Casa Blanca... in-door water dispenser and the end of isolation...maybe

It's not like we've been on a remake of Castaway this last month, although Jackie has been yelling out "Wilson" in her sleep. San Miguel town, after all, is a city of about 60k (the entire municipality, including Atotonilco is about 140k) which swells substantially on the weekends, and our interactions with the populace, local, gringo, human, animal, whenever we step out of our lodgings can often be Manhattanlike in intensity. Still we must admit that at times our sojourn has felt a tad, how shall we say it, bunkerish? "Lonely" is much too sentimental an adjective. "On task" I like to say. Yes, we've been fairly singled-mindedly devoted to this house project and nothing but, which I know, dear friends, you do not find hard to fathom. Our existence, thus far, in this unceasingly gorgeous to the point of hedonistic locale that couldn't possibly be described as spartan, has been fairly spartan. 

As these self-indulgent scribblings so clearly establish, most of our social intercourse has been laser-focused on those who revolve around our Mexican real estate folly. Thus, the circumference of our circle has mainly embraced our two real estate agents, Ximena & Nancy and Valente, the ever-striving but not quite getting there contractor. And we don't really communicate all that well with Valente on either a basic informational or conceptual level. Besides, he's not too happy with us at present for implicating him to jefe Luis for the long-line of, if it weren't costing us time and money would be smile-worthy construction miscues, that have us in our present state of perpetual Obraje limbo. Ximena, the high-energy "sellers agent" has the unenviable job of running constant interference for The Arquitecto, so is pretty much sick of our bellyaching by now. So that leaves Nancy Howze, our soft-southern-voiced and ever patiently re-assuring "buyers agent" who, besides having a moniker that dooms her to owning a real estate agency whether that was her true vocation or no, is a can't help but being genuinely lovely human. She's an Alabama emigre who undoubtedly deserves her own story serialized amongst these electrons but suffice it to say for now, has been supportive, understanding, encouraging, and the nearest we've got to a true new friend. But, alas Yorick, one friend doesn't a circle make. Plus she goes back stateside quite often. So, as that home tunnel light begins to flicker in the tantalizingly near distance, it is time to lift the foot off the must-get-this-damn-house-done-and-comprehensively-dusted pedal and make time to make some new acquaintances here. But first, I know, I know, the gods of chronology must be appeased.

What happened last Saturday morning, you are dying to now, at the Casa 9 Summit, The Shade vs. X-Acto match of the century. Was it a titanic battle, a verbal slap-fight, an international incident, or just a really awkward and uncomfortable long walk-through the land of wtf construction blunders made even more unwieldy by the border wall of language?
The answer is yes, As per usual, Jackie and I had our strategy mapped, our points prioritized and our arguments watertightened. We even drafted an agenda with an accompanying punch-list and circulated them to all the attendees the night before. Early enough to take-in our incontrovertible arguments for corrective action before retiring for the night but not so early that they could possibly summon up any effective defense before 10am. So who blinked, you ask? Do you really? Well, not to display uncharacteristic hubris or to disparage our hard-pressed, well-intentioned and talented collaborators/adversaries in any way but they did. Without a scintilla of triumphalism, I can say we won!

Not to say it was a pleasant victory, for it was all those descriptors above. Awkward, tense, defensive, accusatory, guilty. Not long after The Shade opened the campaign by strafing X-Acto with a litany of his false deadlines that could be construed only as bad-faith and disrespect for us, his sacred clients, whose money allowed him to build more houses than anticipated in our agreement and has resulted in wasted costs and elongated discomfort for us. Luis, somewhat unexpectedly, seemed genuinely taken aback by the news, and actually walked away before pulling himself together to re-engage for the scheduled walk-through. Soon, however, he almost completely shut-down when Jackie next pointedly confronted him with a clearly mis-designed kitchen cabinet for a refrigerator the dimensions of which he had since October as we had purchased it months early at his insistence. Upon asking him if he understood the glaringly obvious gaffe, he stared at her defiantly said he did not, repeatedly and intensely, and again walked off muttering in Spanish to his right-hand, Tomas, "Se lo que esta diciendo". Yikes! Was this the end of Rico? Was the confronted maestro, challenged if not called-out by a gringa before his crew now going to crawl construction to a halt jut before the finish? Had we over played our irreproachable hand?

Well, this isn't Making A Murderer, you already know the outcome, but our victory was due not not only to our being right and buttoned-up and respectfully demanding and offering of equitable solutions but also to Luis's credit and that of Ximena and Valente, I'm sure, for tamping down a not undeserved professional hubris and  leaning against prevailing cultural proclivities to continue the tour where he recognized all our issues and some of his own and instructed his crew to fix them all at his cost with a promise that we could enter Casa 9 this weekend with power and water and cleaned as best as it can be so at least we could camp out in a few rooms as the punch list was finished the following weeks. Hurrah! Well, we'll see but still, Hurrah!

So, we begged Susana for one extra night in our Obraje exile, booked our movers to come back and help us move our out-of-bondage stuff out of the dust-laden and over-stuffed studio and prepared for our, wait for it, first ex-pat couples blind date. Yes, taking our eye off task for one Monday night! Our long-time friends from Larchmont, Paul and Monica introduced us to Paul's sister Naomi who visits SMA regularly with her playwright husband Steve and their coterie of Berkshire friends who live here part of the year. Honey and David, graciously invited us to their gorgeous home of nine years on picturesque Loreto St, not far from El Rincon, where we met Charles, Daniele and Roger, polyglots, artists, physicians, writers, scholars, creatives, raconteurs all! We watched a gorgeous dry-season smoke-tinged sunset from their terrace then made our way to Casa Blanca, a surprising and sumptuous hotel with a Moroccan watering hole in the heart of the Jardin where we feasted on mezzes and fine local Mexican wines. A memorable Monday Night with quite possibly new friends, if we're not too far out of their intellectual league. But to break the social fast once and for all, Tony and Lucy arrive tonight from next door New Rochelle. Yes! Stay-tuned for more end of isolation.

In the meantime, the logistical juggernaut that is the Source-er has not been lax. We've hired a property manager, Manolo, to take up the vacuum soon to be left by our overworked real estate agents. Our famous chairs from Tajido Vidal and a rare bargain studio sofa from high-end Namuh have been delivered and our parota dining table and chaise should be here by the end of the weekend. By detective work and Google translate we finally tracked down Leonardo, the basket man and are now in possession of seis canasatas for Jackie's home organization plan. Cushion and drapes are in the works and Jackie starts Spanish lesson on Monday!  The plans are for us to spend our first night in Casa 9 on Saturday, fngees crossed.

With that momentous signpost up ahead, we'll leave you for now with a small discovery that, we think somewhat encapsulates at least a part of our adventure to date. Back in October, at the insistence of our contractor under the direction of The Arquitecto, Jackie bravely endeavored to get on the phone with Liverpool Dept Store in Mexico City and bought a refrigerator, washer dryer and garbage disposal to be held until January. The refrigerator was an LG with a "front of door water dispenser" and "automatic ice-maker". Since October, we have been badgering the contractor and his plumber to put on the adequate water supply for this new-fangled Korean-made marvel. We want our water and ice dispensed 'Merican, godammit! Yesterday we made another walk-through with the ever-patient and good natured Valente. When we came to the newly delivered and installed fridge, we asked to see the water hook-up for the in-door dispenser and ice-maker. He grinned and said there was no need. What? Again? Would we have to go back to war over this now? He shook his head and opened the refrigerator door to reveal a plastic inset water-bottle that, once filled from your ubiquitous huge bottle of  delivered water, is what in turn supplied the in-door dispenser. And in the freezer we found a convenient hand-crank for the just-as-manually filled ice-maker. The joke and the lesson was on the gringos. To the Mexican market, these were as automatic as you can possibly wished to be, even in the eyes of Koreans!