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Yucatecans Dancing in Parque Santa Lucia

Now that Bruce and Mary have been moderating comments on a Canadian news website for over a year they consider themselves experts on stereotyping as that is one of the things that they guard against. Read on as Bruce employs those dark skills.

Well, we have been on the lam in México for over two years now and we feel that we have somewhat of a handle on the local culture and people. Following are some of our favorite stereotypes of a people that we have grown to love:

All Yucatecans are Yucatecans first, Mexicans second. It is not uncommon to hear a Yucatecan (when planning a trip to another state) say, “I’m going to Mexico next week.”

All Yucatecans hate DF (Mexico City).

When you ask a Yucatecan for directions, you will always get them, whether they know where your destination is or not. We think that is because they don’t want to disappoint.

When visiting, Yucatecans will never leave until you ask them to, and if it has been overlong, they will bolt when given permission.

Yucatecans love to drink beer and there are no ornery drunks, but a few falling down ones.

All Yucatecan babies and toddlers are unbelievably cute. And the average age of their parents appears to be 15.

All Yucatecan women (except Mayan madres) bare their midriffs whether they should or not.

The bigger a Yucatecan hombre’s belly is the more he will want to pull up his t-shirt and rub it.

Yucatecan pedestrians have no peripheral vision and will force you to walk out onto the street to avoid

Busy Sidewalk in Centro

running them over, on the skinny centro sidewalks.

Yucatecan drivers have the uncanny ability to gage whether they need to slow down so as not to hit you in the crosswalk. If they calculate that they will miss you by an inch, their foot never leaves the gas pedal.

Yucatecans love to work. They will, with a smile, work in the hot sun all day long, cracking jokes with their compatriots.

Yucatecans love to party and there are approximately 350 dias de festiva per year.

All Yucatecans are musicians or artists or both along with their day jobs.

Yucatecans burst into song walking down the street all the time.

Yucatecan MCs love to talk, and will do so ad nauseum, especially when you’re waiting for the music to begin.

All Yucatecans can dance like Fred and Ginger.

Yucatecans love their music at 140Db. Amazingly they can converse at this sound level and even talk on cell phones.

All Yucatecans have cell phones.

Mexican time is real, Yucatecans are always two hours late for any engagement.

Yucatecans can sleep anywhere, at anytime, even on a 15 minute ride on a rickety city bus.

If you admire a Yucatecan  señora’s jewelry, she will remove it and give it to you, no questions asked, and no thanks or money accepted.

Should you give a Yucatecan a regalo, gift, they are very gracious but they will not open it in your presence and you will never receive a thank you card.

You will never be shortchanged in a Mercado. In fact, should you walk away without your change the vendor will hunt you down, shouting “Cambio, Cambio!”

And my all time favorite stereotype is: Should a gringo walk into any Yucatecan cantina, said gringo will instantly become a rock star.

Thanks for visiting gentle reader and feel free to share with Bruce your stereotypes, but please be nice. Hasta Luego!

The View from Plaza Seranata

Bruce and Mary have now experienced their second Mérida Carnaval, let’s join them on Sunday, the middle day of this five day Mexican Mardi Gras.

After sleeping in (we were up until 1 last night – really late for old-timers like us) we find that we don’t really have a battle plan for this day’s Carnaval activities. We had camped out on Paseo Montejo for the last two nights of parades and street dances but we’re leaning toward checking out La Plaza Grande for today’s parade, the biggest of the weekend. Last year we had second level seating in the Mr. Bandera restaurant (what kind of a name is that?) overlooking the park and it was great, but I think we got lucky in finding a table last year and we made no reservations this year, which we were advised to do. So we figure we’ll just wing it.

So were out the door at 11:30 for the noon parade but that’s okay as it starts out at La Glorieta de La

Calle 60

Bandera on the north end of Paseo and it will be a good hour and a half to two hours before it winds its way to La Plaza Grande, 6 kms away. It is a crisp sunny day, about 75 degrees, all the locals are in jackets and even winter coats. I am comfortable in long pants and my green colored “Live Free or Die” New Hampshire T-shirt. Steel railings line the entire 6 kms and there are folding chairs and bleachers on nearly the entire parade route. The bleachers are free but you better mark out your territory a good two hours prior and even the 30P chairs are snapped up quickly.

Calle 60 is already closed to traffic so we walk right down the middle of the road with thousands of others, trying to spot a good place. We spot some gringos seated at a sidewalk café and they tell us that the minimum food and drink expenditure is 150P per person to sit there. Hmm, tempting, but we march on. We get to the corner of Calles 60 and 61 right where the parade will make a right turn to finish up in front of the governor’s palace facing the park and we notice that the Plaza Seranata, one of our favorite restaurants, which happily overlooks the park as well, seem to have no one at the second floor balconies. This looks promising. We enter the restaurant through the patrolled maze of portable fencing and folding chairs to enter the large front door only to find that the balconies have been reserved, but there is a table for three right adjacent to the entry with a great view of calles 60 and 61.

Neomi and sis Areli

This will work, plus there is no minimum. We order cervezas and are quickly joined by little 10 yr old Noemi. She is sitting with her family on folding chairs just outside the entrance and evidently we two gringos piqued her interest. She is quickly joined by her two tiny siblings, 4 yr old Rodrigo, and toddler Areli. For the next couple hours we sip beers and have a Spanish/English lesson with these adorable little Mayan kids.

At one point I have Mary ask Noemi if she likes Americans. She squirms a little and tells us that she has a cousin in the States and that she likes us…. We let it lie.

Mary buys the kids a coke but then the parade arrives and they bolt, so excited they leave their cokes behind.

There are just a few floats that we haven’t seen in the other two parades but I’m not complaining as the dance troupes are always very entertaining and who gets tired of scantily clad Latinas gyrating? Not me, at least.

The theme for Carnaval 2010 is Al Ritmo del Mundial, the Rhythm of the World so we are surprised that there

Latinas Muy Bonitas

is so much Michael Jackson and even Doobie Brothers, but the choreography is fun to watch. Probably the next most popular music is Cuban and the costumes are pretty awesome.

The parade lasts just under two hours. We settle up our bill and join the masses walking up and down Calle 60. We round the corner of Calles 60 and 47 and walk by Dave the Brit’s Deli shop which is not open for business as a deli yet but he has his team assembled to offer fish and chips, chicken wings and strips and Varon’s (his right hand man) roll-ups: deep fat fried pastries stuffed with a variety of ingredients with the common ingredient being tons of cheese. Veritable heart stoppers but mmm… good! Friday night, business had

The Birdman of Merida

been poor and Dave’s business mgr, the irrepressible Lulu had contacted Pepsi. By Saturday evening, Pepsi had installed an awning over the main door with a huge banner above the awning and a big Pepsi bottle on the roof. People noticed. Saturday night when we stopped by, the joint was hopping. The cost? Nada. Pepsi supplied all this plus glass fronted coolers for simply a prepaid order of Pepsi products. Pepsi and Coke own this country.

But today Dave and company are perplexed by a soft serve ice cream machine that is not working. This is not good as they handed out reams of free ice cream coupons, as a loss leader, yesterday and it won’t look good when customers try to redeem. The machine came with no manual and since I am asked I try to figure out something. The best theory is that the ice cream has frozen up at the spigots. Dave has turned off the machine and with my encouragement he runs some thick gage wire down the tubes from the vats and he does encounter some resistance and plunges through it. Now we try the spigots and voila, runny ice cream mix pours out. Dave turns the machine back on and after a bit there is ice cream.

The problem solving has made me thirsty so we wander up Paseo and find a beer tent that is offering Modelo Especial 710. That’s in 710 mgs, exactly two beers, for 25P. We sit down at a tamale stand (I have a couple) and relax watching Paseo fill up with people as the sound stages are just getting going.

We get up to leave but stop in front of the main sound stage at El Remate (the top) de Paseo. There are three young guys dancing to sternum vibrating rock and roll. Two of the guys are shirtless and obviously body builders and the third is a slender fellow in some sort of a flamenco outfit. All three are dancing like Chippendales on crack. At one point the bigger of the two roids boys has his pecs dancing in time to the music. The young gals in front of the stage are nearly swooning and I must admit that I am mesmerized myself. Finally Mary nudges me. I close my mouth and walk with Mary the two blocks home. There may be two more nights of Carnaval but for us it is a school night so we relax by the pool before an early night and Mary’s 5AM alarm.

Thanks for visiting gentle reader. BTW: February 15^th is the second anniversary of Bruce and Mary’s escape to México. Que bueno!

Rosie, Kevin, Mary, Bruce at Plaza Seranata

Bruce and Mary are about to have the pleasure of hosting our long time friends Kevin and Rosie for the third time, here in Mérida, but this will be the first time in the casa grande that they have the good fortune to be house-sitting, presently. Please share in the fun.

Kevin and Rosie had always flown directly into Mérida but then Kevin was still burning up his frequent flyer miles accrued during his long career with Tyson Foods. But, with those freebies gone they opted to do as many do who fly in from the Midwest. They took a far cheaper charter into Cancun and took the bus on that incredibly boring 4 hour ride into Mérida. We had walked them through the process of buying the shuttle tix at the airport and finding the shuttle bus and then buying the Mérida tix in the Cancun bus station and we had them print out our address for a cabbie from CAME, Mérida’s main bus depot, as most cabbies here do not speak any English.

So, it is Wednesday, January 20^th and we (Mary mostly) have been doing the little, last minute details of readying for guests. We have tracked their flights into Houston and Cancun. Kevin has his cell activated for international calls and so far no news is good news. It’s 7:15pm and the doorbell rings. We spring to the door and there they are! At the door there are hugs all around and then we lead them the 93 paces to the master bedroom. Even though they had a brief tour their last visit when we lived on Calle 52, they are, as all guests are, overwhelmed by the scale of this place and they are very impressed with the 1000 square foot master with a walk in bath completed by a glass walled shower with twin adjustable height shower heads and Japanese Soaking tub.

While they’re organizing their room we bring out botanas and margaritas and red wine to the patio table on the promenade. We dig into the chow and start drinking and getting caught up. Luckily the weather has changed back to normal. For two weeks, until just yesterday, we had been freezing in the evenings while watching our movies at the patio table. We were wearing long pants, thermal shirts and Mary would wrap herself with a blanket. The highs were barely reaching 80, sometimes not, and the lows had been in the low 60s. Maybe we have gone native, but it was very uncomfortable. This evening, I’m in shorts and tank top and the girls are sitting at the pool dangling their legs in the water. This is normal for this time of year.

Kevin and Rosie have been up since 3:30am this morning and we have a work day tomorrow so we call it quits about 10:30pm and everyone hits the sack.

It’s Thursday morning and Mary is up at her usual 5:00am for her 6:00 shift, and I am up at my usual 6:30 and I get about my routine which is to make 2^nd breakfasts for Mary and me (my first is nibbling while I make 2^nd) and I double the size of the fruit and avocado for Kevin and Rosie and include some special breakfast breads that Mary had picked up. Kevin is up about the time that I’m wrapping up my kitchen chores and he and I go on the roof to get a little cardio in. But first he wants me to explain the roof lines which I do as I point out the 18’ ceilings of the old part of the house at the front, the 16′ ceilings of the newer suites, and then this 14’ new addition that we are standing on. The media room is behind us, stacked on top of the master bath. It’s a bit difficult for Kevin to match up the rooflines with the interior but finally he aligns it in his head. Then I do my karate and Kevin does his Pilates. I am impressed that he has a good 20 minute routine memorized. Back downstairs Rosie joins Kevin for breakfast as I set up my desktop for my shift, shower up, chow down, do dishes, and log into work.

Kevin and Rosie have their own keys and they take off to entertain themselves, checking out Paseo de Montejo, the Champs-Elysees of the Yucatan. Kevin and Rosie are great guests. They understand that although this house may seem like a Boutique Hotel and this is México, the playground of vacationing gringos, this is our home, where we live and work.

I log off at 4pm and it is happy hour. Kevin jacks in his IPod to our promenade music system and regales us with the all the hottest wedding reception songs and some great stories from their gigs operating as DyerSoundWorks. I especially liked the story about the Johnnies depanting. We break from our play to have dinner in the dining room. Mary has prepared a pork roast and it is good but as Mary feared it is a little dry. It is hard for even an excellent cook such as Mary to accommodate the leanness of the pork cuts down here. But it is plenty good enough for us as we revisit the promenade, waddling.

We party and listen to more music, which is starting to stray towards country western, which Kevin knows I hate, so he accommodates me but does play some crossover stuff which he knows I like just to prove that I don’t really hate country western. Ok, I give up. We go until about midnight and then to bed.

It’s Friday and we’re off work and everyone is sleeping in. Once everyone is moving and functioning with plenty of coffee in our bellies Mary makes a scrambled eggs breakfast and then we head up to Wal-Mart for supplies. Kevin and I help the girls, with all our goods, to the far side of Paseo to await a taxi home while we truck up to California gym for a workout. I do my usual circuit routine and Kevin does his Pilates routine but I do talk him into a little unilateral resistance. You see, Kevin was one of the platoons of wounded soldiers who made it into St. Cloud Hospital’s emergency room on X-mas day, by way of reaching into his snow-blower. It was shut down, but the machine kicked back and pretty much crushed and nearly amputated his left index finger. Being a southpaw it was even more of a bummer. And even after extensive surgery and, unlike me, adherence to Doc’s instructions, it is still one ugly swollen up and colorful finger, but at least he is down to just a removable splint at this point. We wrap up our workouts and I am a little disappointed, for Kevin’s sake, that none of my roids boyfriends had made the scene because they are something to behold.

We leisurely walk our way back to the house and I join Mary in preparing for our little party this evening. After much talk with our friends we have finally gotten around to hosting the first Friday Night Happy Hour. We had sent a batch invite to our gringo and local friends with the instructions that happy hour starts at 5, every Friday, and everyone brings their own beverages and a botana to share, and by the end of happy hour someone will have volunteered for the next happy hour. And absolutely no RSVPs, come if you feel like it, don’t if you don’t.

Mary wins the bet and Jerome is the first guest to arrive, Jerome is a Coloradan who vacations here, and

Our First Merida Happy Hour Club

ironically he is renting the vacation property that was our home for the final three months of our book project push. Shortly behind him is Dave the Brit with his “team” in tow. Dave is opening up a fish and chips shop and a deli and he has put together an impressive team of locals to run the interference. Team Varon, Lulu, and Jorge bear bags of beers and Varon has brought along some test empanadas that Mary heats up. They are a hit.

By 8:00pm I count about 25 people on the promenade. The elegant Tonya, my former personal training client, with hubby Bob have made the scene with their NY friends Francis and Sandra. Enrique a DF refugee, has come with his wife Mary (not Marie, I know, weird), daughter Dianna, hubby Alberto and their little 4 yr old Nina. Only Enrique speaks English, having worked for Ford. Enrique is almost exactly my age (and Mary, Mary’s) and he, like me has quit the corporate life to cobble things together until social security. Only difference is, like Canada, what we call social security starts for him at age 60.

I am cruising the party doing what I do, trying to tie it all together and I am able to get most of the non-English speaking locals into one group. Then I take a break and find the cool people, the smokers, to take a few hits on my cohiba that I had parked earlier. This gives me a chance to get to know Fred. Fred and Jan who have lived here for 6 years and they, as opposed to almost everyone we know, rent their house, they do not own, and they talk as if they never will. And why should they, as they have lived on the beach in a couple locations, and here in town, they are not even close to their original rental budget of $1500/mo that they established prior to their move. Right now they have a very nice house in a northern suburb (two blocks from the only bowling alley in Mérida) for $500/mo. Fred and Jan have just launched the Gold Book and used Yucatan Today for the publisher as we did for our Living in Mérida book. What started out as a conversation about the virtues of my Cohiba cigars opposed to his Te Amos has me hearing Mayor Daly stories from his days as the Fire Chief of Chicago.

Finally it occurs to me as people are starting to leave that we have no volunteer for next Friday. I make the announcement. There is an awkward moment before Lorcan, our Irish Canadian friend, and Lexi his vivacious wife bite the bullet and volunteer, even though they had told me privately, earlier, that they were just finishing up with a remodeling project.

It is down to Dave and his team and me and Kevin, the hard core, and finally I announce last call and everyone has been booted by 2. Oh boy, I’m too old for this.

Saturday we all sleep in and just relax. It is hot getting well into the 90s so we spend a lot of time in the pool and Kevin and I also get our chess rivalry going. Man, it is depressing because he just kicks my butt the first two games and that is all I want today. Then we head to El Lucero del Alba, one of our neighborhood bars, just a block away. This is a nice place with air conditioning, big screen TVs and bathrooms that not only have toilet seats but even paper towels! The free botanas come and it starts at level one with all kinds of taco rollups. Then stage two comes which today is chorizo, a sausage. Kevin insists it is chopped organ meat and will only taste it. I have our favorite server Lucio come by to explain that despite the deep red color of the ground meat inside the crispy casing, it is indeed pollo. Suddenly Kevin likes it. We wait for stage three which is usually poc chuc, or pollo ticuleño, with the presentation of a gourmet meal but instead we get some cheese-it type crap which we know signifies the end of the botanas. Once again we have overpromised a joint but Kevin and Rosie don’t seem to mind as they pick up the check and we move on. We have a pretty cool arrangement worked out. Mary’s mother Harriet, sis Sue and friend Nancy provided the model but how it goes is we provide everything inside the “compound” and Kevin and Rosie do that outside. Now with Harriet and Sue’s visit, being there were three of them and only two of us they volunteered some help with supplies as well. We hate to be concerned about such things and if we were rich and not working stiffs we wouldn’t be but otherwise, guests can be an economic impact.

Peon Contraras Sidewalk Cafe

We leave El Lucero’s and the sun has set. We walk towards El Corazon, the heart of downtown and we end up at The Peon Contreras’ sidewalk café and there is an older guy providing the customers with live Trova music, playing guitar and singing with a percussion machine backing him up. It’s warm but with a perfect cooling breeze and the people watching is excellent as there is a pretty good crowd here and a lot of foot traffic. Across the street, a giant Ceiba tree’s canopy stretches out to us. Our drinks come and we just relax, our collective blood pressures are approaching zero. The musician is quite good and I walk up to plunk a 10P coin in his little basket. I am a little dismayed that there is only a 20P note besides my contribution. But when he packs up to make way for the headliner group, a pan pipe and guitar duo, Kevin slips a 100P note into the breast pocket of his guayabera shirt.

Moving along, we head up Calle 62 to one of our favorite joints, the Mayan Pub. Usually Mary and I play a few games of free pool on the 8’ table, but Kevin’s bashed up finger nixes that idea so we head to the back garden and order up a jarra, pitcher, of Chope Obscura cerveza, and we order up some light fare for food. Our friend Gen, the Belgium part owner of the joint comes over to say hi and we introduce him to Kevin and Rosie. He says the live music starts a little earlier tonight, 9:30pm instead of 10, so there maybe hope for us old farts to experience some live Ska/Reggae. Our food comes and naturally the Mayan Keb that we had recommended to Kevin and Rosie, is barely lukewarm, and even after some microwaving, is not very impressive. Too bad as Mary’s empanadas and my alitas, chicken wings, are excellent.

We hang until about 10:30 and the band hasn’t even arrived to start setting up. We give up and head out and at the door is Gen having a smoke. He tells us that a buddy back home gave him a Mexican clock. It doesn’t have any hands. We laugh and hit the street.

Back at the compound Kevin breaks out a couple of his Cohibas and we light up. The women go to bed as Kevin and I talk about one of our favorite subjects, a Mx commune for us and our friends. That idea has matured to the point where were actually talking about the idea of jointly owning, with a few others, a 4 or 5 unit condo complex on the beach, something along the line of Casa Sol Mar, where we had stayed their first visit down. We talk how, ideally, we’d split time between here and MN and we are a little stymied how to answer the health care riddle for me and Mary. Kevin and Rosie have the income to afford a conventional plan, we don’t. Hmmm. We ponder this and other things til about 12:30am and then we too, call it a night.

Sunday dawns bright and warm, it’s going to be a hot one. We have some breakfast and then we check out

Shopping at La Plaza Grande

Mérida en Domingo. We start with sorbets on Paseo and then on to Santa Lucia to check out the music and older, quite talented dancers. Then on to La Plaza Grande with its hundreds of food and gift vendors. We walk the perimeter and Rosie finds a gift for everyone on her list. Now it’s time to get back home for some quality pool time which is how we while away the day until we head over to Varon’s place to watch the Vikings/Saints clash. On the way Kevin picks up some beer.

It’s my first time to Varon’s place. Like us he is house-sitting for a gringo, but unlike us, his place is small, faces a utility substation, and was renovated on the cheap. And we find out that this gringo bought this house on spec and expects at some point to move down here with his young family and make a living flipping houses. Good luck with that I think after I nearly fall down the illegal (well at least in the states) staircase leading to Varon’s large upper level bedroom where we set up to watch the game. Where only the room for a spiral staircase exists, this goofy gringo had built a tile stairway with inverted risers reducing an 8” tread to a usable 6”. On a beer run, my feet kick out but luckily I hooked the wrought iron railing under my armpit, creating a lot of noise but only my pride was hurt. Varon tells me that he has fallen down twice. Good thing he is young.

Well I don’t have to tell you how the game went but we had fun anyhow, smoking cigars and drinking lots of beers and munching on botanas. Next year, Vikes.

It’s Monday and we are not working again today, taking a long weekend. After everyone gets their fill of coffee Mary calls up our Doc and friend (and Daily Show star) Carlos but all she gets is his VM. Rosie has contracted some skin condition on her legs that looks eerily similar to the staph infection Carlos diagnosed last trip down. Mary looks for a doc recommended in our Living in Mérida book and we find one within walking distance and he has an opening at noon. So we head over to  Café Chocolat for their breakfast buffet, with everything including unlimited juice and coffee for 49P, about $4US. The eggs are a little rubbery but they have spaghetti, que Bueno!

We walk up to the Doc’s office and Mary accompanies Rosie in case of any language difficulties and the diagnosis comes back. It a reaction to mosquito bites and she gets a prescription for some cream and an admonishment to use the mosquito spray.

Chessmasters Bruce & Kevin

Kevin and I while away the day, pool side, drinking beer and playing chess. I finally win one after three straight losses. Kevin is trying to make up for my 5-2 record last visit.

The sun is starting to set as we head to La Plaza Seranata, right on the corner of La Plaza Grande. This is the very first restaurant Kevin and Rosie experienced in Mérida (ours, too, actually), on their first trip  and they really like it. We sit on the second level looking out over the park and all the activity and order up some drinks as we contemplate the menu. I have the Burrito Pastor, Kevin and Rosie  love Tacos al Pastor and order a bunch of them along with a Caesars  Salad and also a fruit salad for all to share. Mary orders the crème de elotes, a corn soup, which is so tasty that Kevin and Rosie order a bowl, essentially for dessert. We have several drinks apiece and Kevin can’t believe the bill, 640P with tip, about $50US!

We taxi back home and we play one more game of chess, I win again! And then we all hit the sack.

Tuesday is a work day for us and we are up early doing our workday routines but after Mary logs off at noon, she and Kevin/Rosie taxi to a pasta tile store/factory. They have been fascinated by pasta tile since their first visit down here and they have even had their son Travis trained to do tile work in the houses that they flip, they don’t do linoleum in bathrooms anymore, it is all tile. Of course there is not any pasta tile to be had in MN but the idea of making it available continues to intrigue Kevin. They come back very excited about their tour, conducted by the owner and they show me the 4 tile pattern they had bought. They plan on using it as a center piece for a custom wood floor in one of the houses they are renovating.

We order in pizza and spend this evening relaxing on the promenade.

Wednesday is another workday and Kevin and Rosie entertain themselves walking about town and doing some shopping. When I knock off at 4 Kevin produces some fine tequila and we start happy hour poolside with tequila, beer chasers, and Cohibas. It’s cooled off again and we’re all in long pants. Kevin announces that he wants to go somewhere nice and wants to spend 1000P. I allow that we may have not had the best luck with some of my recommendations but when Mary escorted them to the bus depot to buy their Cancun tix for tomorrow she had walked them to nearby La Choperia, a Brazilian/Mexican fusion place and this time Kevin trusts me.

It’s cool but not so cool that we don’t want to sit in the garden at La Choperia. The service is excellent as usual and soon we are sipping drinks contemplating the menu. Rosie orders a stuffed chicken dish that she raves about. I take a chance on Arrachera, a Yucatecan beef steak treatment and I am predictably disappointed. It is somewhat tasty but pounded flat and tough. Kevin has the sirloin medallion that I do sample and it is just ok, but probably not up to Kevin’s standard. Mary has the Fettucini Alfredo which is outstanding. I have to get it through my thick head, that with the exception of Hacienda Xcanatun, you really shouldn’t order any kind of beef steak, here. But all the sides are extraordinary and the cheese and chorizo appetizer was a hit. So were the drinks. The check comes to 1080P. Mary and I get the tip.

We leisurely walk the three blocks home and Kevin and I fire up Cohibas at the patio table and talk smart the rest of this, their last evening.

The alarm goes off at 5am and Mary and I crawl out of bed. I put together the usual fruit and bread breakfast and just as Mary is about to rouse them she can hear their cell alarm go off. In a bit they are trundling their gear to the front door and drinking coffee, waking up, and eating breakfast, in that order. Precisely at 6:20 Roberto our one-armed cabbie shows up and we embrace. Roberto is our man for the early morning cab rides. He sips a coffee as he regales us with the story of the battle of Puebla. And now, with hugs around, Kevin and Rosie’s visit has come to end. We wave as the taxi rounds the corner in the predawn darkness. Hasta luego, mis amigos!

Thanks for visiting gentle reader. Bruce and Mary had a great time with Kevin and Rosie but yet it is good to be back on a regular schedule and a few days of relative detox won’t hurt them at all either. Now it is the simple pleasures of life for the next month before the next house guests are down to visit. Hasta Luego!

At the Family Cabin

Getting ready to leave for Minnesota for the holidays kind of ‘crescendoed’ for Bruce and Mary. Especially for Mary as she coordinated their work schedule with cleaning their 6,000 square foot house and last minute x-mas shopping and packing and coming up with the lists for all the stuff they can’t easily get here. Join them as they are logging off work on x-mas eve day.

We’re working holiday shifts and Mary got off at 4 and I am just logging off at 6. It’s been a hellish day working our online moderation jobs. We all know that most posters do their damage from their workplace and my theory is that these are the poor slobs that didn’t get the day off and they are angry!

Our suite and our work area, poolside just outside our suite, look like a tornado hit. Our stuff is strewn all over, sort of staged for getting packed or hauled to storage, about 100 feet away in the media room closet. You see, when we vacate for the owners we have to make our suite available for their guests which means all of our stuff is out.

I start to freak as we need to be to the bus station for the 8:00pm to Cancun. Normally the buses run every hour around the clock but today this is the last one to Cancun where we fly out tomorrow morning. But Mary has a plan and I just follow orders and we are on the street leaving behind a spotless house (Mary even has fresh flowers for the owners) at 7:15pm. There should be plenty of time to catch a cab for the two mile ride to the bus station. But, there are no cabs, at least no empty cabs, and it seems that the only cabbies operating x-mas eve are by appointment only. Oh boy!

So we put it into high, speed walking with all our gear, about 75 pounds of stuff, in the 85 degree heat. We manage to get to the station with about 10 minutes to spare, soaked in sweat.

The 270P (about $22US each) 4 hour ADO bus ride is uneventful but we are glad that we know to pack warm clothes as these buses are always over air conditioned. If fact, I see as we reach the outskirts of Cancun that all the windows are fogged up with condensation, on the outside. The driver has to run his wipers, which is weird when it isn’t raining.

We debark and we start marching in the direction of where I think our Hotel Margarita is. We’d made online reservations for this $40/night hotel about a week ago. Well, Cancun must have been laid out by the same drunken Irishmen who did St. Paul because in about 3 blocks we are lost. We walk by a hopping bar and a friendly gringo tells us where to go (Mary loves that bit, “Now you can tell us where to go!”). We were actually pretty close and we find it about 2 blocks later. The only problem, and now it is 1 in the morning, it is dark and the sign says it is boarded up for renovations. What now?

Mary calls the Hotel Margarita’s number from her cell and is informed that we should go to the Radisson, as they will honor the reservation. Well…ok.

We hail a cab and a 40P ride later we are checking into a $120/night 5 star Radisson for 40 bucks. Works for me.

After winding down in the bar we hit the sack about 2 and we’re up early for the next stage of our trip. After a quick breakfast we grab a cab at the hotel staging area and take the 50P ride to the bus station for the shuttle to the airport, about a ½ hr away. But as we arrive at the station our cabby volunteers to take us all the way to the airport for a total of 160P. Well that’s a no brainer as the extra 110P is only 30 more than the shuttle bus for the two of us so we have a fun time practicing our Spanish and English riding in comfort to terminal three.

Our flights are all on time, even the connecting one from Houston to Minneapolis despite the storm there. Naturally we’re going to be treated to a good old fashioned MN winter storm on arrival. Joey, our youngest, with his bride Meryah pick us up in her dad’s Tahoe and we’re off to their townhouse in New Hope a northern suburb of the Twin Cities. We relax with beer and movies and Joey, thoughtful son that he is, supplies me with a premium Vodka (his traditional , if a little early this time, birthday gift) for my nightly martini. He even has a proper shaker and martini glass. Such a good son!

The next day is Joey and Meryah’s party. Pam, Meryah’s mom, is throwing a party for the newlyweds and has

Harriet, Pam, and Meryah

flown in from SC for this celebration. We have a bit of running around to do which includes picking up Mary’s mom in Princeton and bringing her to Joey’s where family and close friends are congregating prior to the event. I drink a couple beers and chat with Mike, Meryah’s dad. Then we head to the restaurant/bar, a favorite of the kids and we find a lot of people already there in the party room that is reserved us.

The food is served buffet style and is great with plenty of fare even for the known vegans (Sammy, Helen, and Caleb) and it’s great fun meeting and renewing acquaintances with Meryah’s family. I am glad to see Meryah’s grandparents, Kathy and Dick, again. Dick is a retired police investigator turned author who writes murder mysteries, naturally,

The Grandmas, Margaret, Kathy, Harriet

and Kathy is an artist with the uncanny ability of reading people. She’ll meet you for the first time and after an engaging meet and greet she’ll say something like, “I’ll bet you’re a martial artist, I can tell by the way you move.” And she’ll be right. Fascinating people. But of course all the cool people are out in the smoking shack. This is where Mike shows me the cool trick of dipping the end of my cigar (I have a spare Cohiba genuine Cuban cigar for him, as well) in rum. Uhmmm, good! I meet a guy named “Pepper” an admitted republican posessing a laugh like a Hyena, which drives Joey crazy but the guy cracks me up, he along with Karen, his SO, I think, only she doesn’t seem to like him much, calling him a “tight ass” and such which automatically sets him to howling. My Cohiba Esplendidos are about a foot long, so I make several trips to

A Couple of the Cool People, Mike and Joey

the smoke shack before the night is out.

The night winds down and our eldest, Sammy, who was chauffeured along with his fiancé Annah directly

Annah and Sammy

from the airport to the party by his good friend Travis, is our sober driver for the ride to Harriet’s house in Princeton.  In fact Sammy has been sober his entire life. Good friends and family wonder how far back in the line that recessive gene resides.

Sunday, the 27^th is another party, at Harriet’s. As we missed out on the traditional x-mas eve, here, Harriet has ordered up another one for us and Sammy/Annah. Mary’s side of the family, all much better people than I am, gather, again. We manage to finish off a $71 beef roast (I think I have gone native, when it comes to food prices, $71 for a roast just blows me away) and we get caught up with all the nephews and nieces and grand nieces and grand nephew.

At the end of the day we borrow Harriet’s 97 Park Avenue with 48,000 miles and Sammy once again is sober cab and we head to Foley to stay with my mother, Margaret, for a few days. This will be the third bed in three nights for Mary and me.

We are greeted with hugs from ma and my sister Cheryl, a prof at the U of MO. It’s always fun to see Cheryl as she doesn’t cut me any slack when I get to BSing. Only problem is, she is heading back to Columbia early Tuesday so our time together is short.

Monday we both work our regular shifts from ma’s basement (like many of the posters we moderate) and in the evening we have plenty of errands. First on our list is a stop at CentraCare, the medical outfit that owns St. Cloud, our former home, to get my medical records released. That ends up being more of a process than it should be but the gal is nice. I want my records for Lynn, my brother Paul’s wife, an MD. We made a deal that we will trade out her medical counsel for my personal training. Then we’re off to meet with our new tenants, Jon and Rhonda at our old house, which we find to be decorated way more nicely than it ever was when we lived there. They had originally moved in under a sublet with our original tenant Patrick and now we are meeting them for the first time. They are a wonderful couple with two lively boys age 10 and 8, I’m guessing, with a baby boy to make three. They would love to buy the house but they understand that we won’t sell until the market comes back to where it was, minus the realtor’s fee, since a realtor won’t be necessary this time. We ink a 2 yr lease with them and then we’re off to Target to get all the crap, like nutritional supplements, that is either unavailable or hard to find in Mérida. Then we have dinner at Red Lobster and then we’re home in time to watch the Vikings lose to lowly Chicago, in overtime, on Monday night football.

Simon and Jordan

Tuesday we work again and this evening we have my deceased brother Neil’s boys over for Mary’s famous porketta. Simon’s and Christina’s boy Jordan is a little over one and what a load, he’s got his Uncle Eli’s genes. Eli, at 6’1” and about 280 is slated to be the starting center next season for D2 U of M at Duluth, the 2008 National Champs. After dinner I take on Amos the youngest in a best of three chess match. We’d been playing online chess but then he couldn’t log in, forgetting his username or password or something. He promises to get another gmail account and we can commence again. As this is about the third time this has happened I tell him to tattoo his password on his forehead, in reverse, so he can read it.

Wednesday, after work, we head over to Kevin and Rosie’s for dinner. We pull up at the same time as our good friends and former back yard neighbors, Pete and Judy. It is great fun getting caught up with our good friends as we eat aplenty: fruit salad and a home made pizza with a crust so good that Mary just has to have

Great Pizza

the recipe. I’m glad that we make the effort to keep up with Pete and Judy, we’re usually not very good at that and of course Kevin and Rosie are life-long friends, in fact they are scheduled to visit us for a record third time at the end of January.

Thursday, New Year’s Eve and my birthday (who has a better BD than me, the whole world celebrates and has the next day off to recuperate) we take our show back on the road to Princeton and we have a very relaxing and fun eve at Harriet’s place starting with a nice dinner out, courtesy Harriet, and then we have Mary’s best friend, Deb and our good friend Bonnie over to the house to party. We are impressed that Bonnie has been taking drumming lessons for a year and a half and participates in jams all over the place. We are pleasantly surprised that both of them are planning on traveling to NH for Sammy’s wedding. We party until nearly 2 in the morning, almost a record for these old farts.

Saturday Mary, Harriet and I head up to the family cabin on Captive Lake to prepare for hosting the kids, sans Sammy who is already winging back to NH, for a long weekend. The first order of business is to shovel the foot deep snow on the 100 foot long driveway as this is the first cabin visit of this winter. A dramatic rebuilding of this lake cabin has included winterizing and with the Fuego Fireplace I Installed 30 years ago it is a really cool place to spend a MN winter weekend. The kids, Helen/Caleb and Joey/Meryah make their way up and we party the whole weekend, playing games, sitting in front of the fireplace telling stories and watching movies. Mary’s sis Sue joins us Saturday and she and Helen, the two English degreed women dominate The Dark & Stormy Night game which we thought Helen would enjoy for a gift, but not this much. Caleb is strong as well at a game that you couldn’t pay me to play; I don’t need a game to demonstrate my lack of knowledge. But at least Mary and I dominate, well we win at least, a couple games of Trivial Pursuit.

Sunday we bid adieu to Helen and Caleb at half time of the Vikings/Giants game we watch at the Blue Goose while downing a couple pitchers of beer. In the evening we share a big bowl of popcorn as we watch Avatar on the downstairs TV. I had downloaded the movie in Mérida and jacked my computer into the TV via S-Cable. Great movie, I recommend it strongly. BTW: James Cameron is another Canadian. Do Canadians secretly control our entertainment industry? hmmm.

Monday Joey/Meryah and Mary, Harriet, and I caravan to Princeton. We have lunch at the Finish Line and then we see Joey and Meryah off.

Tuesday is getaway day and we’re up at 4:30am and down to Sue’s at 6. I drive us in Harriet’s Park Avenue to the airport and we have a tearful goodbye at Lindbergh International and after a non-eventful flight, with a layover in Houston, we find ourselves in Cancun again for the four hour bus-ride to Mérida and finally we are home again.

Whew!

Thanks for visiting gentle reader. Bruce apologizes for this 2300 word post and realizes most of you probably never got this far. But hopefully family and close friends got some entertainment from this traditional annual if wordy account. And be sure to click on those Google ads. After a year Bruce is looking to crack the $20 barrier. Hasta Pronto!

Joey and Meryah Celebrate their Vows

We got a Skype phone call from Joey, our youngest, Thursday evening, November 12^th this last fall and as much as we like shooting the breeze and getting caught up on his budding career at General Mills we were a little surprised to be hearing from him that particular evening. Typically we have a chat after every Vikings game kibitzing Childress’ idiocy in not being able to figure a way to capitalize on half the opposing defense keying on AP and praising our new hero Brett Favre, so we wondered what prompted the call. So when Joey said, “Well the main reason I called,” we kind of held our breath, “is that Meryah and I are getting married tomorrow.”

As Keanu would say, “Whoa!”

We quickly told Joey that we love Meryah a lot, in fact, as we reminded him, if for some reason it came down to a choice between him and Meryah, we’d pick Meryah. We’re delighted with the news, we tell him, but why now?

Now to give a little context, it must be shared that our daughter, Helen, the middle one, had announced her engagement, last April, to Caleb, with their hippie wedding scheduled for this coming June, and our oldest Sammy had announced his engagement to Annah, last August, with their big Boston wedding scheduled for this coming August. And when Mary had eyed Joey with this ammo, in regards to their five year relationship, Joey had simply shrugged and said, “Don’t look at me, there’s nothing happening with us anytime soon!”

We reminded him of this (in his mind) badge of honor that he’d been sporting for close friends and family, to be told, “Well, things have changed.”

Joey went on to explain that Meryah’s recent malaise and discomfort edging into pain was diagnosed as a gall bladder problem that likely would involve surgery. They had done their research and found that said surgery would run around $12,000 and like millions of Americans, although gainfully employed as a pre-school teacher, she did not have health insurance. Joey, on the other hand, employed by a fortune 500 company has the gold standard in all benefits including health care.

We hear further that Joey had done his research with HR and with a little bit of paperwork and a very small bump in monthly pmts, Meryah would be covered the instant they are pronounced husband and wife.

Happy to admit that he is lucky to have found Meryah and luckier yet that she puts up with him and that their marriage was an inevitability, Joey does sum up the current situation by saying, “All I know is that if we lived in Canada, we sure as hell wouldn’t be getting married right now.” Ahh Joey, you’re such a romantic.

So, the next day, at 3:00pm, Friday the 13^th, 2009, Joey and Meryah took a half day off from work and got married in Hennepin County Courthouse. The honorable Judge Kline said, “This is a nice way to cap a week of putting bad guys in jail.”

Thanks for visiting gentle reader. How about that? Bruce and Mary’s three kids, in reverse order, are all getting married in the space of less than a year, que cosa! Stay tuned as Bruce pens his Holiday 2009 post listing most and least favorites, with Joey and Meryah’s party being at the top of the list. Hasta pronto!

Helen and Christi in Merida

Bruce and Mary are expecting their daughter Helen (with friend Christi) later this evening and Mary is busting her butt cleaning and making preparations and she is so excited she cannot stand still. Join them as they spend the next week showing Helen and Christi the sights and sounds of Mérida.

It’s Monday, November 23^rd, Helen is arriving this evening and we have no water. But Omar, our trusty property mgr has the plomero over in a flash, and after replacing the floats in the tinaca on the roof of the master bedroom/media room addition and the one in the cistern beneath the pool pump station, we are back in business. This situation helps us realize once again that this house is really 3 houses. The original, hundred year old front of the house, the newer bedroom suites where we reside, and the brand new pool, promenade, and master bedroom complex at the back of this football field-long house.

Mary is camped out on the street waiting for the girls to arrive. It is about 7:30pm and according to our calculations their taxi from the bus depot should be arriving any minute. I tire of this after about 20 minutes, figuring that the girls didn’t get to the Cancun bus depot after their flight from MSP in time for the 3:00 bus, so we might as well kill another hour before we get all worked up again. Mary waits another 15 minutes before she concurs and she sets up shop on the sidewalk again at 8:30 this time to be rewarded with Helen and Christi’s appearance. It’s hugs and kisses and then we whisk them into the house and lead them to their rooms. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen a 100 pix (which Helen had), because, like every one of our visitors so far, they are bug-eyed over the scale of this house.

We have them get settled into their rooms while we hustle botanas and Margaritas and I grab one of my Cohibas, a genuine puro, Cubana, Cuban cigar. I am breaking my cigars-on-weekends

only rule, for this special occasion. The girls dangle their toes poolside and we have a fun time getting caught up until 2 in the morning. Then it is time for this old man to go to bed.

Everyone sleeps in and while the girls are cleaning up Mary and I put together our usual fruit and avocado breakfast. The only fruit they do not recognize is the Mamey which they agree tastes like sweet potato on steroids.

We quickly bus dishes as we need to leave soon for our appmt with Alexei, known by gringos to be the number 1 dress designer in Mérida. Helen is engaged to be married this coming June and being a girl on a budget we approached her with the idea of making this visit a bit of wedding tourism as the rough quote Alexei had given us was just a fraction of the cost of a wedding dress back in Minneapolis.

The walk to Alexei’s studio is only two blocks and Alexei greets us at the door. He walks us through a front room into his consulting/measuring room and Helen produces the pic of Fiona Apple in the dress that is her inspiration. Alexei is all business at first but as we get into the process he is a lot of fun and he is most definitely quite gay, which as I understand it, is a requirement. JK.

He brings out a bolt of beige satin and many samples of chiffon of different weights of which a bright white stands out. That is the ticket. For the sash he brings out a bolt of the most stunning sapphire blue satin that anyone has ever seen and we all just lean forward in our chairs and say in unison, “That is beautiful!”

The measuring begins with Helen standing on a little platform and one of Alexei’s female assistants with the tape. This takes literally 15-20 minutes. Helen tells us later that she was measured in places where she didn’t know she had dimensions. Alexei explains that his dresses are designed to fit every inch of the torso. This is why he really disdains designing dresses from supplied measurements but with the volume of custom clothes he is starting to make for his US customers, he sometimes has to.

This session concludes and the girls are stunned that Helen will be getting a beautiful custom made wedding gown for 2500P about $200US.

Back home we snack on pistachios and peanuts and then we give them the Mexican Wal-Mart experience. As I may have mentioned before, Wal-Mart’s business plan is far different in México where they actually team up with communities, they don’t decimate them and the main Wal-Mart looks more like a Museum than the pole barns were all used to in the States. After picking up supplies and having supper back home we play competing U-tubes and we watch a funny bit by the winning team of her employer’s video competition. Capella U placed in the top 10 most desirable employers of Minneapolis and the school celebrated by having this contest. The stars are several from Helen’s department including her supervisor and their bit is a hilarious send-up of “Beat It”. It appears I have lost our you-tube contest when after about 15 minutes of Trailer Park Boys, the movie, Helen starts reading the newspaper. I can take a hint and kill the vid. Everyone is pretty tired so it is an early night for all.

Wednesday is a work day for Mary and I, so as the girls are sleeping in Mary logs into her early morning shift. I prepare a fruit breakfast breakfast for all and then get about my morning routine before I log into work for my 10-4 shift. The girls once up and fed, relax on the chaise lounges working on their tans but it is a little overcast and hard work getting any color today. But they don’t mind too much, they’re on holiday and sipping cocktails and reading their novels.

For evening fun we have invited our young friend Emilie, another Minnesotan about Helen’s age, and her local boyfriend, Edgar over for cocktails and botanas. Another MN gal, Rhianna, who is visiting Emilie, tags along. We sit around the patio table poolside with the boom box going and the youngsters really hit it off. Edgar, a retired musician (Emilie had given him the old-tomato about getting serious about his life) currently working as food vendor, is a hoot. He has really done a good job picking up English, mostly from listening to American music, and he has a great sense of humor. At one point Christi asks about tattoos as that is a project of hers, acquiring tats everywhere she travels and she is quite the world traveler. Edgar rolls up his sleeves, exposing arms completely covered with tats and says, “How about me?”  Christi is quite pleased that this worked out so easily.

It’s getting late and they want to go out on the town. We hear later that they went to the Mayan Pub, a place we love, but there wasn’t enough action for them (no live music on Wednesday nights) so Edgar leads them like a pied piper to an underground bar. All I ever heard was that they had a helluva lot of fun.

It’s Thursday and Thanksgiving day, but it doesn’t feel like it, after all this is México and this is just another

A Mexican Thanksgiving

work day except for the tiny percentage of gringos that live in this city of 750,000 souls. Mary starts working on the meal, a vegan one as Helen has been vegan for quite some time and Mary is a vegan wannabe. In a concession that was not easily won I had talked Mary into letting me buy a couple monster chicken breasts (could not get away with a whole turkey) so Mary bakes them up in a tasty basil preparation and everyone is pretty doggone happy with the meal.

We lounge for a bit and then we head out for the Yucatan State fair that our friend Joanne had told us about, and I mean who knew, a Yucatan State Fair?

We walk up to Calle 69 and 56 and 58 and there is a bus loading. We are lucky to make it just in time, but unlucky as that means it is standing room only, but the good news is the fair is in a little town just beyond the SE city limits and we are there in only 20 minutes.

We arrive just as the sun is setting and Helen buys our 12P, about 90¢ each, tickets. This entire facility appears to be brand new and quite modern and large, not MN state fair large, but I estimate it covers about 60 acres.

Mexicans know how to do fairs as the beer garden is right to the right of the entry way plaza and you can buy litros in cups, and you can wander around the entire facility with your beers, and there are many other smaller beer gardens scattered throughout the complex. I have a great first impression.

We head towards the midway stopping at a petting zoo along the way. One of the keepers hands Christi a baby goat and it practically falls asleep in her arms.

There is a marina show featuring delphinos, dolphins, but we are a little late for that and the next isn’t for over an hour, so we move on.

The midway is right up the lane and Helen and Christi indulge themselves in a rather modest roller coaster which puts large smiles on their faces. We keep walking around the perimeter and find a  flea market and right away I see a vendor selling huge 8’x8’ beach blankets. I am happy to pay the 200P as he won’t budge on the price but then he throws in a nice flannel blanket and a couple of really cheesy pillows. He bundles it up with twine and being rather bulky I find it easiest to carry on my head. This elicits a chuckle from the women, which is about the only way I get a laugh these days as nobody gets me anymore.

We make our way past a couple dance pavilions with live, eardrum shattering music. Once again we observe a phenomena we have seen many times. The chest thumping vibrations of the music don’t even register on them, their conversations are normal without having to repeat a single word and they field cell calls without missing a beat. I don’t get it.

We finally round the bend and find some more rides, a zip-line for the girls and unfortunately for Helen she is too light for her momentum to carry her all the way to the other platform, about 20’ off the ground. The attendee has to pulley out on grab Helen around the waist with his legs and hand over hand pull the both of them to the platform. Helen wasn’t really looking for any relationship, just a ride. Christi is next and by this time a crowd of beer drinking locals has formed a fan club and as she begins her assent they are cheering, “Christi! Christi!” Mary ends up posing them all for a group shoot.

The Fan Club

Then the girls talk me into a rollercoaster ride over in this part of the fair. It is a short ride and there’s not very much vertical but we do have a loop the loop and it is as herky-jerky a roller coaster ride as I have ever had. I’m glad they talked me into it.

Next we walk past the Brahma bulls which are very impressive but they all really need jocks if they’re not going to hurt themselves.

Finally we are at “Winterland”! In one enclosed, chilled tent there are snowball fights that go until each team’s box of readymade snow balls is depleted. The two teams are separated by a badminton fence and there are some real maniacs. One teenaged guy never left the snow ball box for a close in shot but just lobbed mortar shells non-stop. I was expecting him to get the first case of frostbite in the tropics but his adrenalin rush trumped his blue hands. The girls thought this to be a little too energetic so they opted for the inner tube slide next door. It was about as exciting as you can get with a 10’ vertical, wheee!

At this point the girls feel that they came, they saw, and they conquered this Mexican state fair, so we meander toward the exit gate and find the bus staging area. Even though it is quite busy we board quickly and by bus, then taxi we are back home in a flash.

Mary makes sandwiches and we eat and drink beer poolside and then everyone hits the sack, these types of days wear out young and old alike.

Friday is a work day for Mary and me, so we get about our usual schedules. The girls sleep in, have the continental breakfast I had made them and they head over to Alexei for a fitting. This takes a while and right as Mary logs off work, she gets a call from Alexei, “Your daughter is so beautiful, you must come right away to see her!” So, no more need be said; she bolts the two blocks to his studio and takes many photos. I have a rather nice night out planned from the proceeds of the hush money Helen paid me to keep those photos off this blog.

The only problem is, this fitting has taken way longer than expected and they are late in meeting Rhianna, our young friend’s visitor, at the bus depot for a day trip to Uxmal, the famous Mayan Ruins in the Puuc hills south of Mérida. When they finally hook up with Rhianna it is too late for the Uxmal buses but they make a fun day of it touring La Plaza Grande, including the Governor’s Palace, the San Idelfonso Catedral (oldest one on the N American continent) and other walk-able historic sites.

The girls check back in late in the afternoon but they are soon off again to meet up with Emilie, Edgar, and Rhianna for her going-away party, she is taking the midnight express this evening down to Chiapas, about an 8 hr bus ride. She figures she will sleep on the bus and avoid one night of hotel expense. Oh to be young again.

They meet at the Namaste Grille (or the Nasty Grille as Dave the Brit calls it) and Helen and Christi later agree with that assessment. One of Helen’s favorite restaurants back in Uptown Minneapolis is an Indian joint where she can get all the vegan Indian delights her heart desires, so she knows Indian cuisine. After their meal they head up to La Canta Mexicana which had been described to us as a pretty cool karaoke bar with a 100P cover that includes all the beer and botanas you can eat and drink. We have never been there as it opens roughly at our bedtime, 9:00. But the report we got from the girls was: not fun. No one was singing, nobody brought around botanas, and it was just generally a bore.

It’s late and the girls are still out. Helen had informed me that Dads usually dance with their bride daughters which frankly hadn’t occurred to me, and being a horrible dancer, or really not a dancer at all, I had downloaded some youtube video “how to’s” on, well I thought for the helluva it, swing dancing. So I talk Mary into, after a number of beers, practicing these new found moves with me, so we are in the midst of that when we hear some laughing from the hallway. Sure enough, busted, but at least Helen is kind enough to say she thought the scene “adorable”.

Saturday is beach day and we start off with a short walk to our favorite breakfast buffet, La Chocolat. It is a 49P buffet which includes unlimited fruit drinks and coffee. They have added, to the usual offerings, a boiled potato/chorizo dish which is really good. Even Helen finds enough fruit and rice to properly fuel up and after settling up we head out the door to catch a city bus to the Progreso bus stop. The day is starting off promising, it has been cool, only up to 75 yesterday and breezy, but today it is warming up nicely. We catch a bus right away and have equal luck with the Progreso bus and we are soon headed out of town to the beach.

We debark at the bus depot and laden with all our beach gear we head the few blocks towards the beach but at Calle 27 I grab my gear and head to my Progreso gym. I tell the girls I will find them on the beach after my workout. Which I do, after a fairly righteous circuit routine, right at our favorite spot on the beach, a few steps from the cerveceria, where we buy our megas (super litros, 1120ml!!) for only 18P.

The sun, shining warmly in a soft blue sky is tempered by a cooling breeze and the girls are baking themselves on both sides while Mary is doing her cryptoquips, sitting on one of our portable chairs. I join them, sitting in the other chair, and I  pour myself a glass of Superior, light up a Cohiba and it just doesn’t get any better than this.

After a couple hours of this bliss, our stomachs are rumbling so we head up the malecon to grab some grub. We find a restaurant that has reasonably priced cervezas and park ourselves in the beachside palapa area, but we only last there a few minutes, with the sun dipping to the watery horizon of the gulf it has cooled quite a bit so we cross the street and sit in the restaurant proper.

It’s an interesting menu for the carnivores but poor Helen gets stuck with French Fries, but Mary does share some of her Christians and Moors. I order Pescado Frito, because Christi is too chicken to, and I want her to see what a deep fat fried whole Grouper, eyeballs and all, is all about. Christi has the Pescado al Diablo and before even tasting it she douses it with chile and pepper sauce. She nearly hurts herself but she does persevere. I sample her dish and I am impressed that she has a tolerance to heat that equals mine. I salute you Christi!

We settle up and walk back to the bus depot and are quickly boarded. We debark at Calle 60 and 47 and head on home, walking by all the commotion at El Remate de Paseo that always accompanies the setting up for La Noche Mexicana, the every Saturday night Mérida fiesta.

Back home we relax by the pool and Helen calls her Caleb, Christi checks in with her friend who is getting some work done on her new house and Mary and I get caught up on emails.

The girls, including Mary, quickly get their energy back and they go check out La Noche Mexicana and I don’t see them until 10. Then Helen and Christi put it into high gear as they go check out Cumbancheros, a really cool Cuban salsa joint that we have visited several times. It is operated by the father son duo, Ruben Gonzalez II and III. The original Ruben Gonzalez was a renowned Cuban musician who won a grammy for the score for The Buena Vista Social Club. The walls are adorned with grammy, platinum record, Ry Cooder memorabilia and one of his most popular songs, Cumbanchero is, obviously, the namesake of Ruben’s son and grandson’s restaurant/night club. It is a pretty cool place. And we hear all about the fun they had the next morning as they are out far beyond our bedtime.

Sunday is Mérida en Domingo and after the girls finally roust up we head to La Corazon, the heart of Centro to see the sights and to, well, shop. I tag along and at la plaza grande, while the girls are checking out all the vendors, I enjoy the dancing of the young troupe in the square. Today they’re doing the balancing thing where they dance around with platters of beer bottles on their heads. It is pretty amazing as they twirl about to the live band. I join up with the girls and I see that it is getting close to kick-off; my Vikings are playing Chicago in a few minutes so I head back home. I am lucky to get a good P2P video stream and I must say that I am enjoying myself immensely, sipping on my Bloody Mary, puffing on my Cohiba, and watching Favre destroying the Bears 36-10 with 4 TD passes and 392 yds, when the girls arrive with their bags of gifts and souvenirs.

For supper Mary makes gnocchi with pesto and even we carnivores like this dish a lot. While the women are cleaning up the kitchen I call our youngest, Joey, to talk the game, a Sunday tradition and I figure I’ll get the football part done before Mary and Helen join in on the conversation. Helen and Joey give each other crap but in the zinger department I have to give it to Joey, in a close contest. After the call Helen turns us onto Dr. Who series and shows us how to access episodes on youtube. We both like the show instantly and are always happy to add to our viewing itinerary. Then it’s an early night for all of us.

Monday is a work day for us and it is Chichen Itza day for Helena and Christi. We work our shifts and Mary heads to her “Let’s Speak English” classes. I log off and just as I am back in the door from restocking our beer supply I get a call from Helen, we had insisted she take Mary’s cell with her. It seems she is concerned about missing the bus back from the ruins and there is some confusion as I think she was calling from Chichen Itza and I have no idea of the bus situation there but finally it is clear that she is calling from a restaurant at Uxmal, a very impressive Mayan Ruins that I have visited. The last one I have visited, the very last one I will ever visit as I am Mayan Ruined out, but that is another story. I advise her that if indeed they did miss the last bus out of the facility that she should hike to the highway, a little less than a kilometer and wait for a bus. The Campeche buses run pretty much on the hour. “Okay, dad, see you soon!”

Uxmal

Mary is home from school a little before the girls arrive around 7 and after my tale Mary is ecstatic and much relieved to see the girls. I was not worried; my Helen can take care of herself.

It is the second to last night of Helen and Christi’s stay so we want to go somewhere nice to eat. We taxi downtown to Amaro’s which is very romantic place and it offers a good selection of vegan entrees. We are ushered to the courtyard and as we get settled at a table the trova musician, an older gentleman, starts strumming his guitar and crooning. It is a very pleasant ambiance. And here, I have a chance to order my favorite beer in the world, Bohemia Obscura. Even Helen, who does not like dark beer as a rule, is pretty impressed.

We order up our dishes: Mary is in vegan wannabe mode and orders up the veggie enchiladas. Helen has some tomato and onion thing (I sample it and I’m sorry, all you vegans out there, but my taste buds are unable to detect any discernable flavor in these dishes) that she likes a lot. I have an avocado stuffed with tuna which sounded better than it tasted and Christi scored with her stuffed eggplant dish, it is very tasty and when I sample it, I again am pleased to know another spice mate, Christi has doused it with salsa verde and it is flammable.

After settling the check, we taxi back home and relax around the pool. Helen skypes Caleb and it is clear these betrothed are missing each other immensely, hopefully next time the both of them can visit us.

We’re both off today, Tuesday, and I actually sleep in. I get about my morning routine as the girls walk up the street to Pacsadeli, a cool restaurant supply store that also caters to the public. Here they pick up some Xcatik sauce (absolutely superb on everything) and other assorted goodies. They check in back home before running off to La Plaza Grande to meet up with our young friend Emile who will accompany them to her house on the south side for Christi’s appointment with Edgar for her Mérida tattoo.

This ends up being an all day affair but well worth it as Mary and Helen enjoyed spending the day in their cute little casa and Christi is very happy with her tat, the Mayan symbol of life and death, on the back of her upper right arm. It is bandaged but she allows me a peek. I quiz her a little and it seems that Edgar was quite sanitary about the whole procedure.

Edgar Doing the Tat

It is the girls’ last night here and we have yet to take them to one of our neighborhood bars, so we’re off to El Lucero del Alba, just a block away. This is a nice, air conditioned, big screen TV bar. We didn’t think El Arcos, a working man’s bar with an occasional cockroach here and there, would impress them much.

We sit out in the new palapa part of the bar and order up a cubetaza, a bucket of five beers and the botanas start coming. Even Helen gets her fill as she really likes the kibis. Mary has the girls list their favorite and least favorite parts of this trip just like we had the kids do when they were little. The girls agree that the State Fair and the beach were their favorites and they agree again on their least favorite, La Canta Mexicana, the karaoke place.

Back home we relax poolside and the girls take turns packing, it is getaway day tomorrow. Then we take a break and watch the November 30^th Daily Show which I have stored on my laptop. It is pretty cool, playing the México’s Immigrant Problem bit for the girls. It opens with our Doc and friend Carlos, features another friend Bette, in true form, and the man disguised by glasses and a bushy mustache is Reg, the administrator of the Mérida English Library. Mary and I attended his and spouse-mate Larry’s wedding reception, here in Mérida.

We all hit the sack about 10pm as the girls need to be out the door by 6:15am tomorrow morning. Mary has already called our favorite one-armed taxi driver, Roberto.

Mary and I are out of bed at 5:30 and we get the coffee going and the girls just have some cereal for breakfast. Mary packs them a care package of pretzels and pistachios and right at 6:15 sharp, as usual, Roberto is at the door. Roberto has a quick cup of coffee and then I help him with the girls’ gear and the next thing you know they’re off. We wave at them until they are out of sight. Mary is sobbing gently but I remind her that we will be seeing all the kids in just a few weeks, which is no immediate consolation to her.

We wander back into the house, Mary logs in and it’s another workday, but here in paradise.

Thanks for visiting gentle reader. That was a lot of fun for Bruce and Mary and it seemed that Helen and Christi enjoyed themselves, too. They certainly didn’t sit still, well except for those suntanning sessions. But you know you have to come back from México with a decent suntan just to prove you were there. Bruce and Mary have been here so long they have forgotten that México was only a vacation destination for them once, as well. Feliz Navidad, loyal fans!