A brief interregnum: on propane snobbery and bell math

Just a short break in our slavish chronology for a few quick observations from Days1-4 on this Day5 Sunday as you estadounidenses watch the NFL playoffs. ( So Stephanie, Saints or Eagles? Be careful of your answer.)

Spoiler Alert: Not to break our promise to finish the tales of The Wall and Our Stuff, we can tell you that neither has concluded as of now but, unlike the folks in Washington, compromise was reached on our Wall which hopefully will not delay the completion of our migration nor keep the money flowing out of our 2019 budget allocations. As for the Saga of our Stuff, we're waiting for the return of Magical Marcos to SMA this week so he can accompany us back to the storage locker and solve the mystery of the apparently missing stuff, once and for all. Stay tuned for that!

​Plus, I've always wanted an occasion to use "interregnum" in the 21st century. (Take that, Nilda!). 

So, as to misquote Clapton, "She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie, Propane".  For much of Terra Gringo it's the facile punch-line of the now defunct Fox cartoon King of The Hill or just those cumbersome silver tanks of liquid gas you exchange at the Home Depot every few weeks during the warm weather to power backyard barbecues. Here in the high dessert of central Mexico, however, where there is no central heating or cooling nor a Keystone natural gas pipeline nor any wood, it's the only way to light your stove or heat the place you sleep on chilly winter nights. If you're lucky (meaning not poor), there's a "gas log" in every bedroom and maybe even in the living room. Being a fervent wood-burning fireplace man myself, I'd always looked down at these elaborate ceramic faux logs with faux burnt parts barely disguising a series of metal tubes spouting too uniform rhythmically dancing flames. They'd be hypnotic if they weren't so cringingly fake. But no longer am I a propane gas log snob! You see it can get down into the 30's some nights in the winter months here (admittedly followed by 70's by late-morning, true, but still...). We've discovered that even slight discomforts at our ages can easily compromise long-held aesthetic prejudices. 

We spent the afternoon of Day2 checking out the latest models at Ferreteria Don Pedro on the Salida a Queretaro and Casa Roberto here in town. You wouldn't be amazed at the choices of styles and and we have three of these bad boys to install in the new digs as well as a number of gas outlets for equally unhandsome wall heaters. Yes, brother, like the one we had in our only bathroom growing up in Gentilly (Nola). Ah, the circle of life! Thus, this wood-burning fireplace snob, who just bought a quarter cord of wood for the unappreciative renters in Nuro who no doubt have the Nest thermostat set at 80 till March, is now an acolyte of these badly executed works of practical art. They are actually amazingly efficient for warming just the few square meters necessary to get a night's REM sleep. Now we just have to get used to the lingering sweet sour scent of liquid propane wafting around the house. Stay tuned for pix in future digressions.

Bells. Remember bells? Not school bells or lunch bells or the corny celestes of dreaded Christmas music but church bells. Even though the US has more churches per capita than any other western what-used-to-be-a democracy, we sure don't use church bells much outside of maybe Sundays if you live near one of the ubiquitous houses of worship. Well, if you've been pining for the sound of church bells all-day, every day, SMA is the place for you. I didn't know until I came here that I was indeed pining for them because I can't seem to get enough of them. What's even more fabulous is that there's a code of their constant and seemingly random ringing that once you break, brings you one step closer to being a local and we all know from the success of AirB&B, everyone wants to be a local!

So here's the secret: It's all about time! Except for the bells that actually calls the faithful to mass which, truth be told sort of  screws up the time code thing, it's pretty easy to remember. A Big Bell sounds the hour followed by a small bell that indicates 15 minute intervals, once for 15 after, twice for 30 after, three time for 45 after. At the top of the hour the Bell rings it followed by four small bells. It's mesmerizingly cacophonous, especially at noon and midnight: 18 bells!!

Enjoy the football games and stay-tuned for this weeks possible adventures at The Bank, The Immigration Office, Our Storage Locker, and of course, The Wall at CASA DE LA SOMBRA itself.