setfreeinmexico.com

Connie & Mary

It was a brutal work week for Bruce and Mary and particularly for their boss and good friend Connie. So they decided to go out Friday night for a little R&R starting with a mini happy hour at Bruce and Mary’s and then on to Elio’s in Progreso.

Connie arrives at our door about 5:30 and as we happen to be in the kitchen there is no need to call as we had instructed to her do, our silly doorbells are on the fritz again. We collect our drinks and head to the promenade and we all light up, Connie her cigarette and we our shared Cohiba Cuban cigar. It is such a relief to have this last week behind us. Connie is the project manager for the Canadian news site that we moderate and this last week was a perfect storm of difficult, sensitive stories, a glitchy software platform that we suspect of posting comments on its own, and strange policy decisions rendered by the news site’s liaison who is the boss of us all. Of course Connie is never really off work as she is tethered to a Crackberry and as we chat and relax she checks on a couple beeps.

We talk about Connie’s trip to Seattle to visit her sick friend and how cancer sucks. We talk of the new mods in training, good friends of ours and how it is a much more complicated job than it was when we came on board and finally we talk about how we better get in gear and drive out to Progreso before we lose our ambition.

We hop into Connie’s Suzuki SUV (actually she is car-sitting for friends back in the states) and take Paseo and Prolongacion out of town to the super highway to Progreso. We talk of the Meridano drivers, crazy SOBs that they are. A friend of ours Tonya, lived in La Manzanilla on the west coast and their big city was Guadalajara, one of the largest cities in Mexico. She had no problem tooling around that big city but here in Mérida she avoids driving whenever she can. For some reason these muy tranquilo Meridanos turn into Mr. Hydes when they get behind the wheel.

We enter Progreso and we inadvertently distract Connie with our conversation as we find ourselves on the very busy Malecon, along the beach. We angle around and make our way to the eastern edge of town where the street has turned into a very rough dirt road and suddenly we are there, Elio al Mare Restaurante. We enter walking by the large kitchen through a dining room to the patio seating area and take up a table next to the only other group in the joint, a bunch of gringos. The sun has just sunk below the waters of the gulf and off to the left we have a beautiful twilight view of the longest pier in the world stretching out into the darkening void of the tranquil ocean.

Bruce & Connie, Lights of Progreso Pier in Background

We are presented with menus and holy mackerel! There are a lot of choices. There is every type of pasta, carpaccio, fish, and meat. The server approaches us and Connie looking around the table says, “We all want drinks don’t we?” I say, “Connie do you know us?” She laughs.

Sipping on our beers and wine we discuss the menu and the women order penne pastas. Connie has a Penne Sicilian featuring tuna and capers and Mary has Penne Arrabiata, a spicy tomato sauce. I order a Tagliolini with shrimp and squid and we all share a Caprese Salad of sliced tomatoes layered over slices of fresh mozarella.

We chat about how cool this place is and Connie is concerned that there are only two tables occupied. I tell her to just wait, it is July on the beach and they start and go late and it is only about 9 at this time. Our food comes and all the dishes are pretty much perfect. Now don’t get me wrong, I am as far from a foodie as you can get, in fact once I ordered a pesado con crema de espinaca, fish fillet in a spinach sauce, at Las Vigas and I was nearly done eating and enjoying it very much before I realized that they had accidentally served me the chicken offering, in spinach sauce. So all I will say is my dish was very tasty to me and Connie who lived many years in San Francisco which practically makes her a foodie and Mary, cook extraordinaire, thought their dishes perfect. We linger over drinks, relishing simply relaxing with friends as the night darkens and the place fills up. We ask for la cuenta and it comes to 769P, about $61.50US for the three of us, including 15% servicio. We figure the bill, settle up and make our way through the crowded restaurant to the car and head back into Mérida. It has been a very lovely evening and we can surely recommend Elio al Mare, on the beach in Progreso.

Thanks for visiting gentle reader. Bruce appreciates any and all commentary. To make a comment or to view existing comments, please double click on the post title and scroll down. Hasta Pronto!

Hola loyal readers. Last post Bruce was little full of himself, “wanting it all”, he said. As Mary pointed out to him, their lives are not so perfect. They still work for a living and have the normal stresses of everyday life (although certainly not to the level of their old lives). Although they have had much serendipity in their escape to Mexico there are some things they cannot escape and one is the fact that they are still Americans. Please permit Bruce this rare foray into American politics.

My morning routine has me opening my email (after I check my online chess games, and it looks like you have me in this one Kevin) and a twice daily email I get is from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Strib, many call it, and today the headline is “Five US Soldiers Die in Afghanistan Blasts”.

I’m going to keep this short.

As many of you know we moderate a Canadian news site and the war in Afghanistan is in the news every single day as Canadian forces are a major player. I can tell you that public sentiment is strongly in favor of pulling out. One common post is simply the listing of the names of the 151 Canadian soldiers who have given their lives to this “cause”.

Who understands this war? I have read a couple novels that have given me some insight to the region. One, in particular, West of Kabul, East of New York by Tamin Ansary showed me that Afghanistan and surrounding states are not countries as we westerners perceive such. They are coalitions of tribes with constant power struggles pretty much being the order of the day. In my mind there is no hope for a Democratic US allied country emerging from this mess and we should just get the hell out and let the tribes sort it out.

In conclusion I will let the tragically deceased Minnesotan, 23 year old, 1st Lt. Christopher Goeke, sum up my feelings in what the deeply patriotic soldier, shortly before his death, told his father Randy, “It doesn’t matter what we do over here, when we get pulled out, it’s going to go back to the same way it was — it’s just useless.”

Thanks for visiting, gentle reader. Bruce hopes that you will express your feelings on the war, pro or con. Healthy debate is the backbone of a strong democracy. To comment or view comments, double click the post title and scroll down. Hasta Pronto!

Bruce & Kevin - Damage Assessment First Happy Hour

A part of Bruce and Mary’s old life back in the States that they have really missed is the Friday night happy hours they used to share with their St. Cloud friends at brother Neil’s place (one of Joey’s pals, when announcing that he was going to “Uncle Neil’s Place” for happy hour was asked, “Where is that bar, never heard of it?”). And before St. Cloud it was our Alexandria friends who we partied down with, every Friday night. Let’s see what happens in Mérida when Bruce and Mary introduce that time honored tradition of Friday night happy hours to their Mérida friends.

We’d talked about it for a long time and we finally decided to kick off the first Mérida Happy Hour back in January when Kevin and Rosie were visiting. Kevin and Rosie are very social and they had met many of our Mérida friends on prior visits so we knew they would enjoy it, as visitors, so we sent out the invites. The invite went something like this: Please join us for the  first Mérida Happy Hour this Friday. It commences at 5 and ends….. In an effort to keep the hosts responsibilities minimal (to encourage lots of hosting volunteers) everyone should bring their drinks and a botana, snack, to share. By the end of every happy hour a new host shall announce themselves and the tradition shall continue. Absolutely no RSVPs, come if you like, don’t if you don’t and the first rule of Happy Hour Club is…. there are no rules, the above are just suggestions.

Well that first happy hour at our place was quite the success with about 25 people showing up, including our local friends Enrique and Mary (not Maria) who, in typical local fashion did not show until most guest were leaving. Well it didn’t make much difference to us as Dave the Brit and his entourage kept us up until 1am anyhow.

The next weekend our good friends Lorcan and Lexi hosted, at their cozy house in Centro, with its beautiful gardens and patio. We were the first there and helped them set-up and again it was quite the crowd but with a number of different folks who were new to us. The local contingent showed about when we were leaving which caused all future Happy Hour invites to not be open ended. Now, quite explicitly, invitations  state that the hours of Happy Hour are 5-7.

The next happy hour was at Dave the Brit’s new fish and chips place on Calle 59 in the heart of downtown

Happy Hour Club at Captain Flint's

and gringo gulch. Cap’n Flints was not slated to be open for a bit but Dave thought this would be a good opportunity for a trial run and it was a huge success. Dave started off with botanas of breads and cheeses and then quickly served up his fish and chips and deep fried empanada type things that Dave’s right hand man Varon had essentially invented. Very good but not too heart healthy as you can imagine. Again there were a lot of familiar faces and another batch of new ones.

The next happy hour was hosted by Enrique and Mary, our local friends and they live way out in Fracc. Francisco Montejo. This was the first happy hour that we could not walk to. Our taxi pulled up at Enrique’s brand new house in a brand new development and boy, were Lorcan and Lexi glad to see us. They were the first guests to arrive, we were the second. You see, Lorcan and Lexi’s Spanish is quite a bit better than the average gringo down here but not quite up to conversational levels so they had been struggling. And soon we were joined by a neighbor Alberto who treated us to his Tamarindo Margaritas (quite good) and soon Dave and his entourage showed up along with a few others and the evening, for us, was capped by Alberto tuning up his guitar and crooning some Latin love songs for us. It was a very enjoyable happy hour (but smallish due to the far out location) and one that we were happy to have shared with Dale and Judy, church friends of Mary’s mother Harriet, who were in town for just a couple of nights on a bus tour of Central and SE Mx.

Alberto Serenading Us at Enrique and Mary's Casa

Then for the first time, no one volunteered in response to the weekly Wednesday batch email that Lorcan, bless his soul, had taken upon himself to send out informing of the next happy hour host or soliciting one. So, we decided to meet at El Lucero del Alba, our neighborhood bar. As we are the founding fathers we chose our bar and a fine one it is with reasonable beers and free, most excellent botanas. We were the first ones there and we helped our server buddies Filipe, Lucio, and Enrique bunch tables together for this gringo onslaught and leading the charge was Dave and his entourage followed closely by Lorcan and Lexi. We had about 20+  turn out and it was fun but it was difficult to mix as you had to hop from table to table to do so.

Mary and the Hard Core of The Happy Hour Club

We missed the next happy hour which was hosted by Debbie our good friend and it was the doozy of the bunch as 45 people attended. We heard a lot about it at the next happy hour that we attended (I know, we the founders dropped out for a little while and boy did we get crap for it!), again at El Luceros. Once more no volunteer stepped forward and Lorcan and Lexi and Mary and I discussed this at length as things like Happy Hour are important! We agreed that this Happy Hour club had morphed out of all recognition. We looked around the room and we knew maybe half of the people and we also knew why nobody was volunteering, it had grown too big! So we decided to do one last call for a volunteer and if no one stepped up, we’d take a break for the summer and reassess in the fall. And that is what happened, no one stepped up and we are on break. But I like my idea better. Once we get back from MN in early June (we have some things to attend to like Mary’s annual May 17^th celebration and… something else…. oh yea, our daughter Helen’s marriage!) I will propose, because why the hell should we take the summer off from Happy Hour(?), that we, on the sly, start all over. Only this time it will be only the hard core, our intimate group (you know who you are) and we will all be sworn to secrecy. I am thinking of passwords and secret hand shakes. I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks for visiting gentle reader. Once again it is another case of be careful what you wish for, for Bruce and Mary. But maybe next time they can do Happy Hour right and it will be a cause for celebration for all of their Mx days! Well that was a little over the top, but what the hell you can never underestimate the power of Happy Hour.

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!

Mary and Anton at May 17th

May 17^th or as it is commonly called, “Mary Dahle Day” is approaching. Bruce’s dear wife Mary has the very Norwegian maiden name of Dahle and as the celebration predates any Bruce involvement that is how the day is also known. This is May 17^th

download Blast

numero 39.

• Spiker video

Neither Bruce nor Mary appreciates being The New Guy film dated but this has been, amongst their circle, one of the high times

of the year for many years. The motivation for the original May 17^th remains shrouded in mist. It is said that Mary had her “moment of Zen” that auspicious May 17th years ago and legend says only two others were witness to the original May 17^th : Deb R. and Kevin G. But all we can do is take their words for it, because there is no written historical document. Mary makes no comment on the matter preferring rather, to simply have the day stand for a celebration of life, family, friends, and food. Well anyhow, please join Bruce and Mary as they land at Lindbergh International in Minneapolis.

We’d decided to pay about a $400 dollar premium to fly directly out of Mérida instead of doing the bus thing to Cancun. We have really come to hate that four hour bus ride through the low scrub jungle that makes ND scenery look exciting and diverse. We’re at the baggage carousel looking for our one huge blue bag and our close friend Kevin D. appears. He’s looking trim and healthy and I tell him so. Today is Monday, May 18^th and the party day is this Saturday, May 23^rd.

We have fun getting caught up with Kevin as he maneuvers his Suburban in and out of Minneapolis traffic on the way to Foley where we will be staying with my mother Margaret for the first week of our vacation. That is how we have come to regard our visits to MN. We live and work in Mérida, MX and we vacation in MN.

My Ma welcomes us with hugs and we all take to the deck for beers on this beautiful MN May day. I break out a couple of Cubanos puros, cigars, for Kevin and me and we toast ourselves. Life is good.

Tuesday dawns bright and cool but it quickly heats up as we run around St. Cloud on this, our “errands” day. First on the schedule is a visit to KLN, the computer company in which my late brother Neil was a partner. We get caught up with Larry and George, the other two partners and with Dave a loyal tech of 12 years. George had told me just a week ago that our storage unit at their RV storage facility, in back of their offices, is going away. Neil had given us one of the few personal units, but now they will be knocking those down to make way for more RV storage. This presents an unplanned challenge. We get the key from George and take a look at our 6’ x 12’ by about 16 foot high unit. It looks manageable. We had dispersed some stuff on our last visit.

Next on the schedule is a visit to TCF bank where we are closing our account. The young man we sit with apologizes all over himself until I tell him to stop. It is not his fault that a customer can no longer call this bank and talk to his own personal banker but must dial up a call center, in St. Louis, and wait on hold until some young pup, after wasting 20 minutes of your time, informs you a supervisor must get involved to solve your problem.

And now it is new computer time, Mary’s old IBM needs to be retired. Mary’s best friend in life, Deb R. had already run a “matrix” to select her new laptop so we just do what she did, go to Office Max, buy an HP Presario, and with a few other options it comes to $730.

We’re on a roll now as we book to Coborn’s in Sartell for some May 17^th

• T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous ipod

groceries. Along the way Mary calls “back door Judy” our close friend and back yard neighbor which is what I meant to say when I first introduced her to Neil. You can imagine how the “back door” thing played. We meet at G Allens restaurant in Sartell and Judy’s husband Pete is there, as well. He’d taken the afternoon off from his  store, J.F. Kruse Jewelers. It’s a fun-filled two hour wet lunch and, unbelievably, they want to pick up the check. I finally win out by saying, “We’re buying for three reasons, one – You’re hosting Friday night happy hour (traditionally this has been a Neil gig), two – you’re letting us borrow your portable BB hoop again, and three – you’re letting us borrow your PU for this whole week!” With fond farewells until Friday we head out with Pete’s Ford PU to start our storage dump.

The theme of the next three days is storage runs and party prep. Wednesday our youngest Joey brings up our daughter Helen to join us at ma’s place for party prep and we hear of the tragic death of one of her inner circle, Dennis Dumm. It is ironic that I had seen the headline, “Bicyclist Crushed in Downtown Minneapolis” online this very morning, but hadn’t read the story. Helen is devastated but bucks up and has since, with help, started a Facebook event promoting sane bicyclist regulations in Minneapolis.

Thursday is take our possessions to Henry’s Auction house day and Joey has volunteered to cruise up from his home in Rogers to help with that as well. It is a very emotional day for Mary as she is very attached to our stuff but we have nowhere to store it and it isn’t worth renting a unit. She does agree with what our friend Kevin said, “If you have to set up a household again you can probably get it all from Craig’s List for what you’ll get for your stuff.” My sister Cheryl, a professor  at the U of MO, has driven up from Columbia to join us this afternoon and she claims some of our old video VHS tapes. She doesn’t have a cell phone yet, or ever will, she says.

Friday is intense party prep for Mary and Helen and a motherly “honey-do day” for me, but it is interrupted at midday by a call for Helen. Her ride to Alexandria for the reviewal and funeral has changed from this evening to right now and Mary runs her out to the interstate for that rendezvous. So at 5:00 I head over to Judy’s for happy hour sans Mary who, without Helen’s help is really behind the 8 ball and she is too freaked out to take the time even for this tradition.

Andy, Judy, Bruce Smoking Cubanos

I arrive at Pete and Judy’s, returning their pickup, precisely at 5 and I see I am the first to arrive, other than son Joey who has never been late to a party in his life. Judy has set out a great assortment of appetizers, the chief of which is venison sausage. She has this all set up on her patio out the kitchen door and facing our leased-out house across the yard. It is a little weird to be partying with our house, someone else’s home, in the background. Eli, my football player nephew shows up and we quickly organize a group to load the hoop onto Kevin’s trailer. You see, unlike most portable BB hoops the base of this one is not filled with water, but sand. I had told Eli that it weighs, literally, at least 400#. After we and three others heave the thing onto the trailer, he does not argue.

The weather has been holding all week and this evening it is sunny and warm, a lucky break for Minnesota in May and the prediction for tomorrow is the same. The usual suspects are on hand, including Brad and Amy, Neil’s best friends. Everyone is taking it easy, conserving energy for the big day tomorrow.

Saturday dawns bright and we are elated that the weatherman has come through for us as we have had previous

May 17ths in sleet. Mary and I start filling coolers and loading them into ma’s Buick Century. We stop at  Coborn’s grocery for fresh produce on the way and we are at Kevin and Rosie’s at exactly 10. Eli is right behind me and at 10:30 Joey appears with a portion of his gang so we do what ends up being a controlled drop of the hoop onto Kevin’s driveway, but no damage is done,  to person or property. Then with me at the helm and Joey and the gang in attendance we take Kevin’s suburban and trailer to the rental place where we are

lucky enough to get a pink portapotty.

Shortly after getting back some of the older, that is our generation starts showing. From our hometown of Princeton come Bonnie, Mary Fran (her husband Ike motorcycles over later) and Mary’s best friend, Deb R. And a surprise entrance is made by Anton of Boulder, Bonnie’s son who grew up with our kids. Sammy, our oldest and just in from NH, runs with arms flailing, screaming “Antoooooooon” to give him a big hug.

It’s noon and usually the official start of May 17^th but Helen is not back from Alex yet so Mary delays on setting out the food but it is time to let the games begin. Kevin has a huge backyard with horseshoe pits, so in addition to the hoops and shoes, there is a badminton setup and the kids are also  playing some goofy game of knocking a beer can off a stick with a Frisbee. I don’t know this game’s name, if it has one. I enlist Bonnie to take on Kevin and Drew (of Joey and the gang fame) in

horseshoes. As Kevin and I are giving each

Bonnie and Drew

other crap at our pit, Drew, evidently, just can’t help himself and is applying his wiles to Bonnie because about midgame Bonnie beckons me and meeting her half way and she says to me, “Where did you find this kid? He’s hitting on me, this old lady hasn’t felt like this since15!” I laugh and give a thumbs up to Drew.

There is a steady stream of people arriving now and Mary decides to start serving food about 1:30 and again it is another gastronomic delight. Mary and her serving crew of Rosie, Judy, Sam’s Annah, Joey’s Meryah and their roommate Lauren set out about 20 dishes ranging from Porketta to vegan potato salad to spring rolls with peanut sauce. Everyone dives in.

Helen and fiancé Caleb arrive about 2:00 and immediately everyone gathers around her and our immediate family for the Neil tribute which she conducts. Originally this was planned for our traditional noon start when only intimates are present but now there are easily 30 people in the circle but Helen does a terrific job with her theme being May 17^th has been more of a sharing time for our family than even Christmas and with that being the case Neil has always been the May 17th Santa Claus. Some of us tell Neil stories and Helen makes sure to reference his famous farts. Then we gather around an ash tree and at the base Mary pours out a can of MGD, Neil’s favorite beer and my sister Cheryl empties a small container of Neil’s ashes and the Tribute is over.

Newlyweds Robert and Lynn

Our close friends and newlyweds Robert and Lynn make the scene so Mary and I quickly grab our gift bag containing matching Mérida Safari hats, a Living in Mérida book, and a bottle of Xtabentun, a Mayan liqueur. They are practically glowing in their newfound marital bliss.

As I am watching the kids warm up for BB, I get my surprise visit. I see strolling across the road my good friend Tim with whom I had left several Skype voice mails with no response. I knew that Tim had

survived his stint amongst the Jack Pine savages of Deerwood, MN and had moved to Menomonie, WI but did not know that he had bettered his standard of living somewhat, having moved out of his sister’s extension cord powered attic. I am happy for him. He is rightly proud to be a Menomonite as there is always some bar there serving buck beers.

As we’re getting caught up I see a couple of familiar cars pull up. It is my dream team! I had been cocking off on the May 17^th Rules of Engagement movie evite that this Near Dark divx year, the old guys were going to beat the kids in BB which hasn’t happened in many a moon. But I wasn’t sure my Alexandria ringers would actually make it. I most

Shadowheart psp

enthusiastically greet my dream team and their wives: Dave and Bev, Scott and Sue, and Darrin and Kathy. Scott, in his youth was a starting DII shooting guard and still plays pickup BB every noon hour at the rec. Dave is a 6’2” great all around athlete and Darrin is a 250# former semi pro rugby player. I think we’ll put him in the low post. After we get settled and get a few beers in our bellies the kids give us the court for warm-ups. Darrin is not feeling so fleet of foot with his sandals, but we just need him to take up space down there against Sam’s best friend, 220# personal trainer Pete. The game begins and it is a hard fought 4 on 4. Sammy’s college roommate Bryan (who will get his 10 yr pin next year) has his hands full with Scott and we win 11-9 by virtue of his three long bombs in row. There’s high fives all around and the kids want a rematch but we’re too busy

Scott, Darrin, Dave, and Bruce - We are the Champions!

celebrating. Mary takes team pix of us as I am singing “We are the Champions” at the top of my lungs. The kids are depressed because they, led by Sam, cannot talk my team into a rematch. It is small consolation to Sam, my promise of a best of three next May 17th, as he will have to listen to my crowing for a full year.

The party progresses and in the late afternoon I see my dream team off as well as my old friend and partner Deb, who had driven over in her new Lotus. Menomonie Tim and Neil’s best friend Brad join me and it is Brad’s bright idea to see what it would be like to sit in the driver’s seat of the Lotus. We all take turns and we all have to be helped out, causing near hysterical laughter from Deb.

It’s time for Brad and Amy to leave and as is our custom Brad and I kiss each other full on the lips. This is not as much  fun as it used to be, as the shock value has diminished considerably.

The setting sun finds Kevin tuning up his professional sound system for patio dancing. At full dark someone lights a fire in Kevin’s awesome paver surrounded fire pit. I wander from group to group and start to make my way towards the fire pit where I see my friend Tim sitting and I realize that I probably cannot make my tongue move fast enough to keep up with his banter. I head the other way towards our bedroom in the basement noting that it is 1:30 and none too early to be hitting the sack.

I awake, sprawled across the bed with all my clothes on and Mary is curled up next to me, attired similarly. We groggily roll out, feeling much better than we deserve. Upstairs we find Tim, who’d slept under the 40° stars and Helen, both making claim that they were the first ones up. I scoop some leftover potato salad into my mouth for some healthy breakfast nourishment and get to work in cleaning up Kevin and Rosie’s house, garage, and yard. I find Lauren has nearly finished with the garage and when I turn the corner to the back yard I see a tent city. I count 11 tents in the back corner of the yard. Only a few have rousted. Quickly the cleanup is done and it time to do what I have been avoiding until now. And I do see enough manpower to do it; load the hoop. I gather the five of us that this requires. One of Helen’s buddies, a short, slight guy helps with me in the front and we heave it onto Kevin’s trailer. I am impressed with this little guy and tell him, “You’re a lot stronger than you look!” which does not come off as near the compliment I intended. Right exactly then, with impeccable timing Joey shows up and he has felt better. Next we load Neil’s famous picnic table for transport back to Drew’s place for safekeeping and I pick my accomplices for this: Joey, Sammy and their three biggest friends. These duties go well but with another scary “controlled drop” once more, at Pete and Judy’s. Luckily, once

again, no damage done. We gas and return Kevin’s Suburban and trailer and once back I encourage the partiers to vacate the premises. Kevin has been a great host, but I’m quite sure he is anxious to have his house back. Everyone is invited to Drew’s house for the traditional “Damage Assessment” that follows every May 17

• Paulie ipod

Lords of Dogtown download ^{th The Art of Self Defense full movie} . At Neil’s picnic table we drink beer and regale each other with tales of the prior day. Late in the afternoon with fond farewells we all head our separate ways, many of us not to see each other again until next May 17th.

The rest of our visit back to Minnesota is split between Mary’s mother’s house in Princeton, Joey’s house in Rogers, and a lot of time at the family cabin near Lake Mille Lacs, which has recently been remodeled into a modern house while retaining the charm of the log cabin that it is.

It’s getaway day, Sunday, May 31^st, and I am up at sunrise

on this gorgeous day. Captive Lake is without a ripple and there is not a cloud in the sky. With Joey, I smoke a cigar on the deck overlooking the lake and while sipping  a Bloody Mary I think that this is near to paradise and wouldn’t it be perfect to summer here, but that is not in the cards.

After breakfast, Helen and Caleb haul us to Lindbergh Intl and amidst hugs and kisses we are off, back to our home in México.

Whoa, that was the longest post yet, so an extra hearty thanks is bestowed upon you, gentle reader, for hanging in there. Bruce and Mary are now settled into their Mérida routine, minding the monster house that they are house-sitting and working nearly every day, much to their satisfaction. As always, Bruce appreciates any and all feedback. Hasta pronto.

Bruce, Dave, Aaron, Jun, and Lulu at Dzilbilchaltun

Bruce and Mary are still succeeding in their escape to México. The current equation is Bruce’s personal training income plus Mary’s one day at the beach in Progreso working for their friend, Jaromey, the property manager, minus zero for housing as they have established a niche house sitting. Join them this day as they celebrate Thanksgiving, Mexican style.

 

 

 

 

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering film

Day dawns bright on this Thanksgiving Day in Mérida and it will be warm, the predicted high is around 88, and the sky is perfectly clear. We had signed up for a CIS trip to Dzibilchaltun just a few kilometers north of town because we wanted to distract ourselves, this being the first T-day ever spent without family. Before we leave Mary does call our three grown kids, her mother, sister, and brother on Skype. And it is Niagara Falls. We are glad to know that two of our three kids will be at my ma’s place as the gathering has been growing sparse, with the loss of two of my brothers this past year.

It’s time to head out the door of our vacation house (actually Jana’s vacation house download The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! ) and stroll to the cocina economica just around the corner. We have breakfast, huevos motulenos, and we order three jamon y queso, ham and cheese, sandwiches for our outing. The breakfast is delicious. We settle up and grab our sandwiches and walk the block to CIS.

CIS A American Crimen buy offers outings every Thursday for their students and teachers and even though Mary doesn’t teach English there anymore, Jose Luis, the wonderful young man who runs this branch of CIS has insisted that Mary and I are always invited to these outings. Finally we taking him up on it. There are five of us plus Lulu a teacher who will act as guide on this trip. As we mill about two taxis pull up and Lulu, Mary, Jun a young Japanese man, and I jump in one of the taxis and off we go. Lulu is very outgoing giving Mary a good chance to practice her Spanish. As the taxi zips in and out of traffic to Dzibilchaltun I see the meter running and I wonder, being the cheap sucker I am, who is paying for the fare. We’d understood we were only responsible for the entrance fee. The meter tops 100P just as we pull up to the gate and Lulu quickly gets out money to pay this taxi and the one behind us. We introduce ourselves to Dave from England and Aaron from Portland. Dave is about our age, 50s, recently early retired from the computer business and Aaron is late 30s and a city worker. They’re both here on their own. Aaron is visiting for 2 ½ weeks and Dave is here for as long as he likes it.

The French Connection trailer

We each pay the 76P entrance fee and off we march. We start with Dzibilchaltun’s very modern museum. I’m not much of a culture guy but this is the best museum I’ve ever been in and I am actually quite entertained. There are artifacts and artworks and the stories of all the people who figure into the history of the Yucatan, including Europeans and Chinese, not just the Maya, who of course are the original inhabitants and still comprise 60% of the population of the Yucatan peninsula.

Out the back door of the museum Lulu leads us to a Maya house which is actually a couple of thatched huts. One is the living room, sleeping quarters and the other is the kitchen and el baño, naturally. From here we trek up to the main temple, The Temple of the Seven Dolls, which is rather modest, I’m sorry to say. Sleepy little Xcambo Deadwater download , which doesn’t even charge an entry fee has a more impressive temple. The claim to fame for this structure is that at the equinoxes the dawning sun is framed through the gateway at the apex of the temple, and people for many miles around come to view this twice per year event.

After the main temple we walk the central road by other ruins and through the ubiquitous ball park, common to all Maya ruins, on the way to the cenote.

We brought our swim suits along, just so we could brag to our friends up north that we had swum in a cenote on Thanksgiving Day. There is no changing room of course so Mary and I wander a little ways from the crowd and use a towel for a screen to make our quick change, which is quite exciting for Mary when a corner of the towel slips from my grip. Luckily for me, no one is looking in our direction at this moment.

We walk down to the cenote’s rocky edge and are a little surprised to see that one end of it is choked with water lilies. The other end is clear, which must be the part of the cenote that sinks to 140’ below ground level. The Yucatan, geologically, is a honeycombed limestone shelf that is actually an ancient coral reef. There are virtually no rivers in the Yucatan but plenty of water beneath the surface of the limestone rock. Where these subterrainian waters breach the surface you have a cenote.

• Sucker Free City movie

We dive into the deep end and find it a remarkable experience due to the warmth and clarity of the water and the buoyancy which I can’t explain because this is fresh water. We both splash around for a bit among mostly locals and then somewhat painfully lever ourselves back onto the rocky ledge.  Our new Japanese friend Jun is quite brave in that with very little command of Español, he convinces one of the locals to loan him his snorkeling gear. Good for him.

Toweled off we grab our clothes which Aaron had been safeguarding and this time, since I am not to be trusted, we duck around the corner of a ruin hoping no one rounds that corner for a minute. No problema this time.

Witchcraft 13: Blood of the Chosen film

Where Eagles Dare rip

We return to the gate where a 25 passenger bus is waiting to take us back. Our group is first on so we make easy boarding for the other passengers by seating ourselves in the back of the bus. The bus fills up with a group of young people we assume are locals. Dave, fluent in Español, and a naturally friendly guy starts chatting up the man sitting next to him and discovers that he is the leader of this musical group, Tonos Humanos, which is currently in Mérida on tour.

This wonderful Columbian folklorico, folkmusic, troupe proceeds to serenade us with some of the most haunting and beautiful music, sung a capella, that I have ever heard. Boat Trip movie

A Good Man Is Hard to Find psp

Too soon, the bus reaches Calle 49, our stop, and as we say goodbye to all, the leader of the group tells Dave that we should come to their performance tomorrow at Teatro Daniel Ayala, a major venue in Mérida. Dave says, “Now we don’t have to!” Everyone laughs good naturedly.

Mary and I with our new friends Dave and Aaron walk the few blocks to our watering hole, La Gran Lucha, The Grand Fight, to have a couple brews and celebrate a most unusual and satisfying Thanksgiving Day.

Thanks for visiting gentle reader. Please check back soon as Bruce gets this blog up to real time, real soon. Bruce loves comments so don’t be shy. Hasta luego!

  Van Helsing divx

  Thunder Over Reno video

The Beautiful Country hd