DHL Mexico is a Bunch of Scamming Losers

 Picture this, you live in Mexico but are from the USA, so when your credit card expires you need to send your new card from the USA to Mexico.  You expect forwarding a letter overseas to cost $35 or so, right?

USPS:  They never deliver.  There is no mail system in Mexico.  Everything I've ever tried to have shipped by USPS to Mexico NEVER ARRIVES.

UPS:  There is no UPS in Mexico.

FedEx:  $284...for a fucking letter.

DHL:  $78...for a fucking letter, but what can you do?  I need my credit card.

So I have my postal service forward my new credit card by DHL.  I also had my mom's new passport forwarded.  She got the passport no problem THANK GOD.  But my credit card?

DHL:  You need to get an import license and work with a shipping broker to bring merchandise into Mexico for resale.

Me:  This is a personal credit card, not merchandise.  

DHL:  You need to get an import license and work with a shipping broker to bring merchandise into Mexico for resale.  You are importing cards with chips to sell in Mexico.

Me:  It's literally one card, with my name on it, that matches my CURP (like Mexico social security number).  Please just send me my letter.  I paid $78 for this.

DHL:  You need to get an import license and work with a shipping broker to bring merchandise into Mexico for resale.

Me:  I get some regulations to quote from AI.  Not merchandise.  Reclassify the shipment and give me my fucking credit card (didn't swear but yeah.)

DHL:  You need to get an import license and work with a shipping broker to bring merchandise into Mexico for resale.

AI says they are too lazy to ever reclassify a shipment once they've misclassified it.  And even if I paid $500usd to get a shipping broker all they'd do is say you don't need me and ask them to reclassify the shipment, which they won't.  -_-

So I gave up, got a new card sent, and had it forwarded by fucking FedEx.  -_-  Almost $400 to get my new fucking credit card.  I'm fucking done.

Spring Cleaning

 Our normal housekeeper (also neighbor/friend which is not a good situation since you can't make a fuss over too much if you want to live peacefully) is in Sinaloa visiting family. Today is the normal day we pay $1700 ($100) for her to clean the house and sweep the yard.

Well...we decided to give someone else a chance since she's gone and we don't want to go without housekeeping for a whole month.  And I do not clean my own house.  I had a once a month housekeeper in the USA (all I could afford) and I have a once every 2 weeks housekeeper here in Mexico. 

I'm not housewife material.  I cook. My mom does the dishes. I provide. My mom does laundry.  I do all the driving, my mom does cat litters. And the rest of the housekeeping I pay someone else for.  I work 10-12 hours a day and I'm not going to spend 30 minutes cleaning a bathroom when I literally have multiple women competing for the gig.

We figured, let's get a DEEP CLEAN.  Let's go all out, because a lot of stuff, like scrubbing my balcony, cleaning the refrigerator, cleaning the windows, are not things our normal housekeeper will do.  

Well...as the only gringas in the neighborhood we have multiple neighbors competing for the housekeeping gig.  Like the woman who owns the salon at the end of the street (one of three in the neighborhood).  

This is the woman who does my mom's pedicures, because my mom can't cut her own toenails and I've been banned from the job after drawing blood too many times.  She is always asking if we need other services.  She'll drive her to appointments or clean her house, etc.  

So, we decided to give her a chance to clean for us while our regular housekeeper is away.  I sent her a Whatsapp asking if she wanted to spend 5 hours deep-cleaning our house.  She didn't answer.  She SHOWED UP AT THE DOOR.

She was like:  I have not had a customer for two damn days and I have four kids (one new born). 

Imagine having a salon and not having ANY customers a whole day.  That's regularly the situation for them.  People can't afford $400 ($25usd) for a pedicure or $600 ($38) for a manicure, etc.  She gets a few appointments a week, and it's enough, but it's tough. 

There are three salons in walking distance and the two that do pedicures will approach my mom when they see her walking to ask if she needs one.  (We were taking turns between the two of them, but one of them was willing to walk to our house and walk my mom to the salon and then walk her home because she gets lost, she won the monthly pedicure gig.)

The deep cleaned the whole house for 5 hours including cutting the vines choking the usability of my balcony.  It was a huge job and she brought her teenage son to help. 

House is sparkling clean.  Refrigerator sparkling and organized.  Microwave cleaned.  Everything scrubbed.  We definitely need to do this at least once a year.  @-@

Tramadol Troubles

One of the reasons I moved to Mexico was because the painkiller I take for my leg was available without a prescription here.  In the USA I had to pay $250 a month and pee in front of someone twice a year with humiliating Q&As just so I could get my script.  Then every pharmacy stopped carrying it except for weird mail-order ones that seem to be run out of a person's house.

In Mexico tramadol was an over-the-counter drug, and I got complacent.  As of tomorrow you have to have a prescription for it.  A 'illicit drug' type prescription.  I'm pissed.

I've weaned myself down to 100mg a day from a high of 400mg/day in the USA.  My leg is killing me.  My hip has started to hurt on the opposite side because I'm walking stupid because my leg hurts so much.   

But whatever.  I don't want go back to begging the system for the medication I need.  I'm trying to wean myself completely off of it from the horde I horded when this news broke.  It's miserable.

My one hope is that my neurologist will prescribe it the same way he did my Ambien.  Because being in pain makes it harder to think.  We'll see.  In the meantime, my plan is to just get off the shit.

I still want a supply for emergencies however.  Sometimes we travel and I literally can't walk due to the pain of walking so much.  Same with my mom, who has a twisted spine and sometimes needs serious pain meds.  I don't ever want her to not be able to have a pill if she needs it.

FML.  Stupid anti-drug bullshit from the USA has invaded Mexico.  I hate this.

In other news, I want to go see the Toy Story 5 movie, since they're usually pretty good, but they don't put out subtitled versions of kids movies here.  Just the dubbed in Spanish version.  So I have to wait for Streaming.

I don't know if I covered this before, but when a USA movie comes to Mexico they usually have subtitled or dubbed options.  I just saw Backrooms a month ago and it was in English with Mexican subtitles.  I also saw the newish Superman movie in English with Spanish subtitles.  

I mean, it's great that I can still see movies in Mexico, but when a character is talking in a 3rd language on screen, like if they have Russian spies speaking in Russian the captions will be in Spanish, and I have to use my Spanish brain since I do technically speak Spanish now.  But I like to just be lazy at the movies.

Anyway, the images in this post are from my game Dragon Riders.  The supposed 'big one' for my game company.  The game that's going to make $7 million dollars so I can take care of my staff and my family.  It's a gacha game without microtransactions I say as if that means anything to anyone who actually reads this.  We'll see...

If I make my goal, then...

1. I can buy a new house for my graphic designer Anna in Brazil so she stops losing everything every time it floods there.

2. I can give my programmer a $50,000 bonus...something I've always dreamed of.

3. I can give bonuses to my other workers at great and shocking amounts.

4. I can pay my cousin Diana to be a trustee in a corporation I set up in Puerto Rico to look after my cousin Danalee and aunt Gisela who both need to go into full time care.  And I can buy a condo for her and another for my other cousin Yassier.  Diana is probably needing a new car too...

5.  I can have wealth for my niece and nephews in the USA so that if they ever need it I'm there, and when I'm gone they'll inherit it.

6. And when ALL THAT is done...I can buy a better home in Mexico with an American-Style kitchen with a fricking dishwasher and no more bus-sized cucarachas!

Well...that's the dream anyway.

Easter in Mexico

Technically we were here for Easter last year, but we had just moved into the 'permanent' apartment we have here after our first month in an Air B&B.  We didn't know our neighbors that well yet.

This year we were invited to the 'Pascua de Resurrección' celebration at their vacation home.  

Now, I know it doesn't look like much, but it's hectares of land that they own and enjoy.  It's being built as the money comes along, little by little.  This is the main structure, that has a bed in it, and plans to make it an Air B&B eventually.  The hole in front is where a swimming pool is planned, but work is slow.  

The location doesn't have a water connection, so it's a lot of water hauling from their main house next to ours.  The bathroom is an outhouse with a flushable toilet (due to a cistern on top).  I wish I'd taken a picture of that, but it was a place I disliked while we were there.  I have to use the bathroom a lot, and asking for help to flush was embarrassing.  Also the toilet was too low for mom to use.  Even I had trouble getting up from it.  

And by 'out house' I mean one concrete wall with tarp tented around it, and a tarp flap door that would happily blow in the wind to show everyone outside you sitting on the toilet.  (But no one was out there so it's fine.)

Granted, there is a lot of junk collecting on the land.  Numerous cars, buses, and refrigeration units.  My neighbor Rudy is a mechanic and delivers beer coolers to restaurants.  So he has a lot of broken ones there to scavenge for parts or restore.  

He has two trucks that he drives.  His regular pickup truck for work, and a big open box truck that he uses to deliver the drink coolers and cisterns (he also delivers/installs cisterns in houses).  

Side Note:  What's the deal with cisterns here?  We have a water shortage, so the city turns off the water a few days a week.  You have a cistern to collect water on the days it's available so that you don't notice it when the water is off.  We have two for our apartment, one on the roof and one buried under our driveway.  We've never been without water here.

Rudy is hustling in a million different ways as they do here.  He's got the beer cooler gig, the cistern gig, he gets old cars and fixes them up to sell them (there were at least a dozen waiting for his attention there).  And, he's raising chickens to sell organic eggs

They have older layer hens that are producing eggs right now, and 50 young chicks growing up to be eventual producers.

 
I was concerned with the cost to feed them.  They're fed Amaranth (the exact thing I tried to grow once for chicken feed when I had chickens in the USA).  Amaranth is an ancient grain of Mexico and is a great chicken feed.  Think millet, but smaller.  

There's also a lot of amaranth candy you can get here, and puffed amaranth for some reason.  I bought it thinking it would be good to put on yogurt, but so far haven't used it.  (I should give it to them for the chickens now that I think about it.)

The chickens were beautiful.  The older ones had two gigantic roosters, with stiff bright red combs.  Truly gorgeous and healthy.  The babies were just adorable and I wish I could have snuggled one, but I gave up fast so I didn't stress them.

But wait!  There's more!  They had four horses.  Riding horses!  There's my intern B. going for a ride.  (She's one of their two daughters).  Like...freaking horses!  These aren't cheap to have.  I mean, they have enough land for them, but they need alfalpha.  

I asked Rudy how much it was for a hay bale each day.  $150!!  That's pesos, so $8.  THAT'S ALOT!  Remember minimum wage is only $22 USD a day here.  Having a third of that go to horse feed would be a big hit.

So it tells me they're doing okay.  Better than I think.  Rudy must be making decent money with all his hustles.  This isn't even their only property!  They own a rental house in the mountains too.

This is edible cactus that they grow.  They're always trying to share it with us, but mom doesn't like it.

The prepper in me was super-impressed with this beautiful land.  Land that you could use to grow your own food.  I talked to Rudy about making it an Eco Tourism place where kids could help garden and care for the animals.  He said that was the plan.  Just needs time and money.

If I wasn't so busy with my own business I'd be all in.  I know and trust my neighbors and they are people I'd be happy to go into business with.  But we're all so busy hustling in our different ways.  :sigh:

On the right here is their other daughter and her friend from school.  They had a four-wheeler!!  I've never owned one.  

For me I see such a rich life for our neighbors.  They have so much more than the average person from the United States.  We claim 'poverty' to Mexicans, but it's so not true.  They have fun they have more wealth than you know.  I mean, how many girls have dreamed of owning their own horses?  

Anyway, in the USA 11am is when lunch time starts.  In Mexico 1-2pm.  My mom and I haven't gotten used to that yet and we were ravenous.  We brought some steaks and some cookies (even though they weren't needed, but y'know, you never show up to a BBQ empty-handed). 

I watched them cook, drooling, wondering when the paper plates and plastic silverware was coming out.

AH HA HA HA HA.  -_-  You foolish gringo.  

Elba just offered me a pan piled with meat for me to take with my hands and eat with my teeth.  Thank God my mom got her teeth fixed!  We had paper towels, that's it.  

I was so hungry, I didn't even mind.  It was great, and the dogs were happily eating all our bones.  (There were at least four dogs running around to protect the place from intruders).

But let me tell you...I downed so many ribs, steaks, cookies, and donuts.  Omg.  I'm on punishment today for my diet.  

Speaking of diet, when I arrived in Mexico I weighed 106 kilos (233 pounds, I'm not using kilos to be obnoxious, you get used to metric and Celsius pretty quick here).  Today I weigh 94 kilos (207 pounds).  Mexico has made me healthier, and I love it here.

They had beef ribs that were so delicious.  My steaks from Sams Club were chewy and I much preferred theirs.  They also had young roasted onions.  I tried it.  It was what you expected.  A roasted onion.  I wasn't a fan.  I think I was supposed to eat it in a taco, but we just devoured the meat and didn't mess with tortillas.

I am going to start breaking the bad gringo habits I have of buying my meat from Sams Club.  In my defense, I was getting meat there because it was the cuts I recognized.  I never know what I'm buying in the Mexican grocery stores.  I don't know how to cook the meat.  But I know how to cook a ribeye, strip steak, or beef ribs.

But they had what people from the USA would call 'Korean cut' ribs, and they were so soft and rich.  They told me where to buy them.  And I will. They're much cheaper than the chewy crap from Sams Club.

I need to stop buying food like a gringo and fully embrace my new life here.  And I will.  Because a rich life is easy in this country. 

Cabo and Other Things

 Hey Everyone, 

Sorry for not posting in a long time.  You just get used to life and all the interesting stuff about moving to a new country becomes ordinary.  But anyway...

We've been in Mexico for one year now.  We renewed our Temporary Residency for another 3 years.  After that we can apply for permanent residence.  Which is the plan.  We love it here.

My sister-in-law was surprised when we (mom and I) told her we were never coming back to the USA.  But we can't fathom going back to that life.  There's so many great things about life in Mexico that we'd have to give up in the USA:

1. Able to get my tramadol at any pharmacy, no questions asked.  No need for drug tests or expensive services where I have to justify my need for pain relief.

2.  Home vet visits so we can give our cats the best possible care in the most convenient way.  We have a personal relationship with our vet.  He knows our cats and our cats are used to him.  

3.  Better and less expensive medical care all around.  The private medical care system is how celebrities get treated in the USA.  We're eligible for the public system now, but we're not going to add ourselves to an already overburdened system.

4.  Friends.  Neighbors.  REAL FRIENDS.  The kind you can rely on to pick you up from the hospital or airport.  I have literally NEVER had neighbors like this before.  As I speak my neighbor is driving my mom to run an errand (because I'm too sick).  Even with broken Spanish I have true friends here.  I feel safe.  Watched by my neighbors.  Protected.

5.  Nearly all the things I liked in the USA are available here in some way.  Craving USA-style grapes?  US style cuts of beef?  Sams Club.  USA-style fried chicken?  There's one single KFC.  But honestly, the Mexican options are better and cheaper.

6.  Food delivery for $20 all-in.  You can go crazy with that if you're not careful.

A million other things I'm not thinking of, but this was the best decision of my life, and I'm glad I'm crazy enough to do things like this.  Moving back to the USA now would be such a negative adjustment for us.  (Especially since we sold our house.)

I don't know if I updated this previously, but we have yet another new kitten. Yes, having close neighbors is great, but the problem is, everyone knows everyone elses' business.

What I mean is, everyone in our colony knows we're cat-lovers.  We feed numerous outdoor cats.  We put out quality dry food in a tub every night, with clean water, and feed our 'regulars' wet food twice a day.  

So, when someone loses a cat, they come to our house and give us the picture.  Then, inevitably, the cat comes to eat and we get them back to their owner.  Great, right?

Well, everyone also knows that Frijole was dropped in our backyard and we took him in.  The story of how he literally dropped out of the sky spread throughout the Colony.  Great?

And then one day...someone ran up to our gate and threw in a sick kitten and ran away.  -_-  Seriously.  My mom saw them do it but couldn't catch the person.  (But we know who it is.  The woman who cuts hair in her house had 8 grey tabby kittens.  I know damn well it was her because she lives only 2 doors down and could run into her house before we caught her.)

Whatever.  I mean, if she asked us to get vet care for the kitten we would have.  

Quackers, our new little boy, was on death's door.  Trembling.  Not eating.  Not drinking.  Stuffed up.  Coughing a horrible wet cough.  We took him and put him in a cat container with a heating blanket.  Mom and I thought he wouldn't survive the night.

The next morning...he was still alive.  And rest and warmth apparently did him some good.  He started eating and drinking ravenously.  Great.  So we got vet care for him and after two vet visits he was healthy.

The plan was to bring the healed kitten back to the hair dresser and pretend we didn't know it was her who threw him in our gate.

But this kitten...my God.  We've never had such a loving and sweet baby before.  He loves all people.  No fear of anyone.  He wants to cuddle all the time.  He wags his tail and meows with glee every day when I come down stairs.  He loves to be on shoulders or laps.  He's just...too sweet and perfect.  

So yeah.  Now we have 3 cats.  So much for traveling around Mexico.

Except we did travel.  We're only 2 hours from Cabo.  I wanted to check it out.  My mom and I are seeing a neurologist who works half the time in La Paz and half in Cabo.  His La Paz office takes months to get an appointment.  We waited on the first one, but for the second I decided to go to Cabo and spend the night in a hotel there.

Cabo is not for us.  The resorts control all the good beaches, and apparently they're dangerous because they get deep too fast, unlike the beaches in La Paz.  There is only one highway through the city with ocean on either side and it's a pain in the ass.  Everything I looked up on GPS is some coordinate on this highway, which is hard to find, so we ended up passing places we wanted to go and had to keep driving until we could get to an overpass to go in the other direction.  Which we'd have to do until we could get to another overpass to get on the correct side of the highway again.  

It's a huge pain in the ass.  Add to that, everything is 'dumb American tourist' prices.  We went to a pharmacy to see if Ozempic was cheaper.  I thought it was.  It's around $5000 pesos in La Paz for the oral pills my mom takes (like $300, the dollar has tanked so much since we moved here).  I asked the guy how much and I though he said Dos Mil Pesos.  Like $2,000 pesos.  I was like, FUCK YEAH!  Let me stock up.  But my mom pointed out that he'd actually said:  Diez Mil pesos.  $10,000 pesos, or $700!!  THAT'S WHAT IT COSTS IN THE USA FFS!

But that's who they cater to.  Everyone was speaking English in the stores, which annoys me, because I know Spanish and I want to speak it.  But I talk in Spanish and they reply in English and won't talk to me in Spanish no matter how much I try.  -_-  How the fuk would someone ever learn Spanish there?

We ended up just going to a nice restaurant to eat out (which wasn't all that good).  Gringos were everywhere, often in bridesmaid dresses or party dresses.  It's definitely not a city for locals.  

Another problem is because it's on the tip of the peninsula with ocean on three sides, it gets HAMMERED during hurricanes.  

On the way to Cabo I picked up a hitchhiker.  I can't help myself.  The poor guy was walking down the highway, miles from the nearest exit.  He had been walking for 3 hours before we picked him up.  We took him all the way home, and gave him $1000 pesos, because he was too broke to have any water with him.  (He drank and ate ravenously the water and food we gave him in the car.)

Anyway, after he drank and ate he because talkative.  Telling us about Cabo.  Work.  Etc.  Mentioned his wife.  My mom asked if he had kids.  No.  Their baby was killed in the last hurricane. They're still grieving and are not trying again yet. 

MY GOD.  That just broke my heart.

He kept saying that he's shocked women would pick up a man.  Warned us it could be dangerous.  I mean...yeah.  But I can't help myself.  And it's always worked out so far.

Anyway, we went to Cabo to see a neurologist (brain doctor).  Why?  Because I was forgetting words and my mom sometimes gets lost.  Someone once told me that the brain is so good at compensating for problems that by the time you have symptoms you are already too far gone.  So I figured forgetting words might be the start of something bad.

The first appointment we'd have said both me and my mom do not have dementia or altheimers.  My mom is in great shape mentally for a 77 year old (it's true).  And I also had no signs.  But, I wanted to be sure, so we got MRIs.

The MRIs were a miserable experience.  The equipment was old.  It took half an hour.  I remember an MRI I had in the US that took 3 minutes.  So...one point for the USA here.

I was freaking over getting the results to my doctor, because I didn't want to drive all the way to Cabo and not have it.  The people were like:  Chill.  We'll send it to you on Whatsapp and you can send it to him.  One point for Mexico here.  They give you your results.  You don't have to pay a doctor to get them if you don't want.

Anyway, my brain was completely fine and normal.  The only thing that showed up was sinitis .  No issues in any way what so ever.

Mom had grey matter shrinkage that's typical with age.  The brain is a muscle and she's been retired since 55 and doesn't do complex tasks.  She needs to continue to learn Portuguese to build up her gray matter again.  She also has a cyst that probably isn't a problem and isn't currently causing problems or pushing on anything.  She needs to check it in 2 years with another MRI.  But this is good news all around.

One of my goals of the appointment was to ask for the Shingrix shingles vaccine.  It's been proven to reduce the chance of demensia, and may even be part of why my mother never had demensia like her mother and sister.  She got the vaccine years ago.

The study showing that Shingrix helps prevent demensia was only a few months old so I thought I'd have to explain it to the neurologist.

HA!  Not only was he on top of that, he had ordered the vaccine for his patients already because of it, and he was able to give me the first shot THAT DAY IN HIS OFFICE.

Damn.  The medical care here is just fucking amazing.

Unfortunately, it made me horrendously sick.  I'm just now getting my strength back.  I missed a lot of work.  It's going to be an ordeal trying to catch up.  But, my risk for dementia is lower, and even though I really DIDN'T need to see a neurologist, I'm glad I did.  

Mom's First Birthday in Mexico

Well, I had a birthday here too in June, and it was a big one, I turned 50. 

 

You'd think we would have done something for that.  Before the election I had wanted to go to the hotel inside the Mall of America and explore the shops and go to the indoor theme park.  It was the perfect low stress vacation idea where everything was guaranteed to be handicapped accessible for my mom.

BUT DID WE?  DID WE DO THIS?  DID WEEEEEEE?!

No!  Because assholes voted for Trump and our whole life got turned upside-down.  

So...think of it this way, for my 50th birthday I got to go to La Paz Mexico.  That's a trip, right?  Beach town.  Beautiful place.  Heck I even drove down the Malecon...

On the way to the fecking hospital to get my uterus cut out of my abdomen.  

Yeah.  That was my 50th birthday, y'all.  I had major surgery.  :sigh:

Oh well, now it was time for my mom's birthday in January.  So we invited our neighbors to go to Fumos with us.  Fumos is a super-fancy restaurant in La Paz.  We've been there several times.  We keep going back because I know they have parking.  

There's lots of other fancy restaurants in La Paz, but they're all on the beach.  And I don't know if they have parking.  I kind of think they don't.  Because everyone walks the malecon (boardwalk) and it's not really a car-centric area.  

And that's fine.  I could find a paid parking lot and then go to a fancy restaurant.  But how much walking is my mother going to do, y'know?  Will there be decent sidewalk the whole way for her walker?  Maybe, but maybe we have sand to cross to get to the front of the restaurant or something.  It's just better to go where we know.

And we invited our neighbors because I thought it would be a big treat for them.  Y'know, they make the average Mexican income.  I didn't think that they would have ever been to this expensive restaurant.

But that's my gringo brain.  Um...yeah.  They had just been there for their daughter's birthday a few months earlier.  -_-  It's like we get this idea that people are poor and we're so well off etc.  But, even poor people can save up for special occasions and order something not too expensive from the menu, so...GTFO.  Felt stupid.

The other thing:  I really wanted them to have a great dinner.  Enjoy themselves.  But the father DIDN'T WANT TO ORDER ANYTHING.  -_- He was like, Oh, my daughter's ordering a pizza I'll just have a slice of that.  I'm like, dude!  Get a steak!  Get the short ribs!  But no, he didn't want to cost me money.  

It's like this all the time.  You either get people like my cousins and aunt in Puerto Rico who are too proud to ask for money and when they really need it and you send them more than they asked for they get mad.  And it's like, why can't you let me enjoy helping you?  Why are you so proud!  I'm your niece, your cousin, I make a decent income.  WHY CAN'T I HELP YOU?  

They live in government housing on government assistance.  I bought my cousin Diana a car which really helped her and she's got her own house-cleaning business.  But her mom had her washing machine break and asked us for $150 to repair it.  We sent her $300.  Live a little.  Treat yourself.  She asked me to go through things step by step with her to explain how to send the extra back.  -_-

So Rudi my neighbor's husband doesn't want to order anything.  He won't order a mixed drink.  Won't order a beer.  I have to order a Jamaica water for him (very popular soft drink pronounced hi-may-ee-ka made from hibiscus flowers, tastes like a very light cranberry juice, and is super healthy for you, the tamarind water is also amazing and healthy).  

Then I just ordered him a skirt steak, because WTF.  And I felt like a bitch doing it because he just wanted to share his daughter's pizza and I'm forcing this expensive steak on him.  WHICH HE DIDN'T EVEN EAT!  Because it was medium rare and Mexicans like steaks well done.  

But his wife said, good, it's raw.  I can cook it and make tacos tomorrow.  -_- 

Yeah, they had a ton of leftovers.  But it was a bit tense also.  My neighbor's marriage isn't great and the two of them weren't talking.  Basically I had to invite the wife Elba separately from the husband Rudi.  They both showed up separately (I drove Elba and her daughters because she doesn't have a license plate on her car and they always crack down on that in the beginning of the year here.) 

Elba was okay with her husband coming.  She wanted him too.  She just didn't want to invite him because she wasn't talking to him.  So I did.  I have WhatsApp and a translator extension so it wasn't a problem.

Speaking of that, we were pulled over because we didn't have a license plate on the front of our car.  Just the USA plate in the back (which you're allowed to drive with here).  Very pleasant exchange.  Very friendly female cop.  No issues.  La Paz has a very low amount of police/National Guard corruption here.  We really lucked out. 

Part of me thinks of maybe exploring other areas of Mexico and seeing if there's somewhere else we want to settle, but La Paz is so nice.  We have everything we need here.  We have friends.  Our landlord asked us if we were going to stay in this apartment and we said yes, for at least another year if not more.  He said, great, because we're good tenants.  

The best part of the dinner was that they gave mom a free cake with a firecracker on it.  The second best thing were my neighbor's two daughters.  The youngest was dancing in her seat the whole time, so happy to get good food.  And the other one speaks English and does art for me.  Two great girls who are just great kids and have bright futures.

Anyway, we agreed that the dinner wasn't what we'd hoped for and next time it will just be me and mom together.  Oh well.

El Navidad (Christmas in Mexico)

 Welp, it's getting near Christmas time in Mexico.  The neighbors invited us for Christmas dinner.  Except, they invited us to have it in our house. 

They're making a second floor to their house, but it's not ready yet.  That means 80sq meters (two bedrooms, tiny living room/kitchen, 1 bath) for four people.  I've never been in their house, but they say they don't have any space.

I believe them, because we share a wall and I know my downstairs is the floorplan of their whole house.  This place would be too small for my mother and I if it were just the downstairs.  I can't imagine with two more people.

So we set up our little table and brought out folding tables to put in front of our couch.  Not needed.  We all ate at the small table, and it was fine.  The husband came late so we ate in shifts.

And we finally had birria!  My neighbor made the low spice version so my mom could eat it.

It's not actually Christmas today.  They are traveling to Sinoloa to visit family tomorrow, but they didn't want us to celebrate alone, so had another celebration for us.

Friends in Mexico are true friends.  It was fun.

Other news:

I found out I can get monthly soda/water delivery from Coca Cola Mexico.  Water jugs, water bottles, soda, and Topo Chico.  This is really a life-saver because we're constantly running out, and the stores never have enough.  It's good to have regular water jug delivery too because chasing the trucks that go by every once in a while for water sucked.

Other than that, not much to report.  We stay home most days.  I work.  It's not much different day to day from the USA, except I don't have to struggle with my pills, and when my mom needed a colonoscopy they saw us right away.  It was clear.  We'll do the rest of her 'make sure the cancer hasn't come back' tests next month.

This year I'm grateful for a new life in a new country where my federal tax is almost gone, I can get my medication easily, and my rent is cheap.  This year has been a blessing for us, and we are grateful.

Black Friday in Mexico

 So, at first I thought Black Friday was a different thing called 'Buen Fin' (good end) here.  There were stores advertising 'Buen Fin' sales.  It's a week of sales in the middle of November.  So I figured, okay, that must be Mexico's Black Friday.

Nope.  Buen Fin was thier own thing.  They *ALSO* do Black Friday here.  But they don't do Thanksgiving.

La Paz has a high gringo population.  All of Baja California does actually, both above and in my state, Sur.  You can't beat the benefit of being able to drive with your USA license plate all throughout the peninsula.

A lot of gringos settled in little beach colonies on the Pacific ocean or sea of Cortez.  But many made it all the way down to La Paz (and further South to Cabo, or Los Cabo the rich gringo area).

Still, turkey isn't really eaten much here.  They have turkey slices for sandwiches, and that's about it.  But...we have gringo stores.  Sams Club and Walmart.  I figured I'd find a turkey there.

Actually, the regular grocery story, Chedraui, had turkeys!  Fricking expensive $30 turkeys.  Is that what turkeys normally cost now in the USA?  I seem to remember being able to get a turkey this big for under $20 before.  It's just me and my mom, so a small one is fine...there really wasn't much selection.  Just 3 or 4 to pick from from a freezer section.

No stuffing.  I didn't check Walmart or online, but it wasn't in the Mexican grocery.  I could probably order it.  I don't know.  

At one point I pondered inviting our neighbors over to do Thanksgiving with us.  We'd have to do it in the back garden area.  That's a big undertaking for us, and I'd want to make pumpkin pies (no canned pumpkin here--just weird light brown 'sort of' pumpkins in the stores that don't make good pies).  And pecan pie, and all the normal Thanksgiving dishes to really show our culture.

But...lazy.  I'm still going to put together a dinner for the neighbor, but she can take it and eat it at her own house.  Maybe next year I'll plan something.  We have two neighbors we can invite actually...so...I'd need to get a big table and chairs.

The second neighbor friend is because we feed stray cats.  We've done it since we got here, so we're known as the 'cat people' on the block.  When people lose their cats they show up at our house.  We leave out dry food, and feed a 3-cat colony (along with several others who clearly have owners but like to 'eat out').  

So far we were able to get one lost kitty back to their owner.  He was easy to spot.  He had a cast on his leg.  So no doubt this wasn't a stray.  Anyway, we're friends with the neighbor who lost his cat now.  

Having neighbor friends is great because in Mexico they actually do leave packages with your neighbors when you're not home, and neighbors actually do give you the packages.  Very convenient!  The delivery men always call you on the phone too.  When has that ever happened in the US?  

I normally don't have to buy many gifts for Christmas. Just some stuff for my brother and his family, and stuff for a family I sponsor through a charity.  I've sponsored them for years and their kids have grown up, moved out, etc.  I don't know what gifts to buy them!  So I just send one big gift card.  They always appreciate it.

Letter from the Family

This year I have my neighbor, her husband, and her two daughters to get gifts for!  Man...Christmas was never so expensive.  But the mother cleans our house so she deserves a bonus, and one of the daughter is an 'intern' for my game company.  So...I'll get gift cards at least.

We've been here 8 months.  Life in Mexico is beyond anything we could have imagined.  I met another gringo the other day and he asked with a smile how I like it here.  Like he knew the answer...of course we love it!  This place is amazing.  

And to think...we waited so long.

Dentist in Mexico

 I feel bad constantly pointing out how much better my life is in Mexico, because people in the USA are suffering and there are a lot of people I care about there.  As some point it feels like this meme when I compare the Mexico to the USA:

And not everything is better here.  I guess I just stress the positives because I grew up being told that the USA was the best and it sucked everywhere else.  It makes you defensive when you find out you were lied to.

Today I had a dentist appointment and we did an egregious amount of shopping.  At the end of the day we just wanted some good food fast.  Like...drive-thru fast.

Mexico is just not a drive-thru culture.  That's not to say they don't have cars...they do, and in my area cars are as prevalent as they are in the USA.  It's just that they don't look for 'fast food'.  

They're not constantly in a hurry like we are in the USA.  And when they want 'convenient' food, there's plenty of taco stands (and hotdog stands, Elote/tamale stands, burger stands, shrimp stands, sushi/ceviche stands, etc.).

There is fast food where I live, but it's all USA imports.  And because we just wanted to go through a drive-thru and get something good to eat, that's what we were limited with.  

In our city there is one of each of these:  Mcdonalds, Subway, Little Ceasars, Carls Jr., KFC, WingStop. That's it.  Those are all the places that have drive-thrus.

In Tucson I could have enjoyed Taco Bell, Canes, Inn-and-Out, Koreabowl (or whatever it's called), El Pollo Loco, and the list goes on and on.  Choices on every corner.  Also I could get an 8 piece fried chicken from the grocery store, which was always a great option.  

Out here the drive-thrus tend to be clustered in the gringo areas.  It's not cheap food.  (Though I guess that's the same in the USA lately.)

We end up going for gringo options a lot and we shouldn't.  This area of Mexico is a very corn-tortilla centric food culture.  If you order Chinese food you'll get a stack of corn tortillas with it.  Food is just eaten with tortillas.  

But honestly?  I don't like corn tortillas.  Especially these pale ones that are so popular.  They seem raw to me.  And gritty.  I have European heritage and that means wheat products, and wheat tortillas.  They just taste so much better to me...but I don't need one to eat Chinese food with.

In our fridge were stacks of plastic bags filled with 20 corn tortillas (small ones) from all our delivery orders.  We just gave them all to our neighbor so she can feed them to her chickens recently.

But, ANYWAY.

Back to the good.  The dentist.

I went to the dentist because it hurt to brush one side of my teeth.  Nerve is exposed.  In the USA?  It would have been a root canal and a new crown.  For around $1,600, or probably more because it's been 3 years since my last dental work.

Here?  He painted some varnish on the tooth.  It wasn't a cavity.  I didn't need more than that.  He was super nice, too, and loved practicing his English with me.

We've been to the dentist in Mexico before, but it was on the border in a town known for dental tourism.  My mom still got a nice zircon bridge for $3,000 in 2013 or so, but it was very pushy and up-selly.  Kind of like USA dentists...who push you to get work you might not really need, or more expensive work compared to what might be a better cheap option.

I want to mention one more thing on the 'Mexico is better' side.  Next to my house is a pharmacy that I can walk to for my antidepressants, painkillers, and other medicines.  I'd been getting Desvenlafexine from there.  It was 500 pesos for a one month supply...really expensive for Mexico, but I needed it so whatever.

Yesterday I went to get the pills and I got a two month supply for 300 pesos ($15).  I was like: what the heck?

The worker said that someone started buying Desvenlafexine here a while a go so they asked corporate to send them the generic to save them money.

ME.  I was the one who started buying that there a while ago.  THEY GOT ME CHEAPER PILLS FOR ME.  ;_;

I love Mexico so much.
 

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.