Halloween in Mexico

 Alas, no trick or treaters so far.  I say 'so far' because Halloween goes from Oct 31 to Nov 2 because Dios de la Muertos adds on to it and is the bigger holiday here.

Of course, people aren't letting kids run around at night here, because memories of the cartel in our area still have families on guard.  The only place where they were trick or treating was on the brightly lit 'Malecon' or boardwalk where it had been arranged.  

That didn't stop me from putting out a plastic pumpkin full of candy on our gate.  It's right under the light so everyone going by could see it.

No kids, however, I notice all the candy would disappear every time a delivery man came.  They would swipe all the candy I put outside of the pumpkin into their pockets right in front of me with big grins:  Para los ninos!  (For my kids!).  

We used to leave out treats for delivery men in the USA, and even a fridge with cold drinks.  It was a more popular with the javalinas than the delivery men to be honest.  But I see here that the delivery men love extra perks!  So I'm going to keep free candy and stuff outside for them.  Like...I never saw this enthusiasm with the USA treats.  Here:  Mom or Dad can be a hero with a pocket full of candy for the kids.  Muy bien!

Now here's a video of Frijole and our elder cat Scrappy:

In other news, my mom and I have a guy for old lady pains now.  He's an orthopedic surgeon who we see at this private hospital we go to for any medical things.  He gave my mom a shot in her shoulder that took away her pain for three months.  She went back for knee shots (I paid my neighbor to take her because I was super busy with work) and then yesterday we both came in for knee shots.  

I got two cortisone shots in my knees which got rid of my knee pain, but made my nerve damage pain from my bone cancer surgery more noticeable.  My mom got a shot which was a gel to go in between the bones and replace the missing cartilage so it's not 'bone on bone' anymore. It's like a mini-knee replacement surgery so she can get by for the next 6-8 months without surgery.  (Mega long needle and she needed local sedation for it.)

Price?  $525.  And they didn't give us an itemized printout like last time, which is sus.  I worry this guy might over charge us because he has some bad reviews from gringos who were charged more than locals.  But whatever.  It's still cheaper than the USA would be for me.  

My knees are much better, and my mom is going to do this instead of a risky knee replacement surgery.  I say it's a win.

What isn't a win is that we found an ATM that let's us withdraw cash from my mom's US Bank account, and on top of the ATM fee fucking US Bank charges her $18-$23 per withdrawal!  I wanted to move money to my non US Bank account so I could save her fees but it's a hassle and she loves having her own cash now.  It's also saved our ass a few times when we needed to pay cash.

Like in Sams Club recently.  I told you that I had my neighbor drive my mom to her Dr. appointment.  I gave my mom my credit card in case the bill was high.  When she got back she gave me the wrong credit card (same company) but this was HER card that was locked.  

And we went to Sams Club and neither this card nor my back up card would work.  The backup card just doesn't work on their shitty card readers no matter how they try to stick a folded piece of paper in with it.  And my main card was wrong.  So we had $450USD of groceries and no card was working.  

Fortunately we came up with the $9000 pesos, but only because my mom had cash for me.  It would have been really humiliating otherwise.  

I would hate not to be able to go to Sams Club.  I know I'm spoiled but sometime you want a rack of ribs and not weird cuts of meat that are really hard to chew.  😞  

I make a lot of money, why can't I have some luxury?  It can't always be about saving for the future.  I deserve to live now.

Car Troubles in Mexico

 This is probably going to be a short one.  First...KITTEN!

The Cat Distribution system WILL get it done.  It goes to great lengths.  Because we did not want another cat.  There were many strays outside vying for positions in the home, for the expensive (relatively, cat food is in sachets here not cans) cat food, love, and comfort.  But we kept all the outdoor cats outdoors.  A system that worked well for Scrappy, who will not abide a second cat in the home.

Then...there was a worker over fixing the drainage in our back garden that the tree roots had destroyed.  All day long I kept hearing a cat crying.  I went out twice trying to find the source, but I couldn't go in back because of the workers and equipment.

Once they left:  THE HORROR.  A tiny four week old kitten was in our dirt container things surrounding the back patio.

Now:  This is Mexico, and these are 'Terraced' houses (if you're British).  Basically our house is in a row of connected houses that share at least one wall with the house next to you.  Behind our back garden are more houses completely enclosing it.  

So how did this kitten get there?  It was a tiny baby, clearly still with its mother.  

Well...either it fell off one of the surrounding roofs (unlikely since he wasn't injured) or his mother was transporting her kittens from one location to the next and...kind of forgot him.

WE. DIDN'T. WANT. ANOTHER.CAT.

We were waiting for Scrappy to live out her twilight years so we could look forward to a no pet period of traveling.  Also--Scrappy is violent.  Every time we tried to invite a new cat, no matter how carefully, she would always attempt murder.  Often lulling them into a false sense of security before catching them unawares and tearing their faces off.

But WTF were we going to do?  This was a baby.  If we left him outside he'd die.  :(

So.  I took him upstairs and set up a boundary to keep him locked away from Scrappy.  We tried a few times to introduce them, hoping she would have mercy on a baby, but no.  She's as violent as ever in the beginning.  

After a month and a half, with his scent permeating the house, and him more than doubling in size and no longer being contained, she has accepted her fate.  She still hisses and scratches him when he comes near, but she's not actively hunting him.  

Scrappy has mellowed in her old age.

And Frijole has wormed his way into our hearts.  I never knew I could love another baby so much.  ;_;  He is a little ray of darkness to brighten our lives.  And his grandma adores him too.

But seriously...he's grown like a weed.

So...the Cat Distribution System wins in the end, and I don't think it's a coincidence that he appeared LITERALLY a day after I posted about how our elderly cat (23 years old now) wouldn't be around for much longer.  It was like I was ASKING FOR IT.

And now on to the Title Story.

Our 2017 Chevy Equinox kindly drove us down to Mexico.  A 5 day trip, loaded with belongings.  But what do we do?  Let her rot in our parking space.  No oil change.  No tune-up.  :sigh:

Now 7 months later I decided to go to the beach.  Yay!  A free day to recharge my batteries after writing multiple scripts one after the other in an attempt to finish my current game serial so I can focus on more profitable projects.

Never made it to the beach.  The car started stalling in traffic.  -_-  Horrifying.

We limped to an oil change place and they changed our dirty oil, cleaned all the sand that infiltrated us (beach town woes) and replaced our spark plugs.  

Great!  I'm sure that was the problem.  Let's continue as normal.

We manage to go shopping (at Sams Club again because we're spoiled assholes) and as I'm leaving Sams Club, not only does she start stalling again, but the CHECK ENGINE light is on!

We get into AutoZone to run the diagnostic and get a printout.  They tell us to have a mechanic check before we buy any parts.  Okay.

Well.  I don't want to deal with this.  I don't want to drive a car that stalls at every stop sign to whatever mechanic there is, sit all day with it, struggle, etc.

ADVANTAGE MEXICO:  We have a Mexican for that.

My neighbor took the car and is dealing with everything.  He will be well paid.  This is someone we trust and we appreciate so much that he will deal with the mechanics instead of us.  

He's the kind of guy who will refuse payment for helping you and you have to force it on him.  Sometimes by buying him take out food and hiding the money in the bag when you give it to him.  :p  Did that twice.

But he's definitely going to get at least $200USD for all this shit he's doing today.  x_x  I just don't want to deal with it.  I want my car to work again!

Here's hoping we don't keep having problems.  He said Chevy Equinox's get all shitty at this age, but we have low miles, y'know?  Only 130,000 kilometers (we flipped it to metric).  So...that's not much, right?  

I'm hoping we can have it survive at least 4 more years until we get permanent residency, then I can buy a new car if I need to.

In the meantime, Fingers Crossed! 

Ups and Downs in Mexico

 First of all, we love it here.  It was not a mistake to leave the USA and we feel it was inevitable that we would have left.  With dark-skinned family and visible accents our safety was at stake (and still is for my family still there).  

We love our local seafood restaurant.

We never really discussed the decision to leave.  The day after the election when we woke up to the horror I said to my mom, "That's it.  We're going to Mexico."

Instead of my mom saying, "Are you sure? Let's think about this." or "But I love our house here." She said, "Yep.  There's no choice."  

And so, I proceeded to the consulate and got our visas.  At no point did my mother become the 'voice of reason' (because I've always been crazier and more impetuous than her) so we left.

Now we've lived here for 6 months.  It's home to us, but I'll admit we didn't explore all that much yet due to my hectic work schedule. 

I can drive around without GPS and speak easily to store clerks in Spanish, constantly apologizing for my mistakes.  They say you learn the language fast when you live in a Spanish country.  Yes, it's true, because you kind of have to.

It's in a palapa, an open grass hut.  $30 for an extravagant lunch for 2.

There are so many benefits to being in Mexico.  The prices, the kindness, the easily made friends, the walkability, the freedom.  But there are, of course, things that make us crave the systems we took for granted back home.  For instance:

We ran out of propane.  We couldn't shower.  In the USA there's a website, or a phone number, or something.  Here, it's begging someone on WhatsApp.  Never getting a straight answer for when they'll be there.  Having to learn how to send your GPS coordinates from one App (GoogleMaps) to a different one (WhatsApp). 

It took 8 days to finally get our tank filled.  At one point he asked me to take a picture of our tank and I said NO.  It's on my roof.  I'm not doing this.  And I complained to our landlord who said he would take care of it, but in the end, I had to be the one begging the company every day to please just come and deliver our propane.

The next issue: 
Mercado Libre is the Amazon.com of Mexico (never mind we have Amazon.mx also, Mercado Libre is where you usually go).  Just like the USA Amazon, independent sellers can post products to sell there, using their payment set up and shipping direct to buyers.

Yeah.  Great.  Except it's clear that a lot of people are buying broken stuff "fixing it" (not really) then reselling it.  Here's what we've experienced:

1. An Alexa that you had to fiddle with to get it to connect to power until it finally just broke.

2. My mother's 'Refurbished' computer that overheats when it's supposed to be idle.  We had to lift it off the desk with thread spindles to give it airflow because the stupid fan is on the bottom, and I've had to struggle to get the 'Bitconnect' or whatever code after two catostrophic failures.  This computer wasn't cheap either!  It was over $700USD!

3.  My mother's TV which is her computer monitor because her vision is bad had the remote control break.  You'd think this was a simple thing to remedy, get a universal remote, right?  There's no universal remotes that work with "Sansui 32 Smart Model".  We had to fight to get the manufacturer to send us a new remote, and it involved going to a local bank and putting money in their bank account and then sending them a receipt to prove we'd done this.  And it still took another two weeks for them to actually send it!

In the end I will go to the Sams Club and buy a guaranteed new computer directly from the store the next time I need it, and yes that means paying an exorbitant price (especially for Mexico) because they are imported from the USA.

But, yeah, these are minor inconveniences.  We love it here and it is our forever home.  

Recently a kitten dropped into our backyard.  :sigh:  We had to save the little twerp so now we have two cats, but what can you do?  He's adjusting well from feral life to house kitten.  Hopefully someone will adopt him from us soon.

The Birthday Party

 We're in Mexico not 5 months and we get invited to a birthday party.  Our neighbor's daughter was turning 13.  So not a little kid, but not an adult.  We were surprised it was 13 because when I asked how old back when we first met she said 13.  But apparently you start saying your age when it's the year you'll be that age?  I don't know.  But it wasn't a Quincenera.  Just a nice birthday party.

We were invited THE NIGHT BEFORE THE PARTY.  Like...what?  That's not enough time to get a gift!  Our neighbor Elba said no gifts.  She'd held a party for her older daughter's quince and no one showed up.  She thought because they didn't want to bring gifts.  So she said this time, no gifts.  

But there were gifts, so I'm glad I whipped something together.

My neighbor rented a party venue that had a swimming pool.  It was nice.  Outdoors, but with big powerful fans, a fully covered seating area, and the pool had tarps to semi-block the sun.  It was less than a mile from our home.

I looked it up and the face book said you could rent a weekday party for only $120usd.  Wow.  

I didn't know what to do about a gift.  I figured I'd put a 500 peso bill ($25) in an envelope and call it a day.  BUT.  I had bought some young adult books in Spanish because I wanted to start reading in Spanish. One of them, The Princess and the Cheese Sandwich, was still shrinkwrapped.  BOOM!  An age appropriate brand new book.  We wrapped it in a wrestling poster.  Done and Done.

Except I'd also ordered two boxes of mini-skittles.  So I brought them too and she was able to use them as party favors.  :proud:

I was worried this daughter would suffer what her sister did, but there were 50 people.  The kids played in the pool.  They paired off for slow songs and danced together in the pool  They were so cute.

My mom and I sat at a table with the mother, our neighbor and her husband.  She served pizza and ceviche (we ate the pizza), Agua Fresca which is a drink made from Jamaica leaves that tastes like cranberry juice to me, Sangria the non-acoholic soda that's popular here, and Fresca soda which is shockingly not diet here.

I ate three cupcakes and a little cheesecake cup thing that was super creamy.  We stayed for hours talking and joking with the other adult guests.  I brought a bottle of wine and my neighbor and her husband drank it with me.  Then they took out another bottle of sparkling wine that looked familiar...because I had given it to them a while ago when I bought multiples of it and didn't like it.  Lol.

A very nice party.  I wish I'd had more notice so I could have gotten the girl one of those plushies everyone is crazy about.  Le Sigh.  

No pinata.  ;_;  She's too old.  Ah well.

  

Getting Groceries in Mexico

So...I could get by on $200 a month for groceries.  If I did like my Mexican neighbor and went to the pescaria (fish shop), fruiteria, and the discount Walmart called Aurrora Bodega.  If we made corn tortillas and other assorted corn things our main starch.  (Order Chinese food and get a pile of corn tortillas with it...the people here eat everything in a corn tortilla, and tortas, and tostadas, and the biggest cornception:  Elote Street Food:  A bag of corn chips, sliced open, with corn masa put on it, with grilled corn with onions on that, and hot sauce. CORNCEPTION.)

A man with a cart comes by selling this every evening. 

Like my neighbor I could Make eggs (they're cheap here and not refrigerated) and beans the chief proteins along with the weekly fish if there's a good catch and good deals (literally have the fishermen walk in with their dripping fish nets, lots of oyster beds here too).  And by the way, that's her budget for a family of four.  

There's bags of dried textured tofu here for $20.  That's $20 pesos.  So $1.  And you put it in spaghetti bolanase and you can't tell it's not beef.  These bags are not refrigerated.  And I bet I'd like it if I tried it instead of the 400 gram ground beef tubes I buy for $50 ($2.50).

And all the videos and guides here said the same thing, groceries are cheap--if you shop like a local.

But do we shop like locals?  No.  No we don't.  

We just went to fricking Sams Club and spent $4,400 on American groceries like the spoiled brats we are.  That's $220USD if anyone's counting, and already over budget for eating like a local.

We have to have our stupid diet sodas (which I have to order online because you can only find two liters of coca cola light or coke zero around here and we want convenient cans or small bottles).  We have to have meat centric meals of steak, chicken, or ribs.  And when we buy fish it's the fricken frozen tilapia we used to buy in the USA.  I still haven't been to a pescaria yet!  And there's about three on the way to the drive to the Chedraui!

(As an aside, we went out for lunch today at one of the many seafood restaurants.  This one was introduced to us by that same neighbor so we went back.  I ordered something...wasn't sure what...and I got a whole bass fried and open with rice, potato salad, and greens salad.  It was delicious.  I picked that fishbone clean.)

We also expect to have black cherries this time of year, which I gorge on because I love them so much, and crunchy grapes, prunes for my mother, piles of cat food pouches to feed the strays, Splenda for my coffee, lots of sugar free chewing gum, and meat, meat, meat.

On top of this, when we do shop at the Mexican grocery stores we don't go to Aurrora Bodega or Casa Ley like my neighbor.  No.  We go to Chedraui, the most high end Mexican grocery store in my 2 kilometer range.  

Chedraui is really nice to shop at.  Clean.  Wide open aisles without stuff piled all over.  Everything neat and organized.  But never come on the 1st or 15th because that's when everyone in Mexico gets paid and the lines are LITERALLY an hour long.

It's the nearest place with ATMs to get cash out for the month.  So we always end up just shopping there because we have to go there for cash anyway.  But we can't resist the monthly Sams Club haul, despite the traumatic memories of my mom falling there last month.  (I'll never park in that section again.)

Chedraui is a warehouse size store where we also bought some furniture and electronics.  It's owned by Walmart, because of course it is.  So is Aurrora Bodega.  But the prices are still cheaper than in the USA.  

I say this, but Mexican prices are becoming so ordinary for me I really think I'm blanking on if there's any discount.  Sam's Club does have lower prices in Mexico than in the USA, but not THAT much lower.  I mean two pints of cherries is still $7, a double package of pork ribs will still run $15.  

And I could just buy all my produce at Aurrora Bodega.  Yes, there's fruit flies, and some rotten produce, but you can still find the good stuff and manage.  Or better yet, I could go to a fruiteria right?  

Well, I went to one and got some nice mangos, but it was the end of the day and all the bins were empty.  Like you have to hit the little stores early it seems

I went to a carcineria (butcher) within walking distance to my house (there's SO MUCH in walking distance!) but what do I buy?  Prime rib.  And it was $36 and smelled a little off.  But...the meat in the grocery stores always smell a little off to me, too.  I'm realizing it's not that it's going bad, but that they don't douse it with chlorinated water like in the USA.  It's probably healthier for me too.  Fewer nitrates for coloring here too.

Anyway, if we weren't spoiled we would keep going to the gringo side of town for Sams Club and Dairy Queen.  We wouldn't be importing Science Diet cat food for Scrappy.  And we wouldn't be getting our Bimbos at the Chedraui instead of the Aurora Bodega (hey I think I finally spelled it right!).  Bimbos being loafs of bread of course.

But anyway, I blew $220 on Sams Club and that leaves $280 for the rest of the month because my mom and I get a $500 grocery budget.  More than twice as much as my neighbor, for half as many people.  SHAME ON US!

Anyway...I'm going to walk to the Oxxo now to get that fucking menthol candy I'm re-addicted to.  That's all for now!