Fitting In

Now that we're in Mexico there are a lot of people coming by the house, such as neighbors, vendors, landlords, repair people, delivery people.  Normally I just had delivery people who were gone before the end of the doorbell ring.  So I slummed it most days, confident that no one would ever see my patchy gray hair and dirty shorts.

In Mexico, yeah.  Lots of people get a chance to see and judge me, and I really don't like putting on a wig unless I'm going out.  So, for the first time in a year, I dyed my hair and tried to make a no-wig effort.

I bought dark brown hair dye and let it sit for a long time because I had A LOT of white and gray to cover.  It came out black.

Oh well.  No big deal right?  WRONG.

Now people are talking to me expecting me to speak Spanish.  In the past, they just talked to my mom.  They looked at me and thought, "I bet that gringa doesn't speak a word of Spanish."

With black hair I am now a Mexi-American.  "When did your daughter live in the USA?  She speaks English."

My mom told me that the guys who cleaned our car assumed I'm just a Mexican who lived in the states for a while.  And that's only because they listened to my pathetic attempt at Spanish.  

Today we have repairmen in the house fixing a drippy AC unit.  Again.  He talked to me.  @_@  I said okay.  Something about going to and small.  That's all I got.  Voy a blah blah pequena blah blah.  

This didn't happen to me in my light brown wigs or undyed hair.  So...I guess I fit in more?

And I'm desperate to get my Spanish up to par.  Yes, I'm able to say most of the things I want, though many STILL don't understand me, but also I'm having a hard time understanding when people speak.  :sigh:  I'll get there. 

Today's Adventure

Today was payday for me and everyone in Mexico apparently.  I was warned not to go out on the 1st or 15th because that's when everyone gets paid.  The ATM at Chedraui ran out of cash.  But I don't use the same one all the locals do, so I still got my cash.  Of which...$60 is left for the rest of the month's food.  😓 Kind of went crazy today.  But I will stay on budget.  YOU MARK ME!

While we were in the store men came and cleaned our car for $100pesos or $5.  It was filthy.  Everything gets caked with dust in La Paz, and our car was a disgrace.  So I gave them $200 since they did a good job, and also because I didn't have a 100 peso bill.

We couldn't go shopping while they were cleaning, because the check out lines were wrapping around the store.  Seriously.  A half hour wait to pay at least.  And people here seem to put up with it fine.  Not me.  I'm still in gringo mode, so I am not standing in a line that long for nothing.  It wasn't just a lot of people, but full grocery carts with everyone.  This was their monthly 'big shop.'

Instead I walked to the nearest Oxxo to get me and my mom drinks.  As I was walking I noticed the air tasted like salt.  Beach town, y'know?

Then we went out for lunch at a restaurant we like called Don Quijote's.  Except we liked their lunch/dinner menu.  Not the breakfast menu.  At 11am it was still breakfast.  At 12pm...still breakfast.  So we came today at 1pm.  Still breakfast?!

In the USA lunch starts promptly at 11am.  Not so in Mexico.  I don't know when this place's menu flips.  x_x  But I got a waffle with sliced apples on it, all the same.  Waffle in Spanish is the same word as English except pronounced waff-ley.  

We then went to a private hospital to find out what insurance we should get.  They gave a list of phone numbers to contact to decide which one we want.  On the other side of the list was PRICES.  Yeah.  Imagine being an American and walking into a hospital with a LIST OF PRICES.  What a dream!

Unfortunately, what I wanted was to get my uterus ripped out, and that wasn't on the list.  They said to wait and they'd call all doctor to talk to me.  @_@  en serio?  But in the end there was no one, because today is Mexico's labor day holiday.  He was golfing.  But the hospital looks nice, and the prices reasonable.  So I know where to take mom next time she's sick.

After that we went to the gringo mall.  I call it the gringo mall because there's American stores.  A Dairy Queen (yes we totally got some ice cream) a KFC, Petco, assorted American clothes stores, and a Carls Jr.  Right in my own little city.  We went through the KFC drive-thru yet again, and it was slightly less of a disaster than usual.

In the Dairy Queen the person told me the price and I blanked and tried to pretend I heard, but then just gave up and asked again.  And she had already written it down and held it up for me.  Yeah.  Gringos.  Our brains don't hear numbers.  Looking at the check out screens is the only way I get by.  Or by throwing too many bills and getting the overage handed back to me.

We got our finicky kitty's $60USD fucking cat food, and while there I grabbed a cat bed.  In the Waldo's we also visited, we got a large cushy blanket. 

I went outside, swept under the built in concrete table, and put down trashbags.  On that I put the cushy blanket, and then a pillow because my mom stole the cat bed for Scrappy once she realized what I was doing.  Oh well, I grabbed Scrappy's pillow instead.

What was I doing?  Making a cat alcove because there are two pregnant gray tabbies desperately trying to run into our house every time we open the door.  These are strays we feed.  One loves to be petted, the other flinches, but doesn't run.  She doesn't like it, but she likes us, and won't run from us.  Both have swollen kitten bellies.  Both are looking for a safe nesting place.

I'm sorry, I can't let these trojan horses into my house.  Our resident cat Scrappy is called Scrappy because she's violent to any other animal that's foolish enough to come into the house.  Except now she's 22 years old and while she'll still try to kill the other cats, she'll get killed herself probably in the process.  We can't give her this stress in her final years.  She's already singing the cat chorus of death whenever she sees them through the window.

Except for one cat.  A white cat showed up today meowing to her through the window.  Scappy just watched him calmly.  I think he's okay with her because he reminds her of her deceased big brother Sultan.  Anyway, this tom cat is here for one reason only.  His nuts are walnuts.  She's female.  The guy is meowing to her all fricking day.

My mom wants to let this paroumar (I don't know how to spell it) in and adopt him after promptly nuetering the perv since Scrappy seems to like him.  I don't know.  He is a little dirty and scarred, but he's so friendly someone must have owned him at one point?  He's not skinny either.

So we'll see.  For now the preggos have to stay out for their own salvation, and it's not ideal for them, but the best we can do.