In the States Again

Back in the states again
Visiting Anna and little Andreas
Who is 10 weeks old today
He laughs, coos,
Throws his arms and legs all over
Here he is in the hat we bought him
That is like his dad wears.



Happy mom, Anna



And me, barely awake with Andreas
He's like the Michelin man,
look at those little arms!


And bath time..

Barking Dog?

If you've been following the barking dog saga
The last word was that the dog was off the roof
At the rancho
In the patio
Abajo.
Yesterday I heard that old familiar sound
ArfARFARfarfArFarfArf
ArfARFARfarfArFarfArF....Arf arf arf
For about 15 minutes I just listen
Then, I go up to look, to be sure it's her.

I crawled up the stairs to the terraza
Turned around, only to see
The neighbors directly across
(Who had the first and worst barking dog,)
Staring at me from their terraza
Ooops, I tried not to look back.

Looking in the other direction
Sure enough, she was there again.
I yelled down to John
She's there again!!!
15 minutes later
She was gone
Quiet and peaceful again.
Was it an illusion?

John thinks that after NOT hearing it
For four full days and nights
That they decided it was really awful
They didn't like it either,
And decided to keep her down.
They've been trained!

I, in my cynicism, suggested
They were attempting to re-train us
30 minutes today
40 minutes tomorrow
50 minutes the next day
A day off, maybe two
Then, in about a month
We'd be trained for the full 24 hours.

I have to say though, they did not
Put her back up again.
Maybe John is right.

Here's the Cookie Recipe

Here is a link to the cookie recipe that some of you have asked for

THUMBPRINT COOKIES

Fires and Nacimientos

Tonight we walked into town and back.
Walking through a very Mexican neighborhood
On the way back, where none of the homes
Have walls with finished in aplonado
Let alone painted,
There was a beautiful ending to a street
Christmas lights, a nacimiento
Children running around playing.





As we headed up to our street
It looked like the whole street was on fire
But it was only the field
Underneath the power wires
We've seen a lot of small grassfires lately.
Is it children having fun starting these?
The Bomberos?
Or spontaneous combustion? 
 

Where All Those Cantera Carvings Come From

Many of the carved Cantera stone figures
Architectural details, columns and canales,
Saints, angels and fountains
Come from a small town
In the Queretaro mountains
Adjacent and a few kilometers away
From the town of Pedro Escobedo,
In a town named Escolasticas.


John had gone there with his boys
Two Christmases ago and wanted to go back.
We hopped in the car with Richard & Chris,
And were off to see if we could find
This remote town on our own.

Escolastica lies in the hills,
About an hour outside of Queretaro.
The highways are good and it's easy going
Until you get to Pedro Escobedo
Where you know you have to turn.

The highway makes a detour
To main street, where you can buy
Tacos, chicken, baskets, groceries
Visit with your neighbors, buy eggs,
Get your car washed or find a taxi.
But there isn't one sign for the road to Escolastica



About four blocks down,
I unroll my window
Ask a man on the street
If he knows the road to Escolastica.
'Hijole' he says (like oh God!)
He motions around in a circle
Tells us to go left, then left, then straight
And keep going. 
Which of course leads us exactly back
To where we were.

We go left, where there is a line up of taxis
We ask the lead driver if he knows the route.
He tells us to go left, then left and straight
Todo direcho - keep going straight
And you'll get there.

It looks like a dead end to nowhere
So we head back up the highway road
Thinking once we get out of town
There will be a sign.
As we leave town, we realize the map says
That the road is not outside of town
But somewhere in the middle. 
We turn around again and John
Stops a gas truck to ask a third time.
The driver tells us, "go past the light, three streets
Turn left and keep going.
You'll see signs for la Lira
Then Escolastica."

This works, but it doesn't look right
A cobblestone road, barely rideable
Past old buildings that look like
Abandoned stone jails.
But soon there is a sign for la Lira,
A town, and down a little street
That doesn't seem like it can go anywhere
Then across the 'highway'
Really, a small two lane paved road
Which leads us 7 km more into Escolastica.
You know you are there
When you start seeing things like the carvings below
And when a car goes by, or the wind blows
It picks up all the stone dust and blows it around
Drying out your face and throat.



As we arrive, there is a long stretch of nothing but carvings
Then a long stretch of town, which is surprisingly large
Followed by a stretch of countryside
With a few studios, carvings behind wire fences,
Then a long stretch of big workshops
Where they cut the large pieces
With saws that have teeth that are an inch and a half long
Whose cuttings, mixed with water hit the wall beyond
Making an image the shape of the Virgin of Guadalupe
 

 

There are carvings of every imaginable shape and style,
Angels, virgins, saints, monsters, soldiers and mermaids


And architectural features and forms
Canales that look like animals, along with simple plain ones
You can imagine water flowing from their mouths 


Sitting atop blocks and cylinders of stone,
with carved pillars at top 

Men fighting beasts
Where would one put something like this? 



Angels of all kinds



In the midst of what appears to be a dirty, dusty, unkempt, disorderly
Group of workshops, you'll find inside
A very neatly arranged tool bench 



A workspace worthy of the piece they are working on,
A large round rose that will go in the top of a church
 

Next to the calendar girl that normally adorns the workshop wall
But there are no walls in these workshops
So she is bound to the telephone pole 



Roman, Christian soldiers on chariots
Are surrounded by birds and fountains 
And we all started singing 'Onward Christian Soldiers' 



A rustic hacienda style,
Low palapa roof home
Sits at the back of one workshop
Guarded by a life size lion
Shaded by a large tree 
In a garden of cactus.



Click on the photo below
to view the slideshow 

Follow up on Barking Dogs

The barking has stopped!
Peace for two nights and one day.
Last night, we took a few little presents
To 9 year old Ariel, next door.
His parents Marta & Aron
Asked how it was going with the Dogs
We told them we had spoken with Eutimio
Who agreed to think about it
Marta said oh, he took the dog to his rancho
Of course - he has somewhere he can take it.

Marta then tells us that many years ago
(probably about 10)
The neighbor 3 doors from us had a bunch of pigs
As did someone up the street
Along with chickens and goats
She said the smell was so bad
You couldn't stand it
And in summer, the flies!
Maybe dogs barking aren't so bad!

Aron, thinking about other noises,
Asks about Ramon's car
Ramon is Petra's son in law
They live across the street.
Recently his car has a really bad muffler problem
Aron says he made it that way on purpose
Just for the noise.

Then he mimicked the day for us
6am, Nabor across the street guns his engine
7am Ramon starts is mufflerless car
He warms it up for 10 minutes,
Playing loud music on the radio, and leaves
7:30 - Jokingly, Marta says, then I wash my dishes
As loud as I can so you can hear it.
Then at 8am, Aron says "I bang my gate
Getting my car out to take Ariel to school" 

We jokingly say back that we
Are going to buy Christmas songs
That are sung by dogs barking
And play it from 8 foot speakers
From our roof until we can't hear anyone else.
Then we all barked Jingle Bells and laughed. 

Ariel in the meantime is playing
The toy chicken we gave him
And banging his large marble ball toy
In our faces.  

We go home to a second night of peaceful sleep
Meantime, we are hearing all the other dogs
All over the place, feeling a little hypocritical
About bothering our neighbor about their's
When every other dog on the surrounding streets
Aren't any different than their's

This morning, the garbage truck comes
John meets Juana on the street
With the garbage cans,
He thanks her for the quiet nights
She says 'bajo' meaning that her dog
Is down off the roof
Maybe it's at the rancho
Maybe it's in the patio below
She doesn't quite say,
But we'll take the quiet
For as long as it lasts
And we'll remove our dog machines
From the terraza.

Barking Dogs & Solutions

We are in our second round of dealing with
An untrained, incessant barking dog.
She's a boxer
Our neighbors are really nice and we like them.
After I returned from the states in November,
John informed me
That we have another barker on the street.

The Dog barked on and off,
But not nearly as bad as the first dog was.
As the weeks have gone by
She's gotten worse,
barking all day when she is out
AND all night.

Yesterday, I went over in the morning
And asked Senora Juana
If it was possible to bring her dog in at night.
We couldn't sleep with the barking until 4am
Juana was very polite, and said she would see
If something could be done.
3:30pm the barking begins in earnest
It has not stopped at 7:30pm

John and I are looking at each other
Trying not to have the conversation
We always have - how do they stand it?
I forgot to mention
That we have two dog off machines
Ultra sound that goes on when a dog barks
Stops when the dog stops.
Both are mounted on our terraza
Pointing at the dog, who is visible
But perhaps slightly out of range,
which is 200 feet or less.

In case you don't know about these machines, there are several
The Good Life Bark off machine (we have this, it works)



The Bark Free machine (we have this, it works)



And the hand held version you can carry around
We have this, and it works!

At 7:30, we knocked on their door again
The son answers, we ask for his father, Eutimio
Eutimio is at the rancho
When will he be back?
Quien Sabe?
Oh boy, here we go.
We ask him about the dog
He says the dog to protect the house from robbers

Our previous dog incident
They said the same thing - an 8 pound dog
A white fluffy jumper was protecting them.
24 hours a day on the roof barking
Can a dog that small protect the house?

I'm digressing. Eutimio's son
Although never animated, talks
In some dialect we can't understand
I am sure he is doing it on purpose.
No entiendo, I say about 100 times
In between, we figure that the dog
Is protecting the house
Who knows if the problem can be solved
Who knows when his father will return
Juana comes to the door and retreats
Hoping we haven't seen her.

We go home discouraged, and this
Is when I put the second of our dog machines
Above the other one, on the roof.
It makes me feel better
But doesn't really solve the problem
Sound waves are going everywhere
But where they belong.
The dog is barking like crazy
Eutimios son and girlfriend
Are sitting on the front stoop,
Making out
They could care less, and I don't blame them.

At 9pm, the barking stops
I take a bath, and go to bed
It's quiet for the first time in a week
I am loving it, and think we've made progress
At 12:30 am, it begins again, and doesn't stop
This time, I put in my earplugs
Peace
For the rest of the night.

At 5pm today, the barking begins again.
I go across to my neighbor Petra's house
Tell her my problem, and ask
If we can put our bark off machine on her roof
No Puedo - no tenemos electricidad arriba.
No electricity above.
I tell her the cord is 25 meters
She shakes her head.
She's friends with Juana,
Oh well - it was worth a try.

We go up on our terraza
To plan the next attack.
Let's put it on the end of the front of the house
Attach it to the rebar
Pull that 25 meters of cord into the house.
That will bring us 50 feet closer to the problem.

While we are up there
We see Eutimio go in his house.
Should we quietly sneak out on the front of the house
Put up the bark free machine
Or should we talk to Eutimio.
While we are agonizing over the solution
We are also trying not to talk about getting a denuncia
With the Departamento de Ecologia,
Eutimio leaves his house.
We run downstairs, to catch him
But he's half way up the street,
Going around the corner.

Do we run to catch up with him?
Do we pretend we are on a walk
That we've just happened to run into him?
I feel ridiculous.
He happens to stop at the little tienda
And is talking to the owner
This is good luck!
We walk faster to catch up
He says goodbye  to his friend and starts walking
As we arrive and I say buenas tardes Eutimio!

He's caught!
We ask about his new house he is building
Have a few minutes of small talk about taking walks
Exercise, his feet, and little things
Until we reach the corner
Which he plans to take.
Oh god, now what.
I have no idea why this makes me so nervous.

I tell him I have a question.
He says his family told him about the dog
He is thinking of a solution.
Then tells us that Mexicans are very patient
I ask him if the barking bothers him
He shakes his head and says, yes,
He doesn't like it.
Now we're getting somehwere
But the dog is for protection
How can you argue with that?
Well, for one,
I tell him a dog will bark
If someone comes over the wall
Even if it doesn't bark all day.
Logical to me

I haven't met a local
who understands about dog training.
They think that barking is the price you pay
For security and protection.

He tells me that some people do denuncias
Then something is done about it.
Oh boy, just what I didn't need to hear
Because I don't want to do that.
He tells me all the neighbors were patient
When we remodeled our house
That they had to listen to the noise we made.
The arguments go anywhere but to the dog.
I reminded him, it was during the day
And we didn't have a barking dog
And that he is now building a house
That we are being very patient with the noise
He is making.

I told him that I have a machine
That helps to train barking dogs
They don't like the sound
But it won't stop her from barking
If someone comes over the wall.

His eyes light up!
Here I am infiltrating the enemy directly
This is looking good
He's interested, says he'd like to try it
I'm sure he doesn't completely understand
He thinks I don't understand
He wants to tell me more
About what I don't understand
I tell him I do understand he needs protection
He tells me he understands we need peace
I tell him the barking
Is like a nail in my head
He laughs and says he will try the machine
And begins to walk away.

I say "tomorrow?"
He says, "maybe, I go back to the rancho tomorrow"
I say "this week?"
He says "Mexicans are very patient"
I'm going to take that as a yes
And be patient along with my earplugs
Until I see what happens.

Decorative Iron, Lots of Color

We are about to put in
Two decorative iron gates.
We went to the iron worker
Without a plan
Without designs
Without measurements
Naturally, he told us to come back
When we had an idea
Of what the heck we wanted to do
Duh!



We thought we had a thousand photos
Of decorative iron work
In our building the house photos
But all we really had
Were building the house photos.



Today, I wandered all over San Miguel
With my camera
Taking photos of windows, doors and gates
Had a bowl of Sopa Azteca
And an Espresso.
The wonderful, colorful result
Of the photo shoot
Is in this photo album below
I wonder what we'll end up with?
To view the album, click on the photo 

Miss Smartypants, Bells a Ringing, Franciscan Processions

Well, after my bragging
about eating in the markets
Me, miss smartypants
Who thinks she is immune
To food poisoning,
And eats freely
In all the markets,
Came down with a two days of
Aches, pains, headaches
Body temperature
All out of whack.

However no stomach pains
Or other signs of turista,
Until day two
So I wasn't sure.
At one point I wondered
If this was the first sign
Of some serious disease,
But it wasn't, and Turista
I'm sure that's what it was.

One should always be careful
When smugly talking about street food in public.
However much I love it,
Every now that then it gets me.
Have I learned my lesson?
Probably not!

So, I spent New years eve day
In bed, trying not to move
And New years day
In bed and on the couch
Reading "The Name of the Rose"
By Umberto Eco

A tome for sure, but I'm liking it
In spite of the 13th century
Jousting with the language.
Today, I made it outside,
It was well worth the effort.

First we ate lunch at Media Naranja
At the bottom of Hidalgo
Which we recommend
There's a chef who studied
At the CIA in New York
Who is into flavors
GOOD flavors and
GOOD combinations.
However a loud, noisy
Table of 10 next to us
In a very small room.

I still felt good,
So we walked
To the Jardin, where we saw
Our friend Richard,
Pretending to read his paper

While actually sleeping away.

Then the military band
Came down Calle San Francisco

Here's a movie of the procession around the Jardin

The churchbells went crazy
The incense followed,
Boy I love that smell,
Reminds me of the Catholic masses
I attended as a child. 

All of this is followed by
The order of the Franciscans,

Children in monks robes,
Carried the street wide banner,
In front of this procession
The gold bust of San Antonio de Padua
Circled the streets and churches of San Miguel
For a new years blessing.
Men carrying tall glass candleholders
Are followed by men carrying the litter
Containing the gold bust.

All of this
is followed by throngs of parishoners
The church bells have not stopped ringing,
A red truck, carrying small sticks of bread
Wrapped with scriptures from the bible
Are handed out, and all this
Is brought up in the end
With an Insurgente policeman,
On Horseback

 

As they round the corner to the Parroquia
The bells go faster
Confetti is thrown from the bell towers,

The procession moves into the courtyard
Where short prayers are said,
then VIVA! VIVA San Antonio
VIVA Mexico
VIVA! VIVA! VIVA!

And around the plaza,
On to Canal street,
Where the traffic
Is already horrible
But everything stops
For the band
For the devout,
For the bust of San Antonio
For the parishoners

And the next stop,
The Iglesia las Monjas
Next to Bellas Artes
Where an outdoor altar is erected

In honor of the Franciscans
And Antonio de Padua.
More prayers are said
More music
Nuns in bright blue habits

And black head pieces

More altar boys join the procession
And they head down to
Their final stop,
Iglesia de San Antonio.
 

Running in to things like this
Is one of the things I love
About Mexico
You'd never see a religious procession
Stop the traffic, say, in San Francisco,
Unless they had a permit,
Which took 6 months to get.

At the end, in the Jardin
The bells were ringing like crazy
A man up in the towers
Was throwing confetti
From a plastic bag