a brief interregnum: muebles source-ry

We take a Sunday, DAY11, pause in our chronology* to reflect on a major almost daily activity of this very early phase of our adventure and that is the search for basic stuff to sit, sleep, eat and put other stuff on. Furniture, muebles. It has to be Jackie-design worthy and affordable, dear friends, as you know that's a major theme on our adventure.

​So you’d be proud of Jackie as The Source-er. (I know, she's already The Shade but she obviously has enough superpowers for two!). As it happens. we went yesterday morning to a little hipster breakfast place right around the corner from the Mercado that we found last time we were here renting in the nabe called Garambullo. The place, besides having fabulous food and excellent coffee sports a great design vibe featuring several versions of those 60’s-ish colourful rubber-band chairs on their crumbly-chic patio (You can see on the side-of-the-road photo of them above). Inside they had super simple versions of the local fave, rush dining chairs which Jackie immediately marked for design prey. (You can see them in the other photo above. The third photo is just The Source-er in her natural element, the far from completed roof garden of our will-it-be-completed-before-we-have-to-go-back-home house). Luckily, the dueña’s daughter, a lovely tattooed and pierced young woman whom I had gotten to know a little because last time we were here in August I stiffed her 50 pesos on lattes on our way out of town and so went back to re-pay her last week, speaks perfect English. Under Jackie’s relentless questioning, her mom gave up the secret locale of the tienda where she got all the chairs. She described it as a roadside place you couldn’t miss on the road to Dolores Hidalgo across the ruta from a watering hole called, La Burger. We packed that intel away and proceeded to El Rincon on the off chance we might actually catch-up with our architect there.

But after conversing with two lonely painters on the job, it was obvious that our broker, architect and contractor were not going to be meeting us at the house on DAY10 to discuss a firm calendar of when we might actually start to move-in, so we went over the Obraje arroyo to the Frabrica Aurora to glean more expensive ideas on muebles pieces we could copy for when we did finally get into our house. Now among dining tables, coffee tables, rugs etc, Jackie had identified chairs from at least four different design sources in San Miguel proper at this point, most of which involved waiting six weeks or more for craftsmen in Michoacan to make them to order with prices ranging from $100 to $350 each including the middlemen's markup. Now the Source-er had a plan!

Once done stealing costly ideas, we picked up a radio taxi at the Fabrica and I mustered enough of my flailing Spanish to get the driver to take us out on the road to Delores Hidalgo and look for that tienda de sillas we got from Carambulla. The taxi would have to wait for us while we shopped and, hopefully haggled and then bring us back to town. The ruta is  the one to Atotonilco where the old church and the hot springs are, not that far really, but too far to walk as is our preference in town. Anyway, like just about everyone else in this land so far, Jose’ Luis, our taxi driver, was terrific and got us to Tejidos Vidal where Jackie proceeded to order 6 Sillas de Tule (the dining chairs above) from young Ryan for a grand total of about $220 USD. They should be ready in tres semanas. The 60’s rubber-band chairs we will probably go back and order once we get a handle on the lay-out of our roof garden. Not a bad day's work for The Source-er but it wasn't her first victory.

The day before she hit up a pretty tony design place in Centro on Relox (SMA's version of Madison Ave.) called Antigua Casa. It wasn't the first time there for Jackie had spotted a beautiful dining table made of Parota wood that she had earlier in the week marked as decorating prey but, alas, it had been sold. It wasn't cheap either but I was told in simple enough Spanish that I could actually comprehend, that another was arriving on Friday as a floor sample. I then built an on-line relationship with the saleswoman, Vero at the store who spoke no English but I was armed with Google Translate and a What's App connection. That allowed Jackie to swoop in and pick up the showroom dining table as part of a deal to also replicate a small kitchen table from a photo she took of  commercial one at the fancy Cumpanio panaderia next door. Two tables down with one shot and a good deal! Bam! Come-on now, this is some exciting interior decorating shit! Remember what we said about adjusting our definition of accomplishment? Anyway it was a hell of a lot more satisfying than watching the Saints let a Superbowl season slip away on Sunday Day11. My deep condolences to all followers of the Black and Gold. May Kansas City now rule!

*OK, ok, a real quick chrono-update before signing-off: Yes we got out to look at our stuff in exile on Friday evening, but Magic Marcos didn't show and the key to his trailer mysteriously didn't work, so we're still in the dark on about three pieces. And, no, the desired move-in summit with architect and contractor didn't happen this weekend so we'll have to wait for week three for any more progress on those and our Mexican checking account, residency cards, Spanish lessons and car purchase. Back to the time-line later this week, I promise.