Plant Boy, don pedro & The end of san antonio

Didn't mean to leave you on the edge of your collective seat till Day20, dear schadenfreuders. It's just that we thought perhaps this next post should be upbeat, full of end of tunnel lights, and happy progress or, in the words of The Shade/Source-er, no-one would want to visit us if we don't lighten-up on these communiques. The last installment, especially seemed to have elicited a great outpouring of supportive buckupedness mixed with a wee bit of gleeful pity. And we thank you for both. So if it's been a bit longer between posts, it's only because we've been waiting for appropriately optimistic material to present itself.  

But we decided to post anyway because this is a watershed half-week of sorts. Today marks our third week here and the end of our stay at the wonderfully cozy cocoon of Casa Gayle in the equally homey colonio of San Antonio. We're going to miss popping around the corner to tiny El Cafe Tal on Orizaba for a ridiculously affordable breakfast of lattes and huevos con jamon in the morning and hitting the Guadalajara Farmacia, Mexico's CVS/7Eleven, on busy Zacateras for a dove bar and some imodium before bed.

But what, or I should say, who we will miss most of all is Plant Boy. Most of the expat homes here are filled with heaps of wonderful flora on their patios and roof gardens that need watering and careful pruning at least three times a week, especially now, in the dry season. That task has been handled here at Casa Gayle by a young man who truly embodies the en Inglés adjective, winsome. The first week we were here, we would look up from one of our internet tethers and there he'd be, all khaki shorts, Timberlands, vest, and kerchief under dark doe eyes and a carefully surprised shock of dark hair. He'd stare at us, silently bemused for a bit longer than comfortable before heading up to the roof with his watering can and shears to work his magic on the potted greenery from the top of the house down. We asked Jessica, Gayle's property manager, all Canadians and Estadounidenses with homes here have property managers which is yet another action item on our ever expanding must-do list, if he could ring the bell first before letting himself in going forward. That helped alleviate the sudden slap of space-invasion of his visits but it was replaced with a slight apprehension of having to lock eyes with him at the front door when the bell rang. Alas, we never learned his name or more likely were told upon our first encounter but were too rattled to remember and didn't have the backbone to ask again. So we called him Plant Boy and are thinking of perhaps engaging him to tend meticulously to our garden across town if and when it ever comes into full bloom. In the meantime he will be missed. Or maybe not.

Truth be told, there has been much accomplished in the last days of  San Antonio that is cause for semi-celebration. I recovered from my bout with bad helado to the point where we went back to Hanks New Orleans Oyster Bar and Restaurant for 2 for 1 Mojito night and had a bowl of their impressive gumbo. I have 2,000 pesos in an actual Mexican bank account now, even if our suspect penmanship hasn't yet allowed a currency exchange account to be opened. We're going down to immigration on Thursday morning with a legal assistant to hopefully get finger printed as the next step to the goal of receiving our residency cards. That means soon we can leave the country and get back in again in a pinch now if needs be. But the biggest wast the looming partial shut-down of construction over the pergola stand-off was successfully negotiated by a truly bi-partisan effort. The most immediate result of that break-through was a trip to Ferreteria Don Pedro with the ever good-naturedly stoic Valente.

The Source-er and El Contratista and their dueling notebooks spent a half day shopping marathon in this hanger-like soup-to-nuts hardware and building supply mecca just outside of town. With our teetering Spanish and Google Translate on our phones and a young salesmen with fairly good English, faucets, shower-heads, lighting fixtures, gas fireplaces, door handles, and sinks, were identified, debated, negotiated and rung-up for hours on end. It was exhausting watching Jackie spend the architect's and our money on this scale, but finally, progress on the house's "finishes" could be sensed. Valente was happy. We chose not to examine why this was the third time Jackie and I had been to the daunting Don Pedro and performed much the same if not as exhaustive exercise over three trips to SMA in the year since we signed-on to building the house. Nor why we were facing having to move into a second rental for the next two weeks. Nor why our stuff in exile may have to put up the funds for another month in storage. We just re-confirmed our new definition of achievement!

So, faithful readers, tomorrow morning we Uber ourselves back out to Querétaro airport to pick up a rental car and sojourn back to Casa Gayle, pack-up again on Thursday to ensconce ourselves in a much more modest rental in the Obraje for the duration till actual move-in, we think. Stay tuned for the drive from Querétaro, a morning at immigration, the load-into new interim crib, a decision on stuff in exile, and many more thrills and spills on our contra-caravan adventure.

​Oh yes, and if you enter someone's space while that someone is eating, do give them a "buen provecho". It's good for your psychic digestion.