NOB (North of the Border) Brain Disorder

I've been back in Colorado for a few days now and I'm having to re-learn everything.

"Now where do I keep the toaster and which drawer is the silverware drawer? " I can't even ask myself, "Now where would Gaby, (our girl Friday in Mexico) put this?

"Oh look! I have a dishwasher!" (Clapping hands excitedly).

I've finally remembered where the button is that rolls down the window in the car but the one thing I can't seem to retrain my brain to do is turn on the hot water in the kitchen. It should be easy. It's just one of those simple faucets with a handle that swivels to the right for cold water and, of course, swivels to the left for hot water. What's the problem? This is universal, isn't it? Umm…not necessarily. You see, after I had our plumber/electrician guy (they are often one and the same in Mexico) hook up our new kitchen faucet, I found that he had hooked them up the opposite way. If you swivel the faucet to the left you get cold water. If you swivel it to the right you also get cold water… for about twenty minutes at which point the water instantly turns boiling point hot for, again, about twenty minutes then it turns cold again because you have depleted the 5 gallon hot water tank. For some reason our house has a bathtub you could almost swim laps in. I have no idea why. It would take me until the next Olympics to fill the thing. If you are asking me why I didn't just call the plumber/electrician guy and have him come back and re-plumb the faucet correctly, you've never lived in Mexico.

Monday morning:

Me: "Hola, Miguel. Como esta?"

Miguel: "Bien. Bien." (Miguel is thinking, "What does the gringa want now?")

Me: "Miguel, there seems to be a problema with the faucet. Could you come by sometime today and look at it?"

Miguel: "Si. Si. (Miguel is thinking, "Posible, I will have time on Thursday.")

Me: "What time?"

Miguel: "9:00" (Miguel is thinking, "Why do they continue to ask me this stupid question?")

Me: "This morning?" (Disbelief)

Miguel: "Si. Si. " (Miguel is thinking, "These gringos, they will believe anything.)

Same Morning, 11:00 am

Me: "Hola Miguel. Where are you?"

Miguel: "I am on my way. I will be there in 15 minutos." (Miguel is thinking, "Posible I will have time on Friday.)

Me: "Okay, because I have to be somewhere at 1:00 pm"

Miguel: "Si. Si." (Miguel is thinking, "So what?")

Same day, 3:00 pm:

Me: "Hola Miguel." (I'm not even going to ask.)

Miguel: "Lo siento, Senora. I will be there manana." (Miguel is thinking, "If she would have stopped calling me, I probably could have made it on Sabado.")

So instead of being held captive in my own home for a week, I decided that I would just wait until the next time I had to call "Miguel" for another more urgent problem and then I would corner him and not let him leave until he fixed my faucet. In the meantime I would just learn to use the faucet the way it was wired, I mean plumbed. Not! And I have the scald marks on my hands to prove it.

I swear up until the minute I left, I continued to make the same mistake so why now that I am back in the states has my mind finally decided to rewire itself and start working the way I wanted it to in Mexico?

Oh, I get it. It was waiting for manana.

"Ow!!! Damn that water's hot!"

 

P.S. The pic above is some of our workers not waiting for manana.

You Can Go Back Home

I'm back in Kansas, the place of my birth and the following 40 some years. And while the cap'n cringes when I say this, it feels like home. It's hard to explain but it just feels like there is some kind of recognition deep in my DNA. My heart beats more sure. I know the smells and the feel of the air. The way the sunlight slants on an autumn afternoon is a touchstone for all other afternoon suns. I can tell what the day will be by the light that shines in my morning window.

I was born with wanderlust though. Always dreaming of faraway places and the unfamiliar. A wishful restlessness. And so I wander. To distant shores and lands that are as different as imaginable from where I came from. I'm not sure what it is I'm looking for but I haven't found it yet. I'm a little afraid that it's back here where I started. But it could be in Mexico. I had forty plus years to let Kansas seep into my marrow. I've been in Colorado for six "half" years and it's just starting to feel like home. I'll give my new home a fighting chance.

The cap'n is starting to sweat bullets while he reads this. Don't worry cap, I'm not ready to put the house in Mexico up for sale and move back to Kansas. Not even! I'm excited about our new life down there and the undiscovered possibilities. But just like anyone that moves on a boat or to a new place, foreign or not, I sometimes feel nostalgic for "home". That's okay. That's normal. But it's easy to mistake that homesickness for unhappiness with our new surroundings. It takes time and effort for strangeness to evolve into familiarity. It's scary, especially if you don't speak the language. And it's so tempting to surround yourself with only the familiar and do only the things that you already know how to do. But where's the fun in that? You have to confront the things that scare you, if you don't you are not giving yourself or your new "home" a fair chance. You will always ask yourself if you did all you could. Most importantly, recognize if it is yourself or the place you are unhappy with. If you are not happy or comfortable with yourself, no place is going to provide those things for you. (How was that for a Zen moment?)

However, if you have given your all and you've given it all the time you think you can spare, it's okay to say, "This isn't what I want." It can be heartbreaking to admit that the dream wasn't what you thought it was going to be. Plus, when you leave a "fringe" community like the boating or the expat community, you may feel or be made to feel that you've failed. You're abandoning ship. This is so not true. You tried. By God, at least you tried, which is more than most people do. It is more important that you recognize that you are genuinely unhappy and do something about it. If that means leaving and trying something else, so be it. Life's too short. I stayed on the boat longer than I should have. I waited until the cap'n admitted he was unhappy. I squandered some precious years and tinged a lot of happy memories with resentment.

Move on. Go back home if that makes you happy or keep searching until you find a place that feels like home. It's okay. You have my permission.

Desperately Seeking Fellow Yucatecans

The cap'n and I were paying our tab at a Mexican Restaurant in Great Bend, KS the other night when I noticed a large map of Mexico hanging on the wall. The map was faded and several cities and towns had been penciled in.

"You don't have Progreso or Chelem on there," I pointed out to the cashier.

"You know Progreso?" he said, obviously surprised.

I explained that we had a casa in Chelem, which is very close to Progreso, and that we spent our winters there.

"There is another couple that lives here in Great Bend that has a house in Progreso", he informed us.

"Really?"

We were incredulous. We know of only one other couple from Kansas, Steve and Mary from Salina, that has had the good judgment to buy property down there. If this kept up the Kansans might be able to steal the expat majority title from those blasted Texans.

"What are their names?" we demanded.

"I don't know", replied the cashier, "but their son, Joel, works at Verizon."

The next morning I set off for the Verizon office with all of our important contact information in hand. Email address, stateside telephone number, Mexican phone #, Magic Jack #, stateside address, a hand drawn map to our house in Chelem. I even included illustrations of all the notable landmarks along the way. The Glorietta (that's what they call a roundabout in Mexico. It sure sounds prettier), the police checkpoint manned with friendly policemen armed with not-so-friendly looking guns, the big piece of rope laid across the road that is used as a speed bump, the coconut stand, uh make that the dozen coconut stands, The Modelo cervaza store, the little red tienda at the turn to our house. There use to be a pole with a rag tied to it and that's how everybody found the way to our house. But in the hot Mexican wind the rag frayed and eventually disappeared. Now sometimes even the cap'n and I miss the turn but that's usually when we're coming from Las Dunas or Playa de Chelem, two of the local drinking establishments.

It was a very nice map. I would have written out our address but I didn't have enough pages of paper for that and they'd never find it because Mexicans have very little regard for street signs. No Necessaria, the locals already know where everything is.

So I went up to the Verizon counter and inquired if they had an employee named Joel. The young man at the counter said, "Yes, but he is with a customer right now. May I help you?"

"No," I said, "I need to talk to Joel."

The young man and his other 14 yr. old counterpart shot me a quizzical look but they assured me that Joel would be just a few more minutes and left me wander about the displays of IPODs, and Blackberries, and other strange devices while the two of them tittered behind the counter trying to figure out whether I was Joel's long lost birth mother or a "cougar" he picked up in a very dark bar while a very inebriated state. Courtney Cox, I am not. Damnit!

Finally Joel finished with his client and I cornered him as he returned from walking her to her car.

"Joel, um, you don't know me and this may seem crazy…um, but do your parents have a house in Progreso?" I blurt.

Blank stare looking back at me.

"Progreso, Mexico? " I offer a little desperately.

Enlightenment dawns on his face.

"My parents have a house in Yoomah,"

"Where is Yoomah?" I ask thinking of all those strange Mayan names on the highway signs. All those unpronounceable "Dz" towns.

"In Arizona," he replies, "Yuma, Arizona. Is that close to Progreso?"

"No," I mumble. I ramble some explanation about a guy at a Mexican restaurant that gave me his name and said he might know someone. It's beginning to resemble a drug deal gone really wrong and Joel is starting to get that deer in the headlights look.

"Here," I shove my map at him, "If you're ever in Progreso, look me up." The guys behind the counter snicker.

I scuttled out to my car, jumped in and busted out laughing at myself.

If you've ever been in the Walmart in Merida desperately looking for an item and have been rescued by a fellow gringo who knows the lay of the land a little better and knows that in Mexico the baking soda is kept in the pharmacy not in the baking aisle, you understand that previous scenario. And you know that by the time you and your savior part ways you will have shared all the information mentioned and probably more. We expats band together, we're brothers and sisters in arms so I guess I was looking to reconnoiter with some fellow soldier

Just for fun, for the next week, I parked in the Verizon parking lot and waved and winked at Joel as he scurried back and forth to his car.

P.S. Dave, I hope you don't mind that I "borrowed" a picture of our sign. I owe you a cervaza if you ever cross over the bridge.

Escape From Reality

This is my new place to go to escape from reality. And it's just up a flight of stairs. This is the dome/cupola at our house here in Chelem. Before it was just naked old white big round thing at the top of the house. Then along came Jim Grafsgaard and it became a tropical wonderland. If you want to check out more of Jim's art his website is http://www.jimgrafsgaard.com/ Thanks Jim! If you guys down here see a long lock of blonde hair hanging out the window of the dome, please come rescue me. The cap'n probably locked me in.

Midnight at the Oasis

We had been diligently following Dave's "Driving to Mexico" Brownsville to Merida coastal route http://www.quadro.net/~shirley/Brownsville-Merida/ today's drive had taken longer than expected and dark was beginning to fall when we hit the outskirts of Minatitlan. We went in search of the only "excellent" hotel in town but after several rounds around busy downtown Minatitlan, and probably countless passes right by the "excellent” hotel we gave up. We had spotted the "Oasis" as we turned off hwy. 145 into town. We turned back toward it.

We paid scant attention to the razor wire adorning the high walls of the compound as we pulled in because...Hell, almost every place has razor wire in Mexico. I'm thinking of winding twinkly lights arounds ours next year for Christmas.

The clerk rushed out of the building to greet us. "The people are just so darn friendly and helpful down here." I thought to myself once again.

Did we want a room? She inquired.

"Si."

"Do we require anything "special"?"

"No, just someplace soft and warm to sink into." replied the cap'n.

"Si." the clerk nods knowingly.

"Cuanto cuesta? (How much?)" inquires the cap'n.

The clerk replies with an exceedingly reasonable amount.

"Boy, they weren't kidding when they said things were cheap down here," I think to myself once again.

It takes a minute for our sluggish brains to translate. She'd said per hora not por dia! Per hour not per day! We look at each other. Disgust and dismay are racing across my features while a salacious grin is blooming on the capn's.

We've landed at one the notorious hotel de paso. "A Love Hotel!"

"We'll take it!" the cap'n announces.

We park outside our assigned den of iniquity. Because we're hauling a trailer full of treasures for our new home, we can't fit into the attached garage. It doesn't matter. Because instead of sneaking in and out of this place like their usual client the cap'n is strutting around like a rooster for all to see.

I hurriedly run in to throw back the bedspread and check the sheets. Why the hell do I do this? If you could see the "critters" I'm afraid of catching, nobody would ever catch them. I can't imagine a conversation like the following ever takes place.

"Um... I notice you have quite an infestation going on down there. But what the heck? You only live once right? Let's go for it! C’est la Vie!"

The cap’n is now inside admiring the dance pole. My evil twin Kary May would have loved it. For my my uninformed amigos in Mexico, Kary May doesn’t dance with men because they spin her too fast and dip her too low. She only dances with trees and poles. Sadly, she still manages to fall down. Thank God I left her behind on Guana Cay in the Bahamas.

While I’m checking out the bathroom, the cap’n is busy surfing the channels.

“I’ll be damned! Four! Count them! Four adult movie channels!” Talk about a kid in the proverbial candy store. I can almost see the smoke billowing from the remote. At least they don’t require subtitles.

I’m starved and am relieved to find a printed room service menu taped to the wall over the phone. When I place my order, I am informed that it would be delivered via the little turnstile in the wall. I really didn’t understand why we had to be so secretive about a dang hamburguesa. But when in Mexico...

Let’s just say an hour later when my order was delivered, my Cuarto de libro, doble carne was not quite what I expected. I later found a full color brochure in drawer of the nightstand that illustrated the other “las especialidades de la casa”. Do people really buy that stuff or do they rent it? Por hora? Ewww!

No wonder there was a notable silence when I replied to the clerk’s inquiry,

“Nessecita el condons?”

“Si. Mas ketchup.”

Obviously, she hadn’t been asking if I needed condiments.

With all my appetites effectively killed, I fell asleep while the cap’n click, click, clicked away on the remote.

The next morning I’m showering in the see-through plexiglass shower while the cap’n click, clicks, clicks.
“Sweetheart, do you remember what channel the weather channel is on?”

“Yeah, right.”

I wonder what’s on the breakfast menu.

Happy Valentines Day!

GOING COMMANDO IN MEXICO

You can take the girl out of the ship,

But you can't take the ship out of the girl.

So I guess that means I'm still full of ship!

When I lived on a boat all my friends back in KS used to say, "Ooh la la! You live on a yacht." And of course I did nothing to dissuade them even though there was nothing further from the truth.

So now I live in Mexico and all my friends in the states go "Ooh la la! You live in Cancun!" But when I try to explain the difference between living in Cancun and living in Chelem they look at me as though I have frogs coming out of my mouth.

So in the quest for total honesty in my new life I'm going to present two scenarios and let you decide which one the "real" Mary starred in.

Scenario #1: Mary is stuck in a bathroom at a resort in Cancun

Mary glides into the marbled mirrored lavatory at the Pinche Fresa Temple Resort. She opens the stall to the gleaming fully assembled toilet and perches on the rim of the seat that is, of course, "down". Mary finishes her business. She delicately wrinkles her nose as she daintily disposes of her tissue in the receptacle (you don't flush TP in Mexico) making sure to avert her eyes so she doesn't see anything "unsightly" (shudder!). She stands and straightens her clothes and moves to leave the stall. The latch won't budge.

"Oh no! What will I do now?"

A tiny worry line creases her forehead.

"This is so mortifying," Mary cringes.

"Uhmm, Conchita?" Mary whispers.

"Si Senora. Esta bien?" replies the attendant, attentively stationed at the door.

"The latch seems to be stuck."

"De nada, Senora," Conchita replies. And with a quick sleight of hand opens the stall door from the outside.

"Oh dear!" wails Mary as she diligently scrubs her hands in the shiny gold sink.

"I think I've chipped a nail!"

Scenario #2: Mary gets stuck in a bathroom in Merida

Mary and the cap'n have just arrived in Merida on the late flight from Miami and have been transported to the rental car agency in downtown Merida. Mary waits in the vehicle while the cap'n goes to negotiate and arbitrate the pre-arranged rental contract. As usual this takes longer than expected and Mary needs to use the facilities.

No problem, right?

Every rental car agency has a bathroom and so does this one.

So what if it doesn't have a door.

So what if the doorway faces the glassfront of the agency.

So what if this rental agency is on a very busy street in downtown Merida.

So what if the rental agency shares its parking lot with an OXXO convenience store.

So what if the parking lot is teeming with people chatting and strolling and HONKING.

So what if it is 1:00 am. T.I.M. (This Is Mexico).

At this point I'm getting desperate. I don't care if the whole Mexican National Football Team shows up to watch. The manager of the rental agency however is a little concerned about this possibility. He's not the one with a bladder the size of Texas. He quickly employs his employee to accompany me to the little corridor between the agency and convenience store which conveniently houses the facilidades necesarios. However, (there is always an however) it cost 5 pesos to open the gate.

Do I have 5 pesos? No.

Does the attendant have 5 pesos? No.

"De Nada. Not to worry," says the attendant ( I think).

Apparently if you jiggle the gate just right it will open.

So we jiggle. We wiggle. We jimmy and we shimmy. Hell, we're doing the freakin' la cucaracha with it. The cabrona ain't budging.

My bladder is now the size of the Louisiana Purchase.We walk back into the rental agency.
Does the cap'n have 5 pesos? No.

Does the manager have 5 pesos? No.

The manager and employee now engage in an animated conversation that I am praying will develop into a solution of my problem. But the real translation probaby goes something like this.

Manager: "It is fun to watch the gringo lady squirm, is it not?"

Employee nods fervently, "Si, Senor Jefe."

Manager: "See how her eyes are starting to bulge. She will not last much longer. She is no longer young and her bladder grows floppy."

Employee nods fervently, "Si, Senor Jefe."

Manager: "Uh oh, she's crossing her legs. You better hurry before we have a mess to clean up. Do you still have the key?"

Employee nods even more fervently, "Si, Senor Jefe.

Employee heads for the door.

Manager: "Just one more thing. Did you remember to remove all the toilet seats and toilet paper?"

"Si, Senor!" Nod. Nod Nod.

After a quick sleight of hand the employee opens the gate. Relief is at hand. I am unprepared for the lack of clean up accessories as usual. After several minutes I decide air drying is not an option in this humidity and pull up my pants. I move to unfasten the latch. De ja vu! The cabrona ain't budging.

I survey my options. Correction. Option. Yep, looks like there's only one way out of this predicament and it's through that 6" space under that 12" wide door. ( You know that measurement dyslexia problem us girls suffer from swings both ways. Some days it's longer, some days it's shorter. It just depends on how you treat us.).

Time to go commando !

Now I just want you to picture this in your mind's eye for a minute. A blonde gringo chica whose most apt body description is ample is down on her elbows with belly on the floor of a Mexican toilet stall that is built for the very petite Mayan people. And she's trying to wiggle her way out. And she's wearing white. Of course.

So did you guess which one is the true story? It was the chipped fingernail that gave it away, wasn't it? You all know I'm a biter. I don't have any freakin' fingernails.

As the Cap'n used to say:

"You can dress her up, but it doesn't matter what country you take her to, she's going to end up crawling around on the floor at some point."

Adios & Vaya Con Dios!

P.S. Sorry to disappoint all my pervert friends who thought this article was going to be about the other kind of commando. Maybe next week.