Rip Van Weritos!

Hola, mis lectores perdidos!
 
Sí, soy yo, Rip Van Werito!
 
Why, you ask, is this once semi-ubiquitous display of self-referential and needlessly digressive musings by a demi-expat alter-cocker, waking-up now? Surely the adventure of building a house in and navigating the commerce, culture, language, and politics of gringo-infested central Mexico is long completed by now. What’s left to convolutedly muse over?
(Well, you’re not really asking, are you? It’s me pretending you’re asking as an ashamedly clunky device for making excuses for this awkward, much delayed return to the overcrowded, evidently Chinese-controlled blogosphere. But it’s all I could come up with, so chill.)
 
Let’s see if I can manufacture a few rationales as I’m serenaded by Mexican marching bands in parade here at the edge of centro for Allende Day!  (Yes, we’re still here in San Miguel! And yes, I still get a kick out the civic desfiles with their numerous drum and bugle corps! I’ve concluded It calls up the southern marching band competition in the Carrollton Parade that passed near my grandmother’s house in mid-city New Orleans during Mardi Gras season of my childhood. It was, by far my favorite parade. Loved The Citadel’s storybook military uniforms!)
 
An obvious if presumptuously serious excuse for this unexpected (and, no doubt unneeded) web-intrusion is that today is the first full day of the re-boot of the political reality show that my native land has decided to put back into the schedule, presumably because it’s lost the ability to develop anything new in that realm. American, if not global, politics has become like Broadway, always defaulting to revivals. Unfortunately, this time it seems we’re retroactively FOMO for Stalinism and want to give it try! So, before they send me out to clean, I’ve decided to leave behind a journal of the upcoming plague years for future Silo rebels to dig-up and study for clues as to what the hell we were thinking!
Another, more truthful excuse is that Jackie keeps not so subtly hinting that she liked me better when I was engaged in this self-absorbed exercise while in self-imposed seasonal exile. So, here we go again.
 
Obviously, a lot has transpired within and without the family in and out of SMA, but I’ll (re)start with today here, Jan 21, 2025. The day after the Inauguration burlesque back home just happens to be Allende Day here in San Miguel. We celebrate one of the most important
“insurgentes” of the first Mexican revolution and our tourist-driven town’s namesake with parades, historical pageants, and of course fireworks. What’s different about the patriotic displays here than in the good old Estados Unidos, is the overt participation of the country’s military. There are more Guarda Nacional marching with lethal weapons than schools with snare drums. For my Nola friends, it’s like having the Nuclear Weapons Center from Kirkland Air Force base marching with samples of their arsenal in Endymion! (Come to think of it, I’m sure it’ll happen by next carnival, n’cest pas? They'll throw purple, green and gold geiger counters!) The effect of seeing a sudden phalanx of heavily armed mixed gender commandos and motorized artillery amidst high-stepping ER nurses, restaurant servers, ax-wielding bomberos, caballeros on beautiful palominos, and uniformed school children is now disturbingly reassuring. Is it assimilation or capitulation? 
 
Coming this unwarranted season: Succumbing to SMA ‘s dental tourism, Jackie vs the HOA’s new rule committee, a culinary and Baragán sojourn to CDMX, a road trip to Troncones on the Pacific, and more, yes, more house fixes! An essay on Fugas, Mini-splits, and ceiling fans.
 
Hasta maňana, weritos!