Digging for acceptance

​Just when we’re finally convinced that the unrelenting, if it were happening to someone else it would be Larry David, Joblike impediments to a naturally progressive settling-in to our exotic sitch were really duh-stark messages from the zeitgeist that the body Mexico had basically rejected our extranjero organs, boom! we get our Residente Permanente Cards from the Instituto Nacional De Migraciòn. Yes! We’ve been officially accepted by the state, despite our bigoted political leadership and chronically bad penmanship. Not quite a Sally Fields moment, but comparable.
 
We got the mood-jerking news as we were coming back from retuning our stoic VW Vento after a month of lovely if challenging locomotive freedom to the bueys at Firefly Rent-A-Car at the Querètaro airport on landmark Day50. Forgive the narrative repetition but, yes all three of our estadounidense GPS apps got us considerably lost on the simple and direct way there. And when we finally got there, with only a quarter hour before our Bajiogo hired car ride back, the damage from the quaint Unesco-sanctioned cobblestones and lethal topes of our precious San Miguel had bestowed a $200 penalty to the suddenly delicate albeit teutonic rented undercarriage. Cha-ching-idense!
 
I’m loath to report, oh dear and hopeful blogateros, that our mood was already dark at the outset of that sad and expensive trek because the prior days had seen our oh-so-close to finally getting there home hit some topes of its own. Mainly distressing was the floor of the master bath and a corner of the adjacent patio being savagely turned-over like an unauthorized exhumation because of, you guessed it, serious plumbing problems. As the excavation was being thankfully closed for what we hoped was the last time, the almost inhumanly desirous to please Valente, showed me a cut off plastic bottle bottom as the culprit for clogging the waste. I immediately recognized it as very much like the one the, not sure if he’s actually part of the construction crew or just living in their equipment bodega, guy occasionally used to water the insipient little ground cover plants between the paving stones in our patio when everyone else had left for the day. How it got down the toilet one can only wonder! That bit of news was delivered just after discovering that our ubiquitous plumber/electrician had neglected to “REMOVE THE SHIPPING ROD BEFORE INSTALLING THIS BRAND NEW NOT INEXPENSIVE AND A BITCH TO GET DELIVERED WASHER/DRYER”, rending it leakily inoperable as our piled-up laundry was shipped off to always-there-in-a-pinch Nancy’s.
 
It’s Mexicotown, Mr.& Mrs. Gittes! You’re welcome!
 
Oddly enough, however, black moods, profound misunderstandings, unexpected expenses and hair-pulling incompetence aside, or maybe precisely because of them, we are more and more feeling “at home” in these physically stunning, socially embracive and meteorologically magnificent surroundings. Some days even our Spanish works, although that’s usually due to the linguistic benevolence of the local populace. Our cool and sunny mornings are punctuated by the sounds of birds and bells until the chiseled noises of construction on the six other houses take hold and we’re up over coffee to plan the day around punch-list and new digs logistics. Because we’re still without house internet, I look to getting to either the Starbucks or Geeks & Coffee to use their broadband Wifi to screen the Rockie Awards nominations and download the night’s Itunes acquired entertainment to my laptop. Then it’s off to another try at the bank as Jackie scans for more acquisitions to outfit our Mexican retreat for your visits, oh friends and family! Putting in four to six miles across the sometimes treacherous cobbled banquettes we meet for a late breakfast or early lunch and often encounter, as Lent approaches, the outrageously and anachronistically costumed indigenous dance groups who drum and “battle” around the Paroquia like the Mardi Gras Indians on St. Joseph’s Day. (A very Happy Carnival to all our Yats, by the way!). We are home by mid-afternoon as the temps top-out in the mid-80’s and attempt to communicate with the construction crew on the latest two steps forward and one (or more) back as the house, for good mostly, inches towards, ok, we’ll call it completion, for now.
 
Speaking of Lent, Ash Wednesday, este miercoles, portends to be another pivotal day in the contra-caravan adventure as our pool guy, Sergio promises to get our little watering hole up and running after the plumbing swat team used it to pump out the waste system last week. Our landscape architect, Sarai is taking us to choose our potted trees, plants and bougainvillea for her plan for the patio and roof garden. Telmex is said to install our phone and internet and the carpenter returns to build our TV table in the Studio and spice racks and book shelves in the kitchen. Will there be rejoicing or the beating of breasts as we go for our ashes? Stay-tuned dear blogophile.
 
Because we’re now starting to consider our return in about a fortnight to the always disappointing never quite spring of tax-time in the northeast, we have to prepare for leaving this maddening paradise just as we are finally, perhaps, getting used to it, of course. Can we get what we need done in time? Will the full house water purification system ever be put in? And what about the always contentious pergola? These, dear friends are questions that have taken on more importance for us that the outcome of the failed Hanoi summit. Sad, I know. But there you have it. Mixed emotions are already taking hold. Prelude to that, of course, is AJ’s birthday visit for which we are meeting him in Mexico City for a day before busing back to SMA and hosting our first born as our first house guest really. Stay-tuned for that as well.