefty hike.  Particularly now that Clara can´t make it all the way there and back on foot, and now that she´s five, I fear that the double stroller is just not strong enough to support her weight anymore.  We use it, but every time I fear that it will be the last time.

All this fresh goodness for 50 pesos.  A little less than 5 dollars.

But, it turns out that we DO have a fruit truck that runs down my street every now and then.  The problem was (a few years ago) that the fruit truck announces its presence through a loudspeaker.  Just like the guys that come around buying scrap metal.  Both messages were equally lost on me amidst the static from the loudspeaker.

But in the winter one year, I distinctly heard the loudspeaker announcing oranges.  Oranges came rolling through the neighborhood a few times a week all winter.  (And they do every winter.)  Now that summer is upon us, melons are coming through just about every day.  If you buy Mexican-grown melons this time of year (or maybe any time of year), chances are good that it comes from my state of Coahuila, as the area around Torreon is rumored to be Mexico´s leading producer of melons.  So says the propaganda from the governor, at least!

I fly out the door when I can distinguish more exotic fruits:  mangos, strawberries, and last week they came around with plums.  Strawberry season seems to have passed us, but we get every bit as excited about plums.  So good.

But whenever we´re low on fruit, and the truck is just full of melons.  I´ll take my 20 pesos and get 4.  They´re so perfect and fresh that this time of year I can even get excited about one of my least favorite fruits.

If I ever have to move back to the US, I´ll sure miss the fruit truck.

Swan Lake on the Lake

 Last week´s newspaper mentioned that the State Ballet of Coahuila would present Swan Lake on the lake at the Alameda, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night at 7pm.

Mario and I are suckers for ballet, so we were there with bells on.  While Clara has no interest in taking dance classes, she does like to watch the ballet.  We always told Clara that she had to be 4 to go to the ballet with us, but since this one was outside, it seemed safe to bring Joey along.

No worries--the kid was enthralled.


If you´re in Saltillo and missed this Swan Lake, I´ve heard rumors that a Russian company is coming next Monday, the 26th to the Soler Theater.  While the State Ballet did a great job, those Russians are just something else.  I´m curious to see what they´ll do with it!

But, like I said, the State Ballet did a lovely job and the setting at the Alameda made it unforgettable.

Thanks, State Ballet of Coahuila!  

Mesmerized

Me Speak Spanish!

Cookie Monster has come home to roost.  Again.

Honestly, this has nothing to do with a Sesame Street obsession, on the part of me or my children.

But, six months after one child stopped talking like Cookie Monster, the next one started up.

Joey:  Me take bath no.  [I´m not going to take a bath.]
          Me hit you no.      [I didn´t hit you.]

Et cetera.  His syntax is wildly out of place.  Instead of referring to himself as a noun, he´s gramatically an object.  Always.

But he does get his point across.  At least to those of us who converse with him on a regular basis.

And this is what we all struggle with when we learn another language.  Watching my children learn both English and Spanish, and reflecting on my own experiences of learning Spanish, I´m convinced that there are stages and phases that we simply can not skip over.  We can not pick up a Learn-Whatever-Language-in-10-Easy-Steps book and walk away a fluent speaker.

Taking it all in.

Like my friend Belinda, who attends the International Church´s Bible study in English.  She needs the English practice.  She struggles with English.  Most of the time at Bible study, she spends the entire two hours just listening, trying to follow along.  Just like infants for the first two years of life.  Before kids have the physical capabilities to utter a word, they´re spending quite a bit of their energies figuring out what we´re saying.  (And don´t forget that they can hear in the womb--so don´t talk to your infants like they can´t understand you.  They just might.  And if it pisses me off when people pass me off, thinking I don´t understand Spanish, I´m willing to bet a baby feels just the same.  Respect your babies´ intelligence, peeps!  OK, end of tangent.)

And bless Belinda´s heart, she keeps coming.  And she keeps listening.  And one day, she´s going to work up the nerve and SAY something in English--because let me tell you, this woman has plenty to say!  (In Spanish, at least.)  ;)

But oh-so-frustratingly, her English is most likely going to come out sounding something like Joey´s.  He´s certainly improving with leaps and bounds and Belinda will, too.  Heck, up until this fall, Clara was still talking like Cookie Monster in Spanish.  She would literally say, ¨Me quiere una galleta.¨  [Me want a cookie.]  So when the speech teacher came to evaluate her, they were probably thinking, ¨Dear sweet heavens--why does this four-and-a-half-year-old talk like a two-year-old?¨

Up until her enrollment in school, she had limited practice at speaking Spanish, so she needed a few months of Spanish immersion for three hours a day before she could sound like a typical preschooler.  She now does.  She speech teacher is ready to release her.  However, Clara is in love with her speech teacher, so maybe I´ll teach her how to lisp so she can keep going to see her ¨Spanish¨ teacher.

This reminds me of my study-abroad semester.  In one of my classes, we were asked to write a biography of a figure from the Mexican Revolution.  It had to be about two to five pages long.  In Spanish, of course.  I was a twenty-year-old college sophomore.  Clearly, I was pretty well-versed in the process of writing, and I had gotten pretty good at it.  Two to five pages?  Please, I could do that ten minutes before class.

Fortunately, I did not put the paper off that long.  It turned out to be one of the most difficult papers I had to write in my whole college career.  Of course, in English I could analyze and synthesize, wax poetic and make all kinds of interesting points about the life and times of Francisco I. Madero.  However, in Spanish, I couldn´t reason much beyond fifth grade level. All of a sudden, it became very difficult not to plagiarize.  I couldn´t get beyond the barest facts of his life.  ¨He was born on . . . He was from . . . He did this . . . Then he did that . . . blah, blah, blah¨--for two to five pages!  Did I mention this was one of the hardest essays I ever had to write?  And it turned out to be the worst I wrote (since elementary school).  Comparatively speaking.

As an elementary education major, it was a fascinating experience to feel like I was inside a fifth grader´s brain again.  But as a twenty-year-old, it was frustrating.  Well, shoot--maybe that´s a huge part of the reason why fifth and sixth grade were so difficult for so many of us.

But the point it, I did it.  I persevered.  Just like Clara persevered with her Cookie Monster Spanish and is now talking like her peers.  I´ll take a leaf out of her book and continue to persevere with Spanish and someday--just maybe--I´ll talk like my peers, too.  (A girl can dream.)

And, for those of you who are not learning a new language, have patience with those language-learners who cross your path.  Learning a language, at any stage of life, is a long, slow process.  It´s a good deal more frustrating for those in the process of learning the language than it is for those trying to communicate with said language learner.  Have patience with us.  We´re trying.

We´ll get there someday.  

Smack Me Up the Side of the Head

I think I´m like most ex-pats and my year (or attitude toward Mexico) tends to cycle itself through stages.  Most of the time I´m in the middle of two extremes.

• Extreme #1)  I LOVE Mexico!  I NEVER want to live ANYWHERE else!  All is sunshine and daisies and roses and rainbow farts.  
• Extreme #2)  Ohmygodgetmeoutofherenow.  My daydreams turn dark, envisioning packing up, getting a job in south Texas, and having Mario meet us on the weekends.  In Texas.  Of course.    

Now, as is the case with spectrums, I tend to spend most of my time somewhere between those two extremes.  Thank goodness.

But when I get antsy for the US, I tend to fixate on some tiny facet of life there that just has me fascinated.  A few years ago, it was the hair salon.  A number of my friends in the US have gorgeous hair.  They also have very excellent jobs.  Hence, they can afford to maintain their awesome hair. Somewhere along the line, I attributed having ¨made it¨ by being able to go to the hair salon every two months or so.  (Don´t ask.  I promise, I´m shaking my head at myself, too.)  So I swore to myself that whenever we moved to the US, I would have a regular date with a hairdresser.

Fortunately, not too many weeks passed before it dawned on me that there is a hair salon on just about every street here in Saltillo.  Sure, many are just in someone´s living room, and many give the air of staying in business simply to cater to the waitresses at VIPS.  (VIPS waitresses are required to have identical ugly haircuts.  Trust me, nobody willingly cuts their hair like that.)  But, by and large, I realized that there are a plethora of decent stylists in this city who charge a fraction of what their counterparts in the US charge.  And if my dream of having ¨made it¨ was to see a stylist regularly, it was time to get off my ass and do it.

I did.  My hair is looking ¨grown up¨ for the first time in my life.  In the end, that daydream of life in the US has turned into a point in favor for Mexico, as I´m now scandalized about the thought of paying more than 13 dollars for a decent cut and style.

Lately, the carrot-on-a-stick that´s been my Life in the US Daydream is the the thought of joining the YMCA.  Why the Y?  I can work out, AND they will watch my kids for me.  Or, I can pretend to work out and they´ll watch my kids for me.  I´m a big fan of places that watch my kids for me.

For a few years, my neighbor friends have mentioned taking Zumba classes nearby.  I like Zumba.  I´d love to go.  But what do I do with the kids?  Last week, Rosario gave me the out I was looking for--¨bring them along!  They can join the other kids there!¨

No way--there are other kids at Zumba?!?  Sweet!

So I went twice last week. The first day, there were two other kids.  They hung around and watched and my  kids just watched, too.  The next day, the other kids were not there, but my kids danced along.  Today--jackpot--the instructor´s daughter (roughly about age 6) latched onto my kids immediately and they all had a terrific time running around, playing hide-and-seek, giggling and squealing.

All for 15 pesos a class.  I´d pay that for the Y´s childwatch alone--not to mention their membership fees!

There´s nothing quite so refreshing at being smacked up the side of the head by the obvious.