Life Style Refugee – The Ajijic Blog

I usually like going to the doctor here. Dr. Garcia is handsome in a classically Latin way, looking a little like Cesar Romero. He wears a tie and lab coat and is grey at the temples, and has a grave courteous attitude…altogether a reassuring candidate for the care of my health, and Bruno’s primary physician. This is in contrast to Dr Ricky, who has both a surfboard and a motorcycle parked in his waiting room, leaving us patients to sidle around his toys on the way to appointments. He has hair down to his shoulder blades and is likely to try both acupuncture and pot before switching to more conventional ideas, and of course, I like him better. On this occasion, after three long days of what I assumed was flu, I couldn’t have cared less who was on the other side of the desk…the urbane Dr. Garcia, Dr Ricky, or Doogie Howser. Bruno had dragged me over to our local clinic, muttering “enough is enough” and something I couldn’t make out about “drama queens.”

The clinic is a friendly hangout that has bougainvillea poking into most of the ground floor windows and casting shadows into the waiting area and the office of Dr.Don, the dentist. Next to the clinic is a pharmacy that looks like a magic shop, then the lab, and Mom’s Deli has the end building in the row. This fortunate arrangement makes it possible to catch up on village gossip while waiting on the shared sidewalk for lab tests or x-rays. Everyone in the village is bound to pass by sooner or later, if not for pie, then for Viagra. Not that I felt like shooting the breeze with anyone. It turned out that I had somehow caught the singular case of strep throat in a swirling miasma of colds, flus, grippes, chilblains and bronchial infections imported by our annual winter population. Swine flu, schmine flu.

I wouldn’t have been able to get anyone to talk to me if I had been feeling social, since I smelled, Bruno said most vehemently, like an old peoples’ home. The reason for this is the Mexican obsession with Vick’s VapoRub, which is pronounced lovingly as VahpOrube, and which is hauled out for everything from a chest cold to a broken bone. Carmen, who is our maid, although no word has ever been less adequate for describing the complicated and dear relationship we share, can be counted on to show up with not only the VahpOrube, but also a tupperware vat of “caldo,” a universal term for consomme, whenever the Senor or I are feeling punk. As for the caldo, I wouldn’t dare ask what these various broths might be derived from, as the answer is probably the last thing I want to hear about when I’m not feeling well. I wouldn’t be able to eat any this week anyway, since they’re so full of chili pepper it would strip off the back of my throat even without the strep. Thus I waited patiently until Carmen left the room to go change the bed and then discreetly poured it down the sink. I don’t feel guilty… I’m sure she does the same thing with the tuna surprises and other bland gringo leftovers we shower on her family.

Anyway, back to the local medical clinic slash meeting place. By the time Bruno got fed up enough with my sniveling to haul me in, I reeked of eucalyptus and tripe, and he was forced to bundle me past the jovial sidewalk coffee klatch and straight into the doctor, who patted my hand and nodded wisely and prescribed good old fashioned antibiotics. Dr. Ricky would probably have tried voodoo or exorcism first, so I was pathetically grateful that Bruno had made the executive decision. I was in no mood for drumming.

Being able to choose our doctors is a right that has been returned us now that we’ve relocated to Mexico. It’s a luxury that’s sometimes overlooked. In the states, my doctor changed with my job, and it never occurred to me to ask myself whether I liked him or not. It’s not like it would have many difference if I didn’t like him, so why bother? It’s a relief to be able to choose between Marcus Welby and Dr. Bombay depending on what my needs are, and not whether they’re “in network.” It’s also a relief to be able to afford our care. Since Bruno has diabetes, he participates in a plan that provides him with unlimited office consultations for about $250 USD a year. I seldom visit the doctor, so I just pay when I’m sick. This round of strep is going to cost about $100 USD by the time I get done with all the drugs and office visits, and that’s pretty expensive. Of course, if you add up the four years of monthly $1200 USD premiums I haven’t been paying, as I did in the States, to guarantee that I can afford the dangers that are certain to befall me outside my front door, I come out pretty well.

Office visits here are never more than $400 pesos, and many of the best physicians lakeside can be seen for half of that. Appointments run pretty close to on time and are spent in the company of the actual Doctor, who knows you and your family, and is the same one you called to see. I don’t know of any local doctors who won’t make a house calls, and they’re all affiliated with one of the outstanding hospitals in Guadalajara. Honestly? The debate on health care aside, the memory of the impersonal, inefficient, and unaffordable medical care in the States makes me feel tired and sad. After living here, it’s hard to believe that anybody would willingly choose American health care over Mexican.

January 31st, 2010 | Category: Blog Notes | Comments (1)

Once upon a time, when I lived in Tulsa Oklahoma, I was invited to attend the Azalea Ball in Muscogee, an event of such tone and prestige it was hard to believe that they carried on that way in the dust bowl. I was living from rhinestone to rhinestone back then, spending all of the very little money I made on feather boas to tack around the hem of my chiffon dance dresses. Among other cost saving measures,cadging free drinks off beaten down old salesmen, shoplifting, those sorts of youthful hi-jinks, I spent a lot of time letting hair students work on me as a way to save money. I vaguely remember that I showed up at the Azalea ball with a fall pinned onto the side of my head upside down, so that the short end hugged my neck and the long hair at the top…well, who knows. It was a long time ago, and I was drunk. More than the hairdo itself, I remember the student looking at me with a religious glint in his eye, visibly trembling with the desire to begin work on me. “I just got back from a show!,” he whispered. This, I have learned since that occasion, means that new and bizarre ideas have just been introduced that can never be duplicated in the real world, and whenever you hear it you should run away.
So guess what? I’m going to a Writer’s Conference!!!! I’m looking forward to learning fun new ideas in the field of personal essays,and when you return I bet my next entry will be completely unintelligible, and I’ll feel like Hemingway. Stick with me, kids, I’m a work in process.

January 19th, 2010 | Category: Blog Notes | Leave a comment

Kee-rist, it’s been cold around here! Although I may not be as personally involved in the global climate as many of my friends, you don’t need to be a meteorologist or an activist to feel cold when the world’s-second-best-climate turns on you. The Canadians don’t care, they’re racketing all over town in tank tops and shorts that could have been thought through a little more, in my opinion. The Mexicans don’t care, because they have as much winter gear as an Ice Road trucker, and they can’t wait to put it all on, which they do the moment the temperature gets to 65 degrees. Children particularly are upholstered in several layers of insulation, and waddle to school in Nordic ski caps and mukluks as though class was going to be held in an igloo. I personally am not that bothered by cold weather. For one thing, intermittently sweltering in my own private middle-aged ecosystem, if you follow me, it’s hard to get worked up about the temperature. The other thing is in a world of constant sunshine, a coolish spell once in a blue moon is not unwelcome. It gives us the excuse to have a sort of snow day, a change of pace.

I can tell you who is bothered by the cold, though.  People who come here looking for equatorial warmth in January and don’t get it. And since real estate clients fit in that category, I’m on the front line, so to speak. Along with a lot of sneering and endless repetitions of ” If I’d wanted to be cold I would have stayed home!” as though that little bon mot has never been heard before, unpleasant weather reminds visitors to ask us what we do around here. As in, “What do you do all day?’ said in an accusing tone of voice that implies that we ‘ve got some nerve, not spending our day zip lining and windsurfing and drinking 2 for 1’s while the band plays “Red Red Wine.”

“There’s nothing to dooooo!,”  is a noise that doesn’t sound great coming from a bored six year old. It is much, much less attractive coming from a sixty four year old.  What we do all day around here is live. We go to the office and make excuses not to exercise and gossip and help each other out when one of us needs it. We celebrate holidays and inadvertently step on toes and try new recipes and worry about money and make each other laugh and cry on each others shoulders. We watch football and go to the beach. Oddly enough, we take vacations.

I started to think about this in the grocery store before Christmas, when I was buying the ingredients for my annual Tamalepalooza. A woman stopped me to ask if I could help her tell which of the sticks of butter marked “Butter” was really butter, and which was margarine in a package marked butter. Pretending to be butter, in other words. She had heard in a restaurant that the “locals” could tell which was which.  I didn’t know what to do with her. “Listen, cupcake,” I almost said, ” I’m not the kind of person that lives in a town where there’s butter impersonation going on” This didn’t make sense even in my head. Instead, I said “What? If it says butter, it’s butter. It’s not a trick. We cook with it.”

I typed “What to do in Ajijic, Mexico” into the search engine and was led to a site that suggested I eat at the American Legion, a pastime that has never occurred to me, no matter how prostrate with ennui I may have found myself. Mostly, there are real estate sites,cleverly disguised though they may be. I should know, hello, I’m writing this blog.

So if we don’t do anything that interesting, and it gets cold once in a while, if there’s no parasailing or all night disco, why do people move here, year after year? I don’t know.

Unless it´s that there´s some truth in that dumb old saw about being ¨Human beings, not Human doings.¨ It took me a long time to settle down into friendships that aren´t networks, and to not feel guilty about hanging out. I like hanging out. It doesn´t really matter if it´s cold or not. And I like having friends because they ´re cool, and make hanging out even better, without worrying about whether they can scratch my back. I guess this appeals to a lot of other folks, too.

Once they get the hang of it.

January 11th, 2010 | Category: Blog Notes | Comments (1)

Dude, I am so over goodwill to men. And carbs.  Peace on Earth, carbohydrates? Fugeddaboudit. I know the Huichol Indians don’t celebrate the birth of Christ, but they definitely recognize that their client base gets into a frenzy of change throwing  over something right around this time every year, and the local collection of characters that make their living begging believes in striking while the iron is hot. As for carbs, don’t get me started. Take everything you’re used to and then add tamales.

Christmas is over, although the hanging village decorations which connect from terrace to balcony (or light pole or palm tree, whatever is handy) across our streets, are still up. Well, let’s face it, they’re not going anywhere. They’ll stay up past New Years, past Valentines Day, past the dozen holidays in May that involve Mothers, Virgins and Construction workers. Not necessarily in that order, obviously. Some of the decorations, impervious to weather or low flying airplanes, will stay up past next Christmas, when they will be joined by new ones.

When I married Bruno and his valu-pak of kids, I threw myself into the job of providing Christmas for my new family with a vengeance. I didn’t have much practice, as for years I’d been lying around on Christmas Day pondering the mysteries of Santa Claus and waiting for someone to give me gifts and announce dinner. When I became the Christmas maker, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss any necessary ingredient to the perfect traditional Christmas. I didn’t realize how vulnerable this made me to an industry that invents new traditions every year, new movie “classics,” new songs that it wouldn’t be Christmas without, and new recipes that we’ve always had. Every year brought a brand new batch of references to the happy golden days of yore. I was too busy trying to keep up with it all to ever ask any questions, even though my days of yore were spent on the bow of a 55′ Hatteras in Key West, and while they were indeed happy and golden, nobody ever sang about them in a Christmas carol. So I set about duplicating magazine covers and brining turduckens and eventually despaired when the folksy, the formal, the enchanted, and the Victorian all collided in an impossible to manage explosion of Christmas. Thus it is a relief to find that in Mexico, homemade Christmas rules. Aluminum foil and crepe paper still get a lot of play, and so do popsicle sticks and  elmers glue. Decorations are a pleasing medley of what you’ve got and what you can make, along with what the barrio decides is their street theme for the year, and the occasional splurge. For $40 pesos, Bruno was unable to resist two  lighted extravaganzas for our exterior wall. They are the color of a St. Patrick’s day parade, shaped like Christmas trees, feature running lights around their border and are decorated with painted elves, candy canes, and smiling virgins. I thought I would faint when he first brought them home in the those happy golden days of yore five years ago, but now when they come out of storage I feel a  surge of Christmas spirit.

Moving to Mexico freed me from more than the aneurysm inducing stress of creating magical Christmases.  I had long taken for granted mandatory membership in the homeowners associations that usually include at least one officious little turd with a clipboard who spends his life measuring hedges and holding up color swatches to make sure that houses and lawns conform to the covenants. We have no such evil here in my village. Even though I’ve learned to expect it, I’m still startled when newcomers ask me if they would be allowed to paint the exterior of their house. Looking up and down the street at the facades of tangerine and lime and turquoise, I ask ” Allowed by whom? That guy with the purple walls?”

We don’t have HOA’s here, but there is some regulation when it comes to Christmas decorations, not that I have any idea how it works.  By some version of the coconut telegraph each street in the village has it’s own theme. There is a captain of sorts for every street,and it’s that person’s job to knock on doors and get us to each kick in thirty or forty pesos for our share of the calle’s decorations.  The first year we were here, the street logo was a felt snowman with a quilted carrot nose and a sparkly top hat. One of them is still hanging. Getting them up onto a garland strung between across-the-street neighbors is an every house for itself job, and the people who hung that snowman back in 2005 moved away before they took him down. Nobody else has ever felt inspired to pick up the slack.

It seems that Calle San Jose is experiencing a little  prosperity this year, at least north of Ramon Corona. Maybe one of the families has someone sending a big remittance back, or maybe one of the little doors obscures a meth lab that’s generating profits. The money for fancy matching decorations came from somewhere, and they’ve got glamorous arches decorated in scrollwork of silver tinsel. South of Ramon Corona things are a little less opulent, with paper Chinese lanterns  dangling from garden variety metallic garland. I’m afraid my street is the most ragtag of all, as it appears that there may be a civil war of sorts going on over who gets to be street captain. Bruno and I were in Guadalajara the weekend that the decorations went up, so we missed the opportunity to buy one of the gold wreaths that we thought were going to be the theme for Calle Jesus Garcia. Without us, there was a block of wreaths, then a big gap, then one lonely wreath that our across the street neighbor hung on her door because we weren’t home to fasten her garland to our second story.  The next block , obviously under the thrall of the pretender, has an entirely different theme of poinsettias. Some people, unwilling to take sides,  just hung whatever they had, the old felt snowmen,  empty boxes wrapped in paper, or plain tinsel garland.

I  know of only one instance where the decorations, no matter how raffish or uncoordinated, fail to end up looking festive and attractive. Over on Calle Gonzales Gallo,  one of those interpretations of Northern customs that doesn’t quite work has resulted in an unfortunate motif involving two giant red Christmas balls and a stocking repeating endlessly down the cobble stone street.

But there, as everywhere, you can’t help but smile. Happy New Year, and I hope to see you here in the village. I promise, the decorations on Gonzales Gallo will still be flapping in the breeze when you get here.

January 3rd, 2010 | Category: Blog Notes | Leave a comment

I have often heard that the brain is the most powerful sex organ. Powerful or not, it is certainly the last to give up, as a visit to one of our dance spots on Saturday night will prove.  There, victims of this stubborn sex organ twitch and jerk to the strains of Proud Mary, oblivious to the fact that their mojo is missing.  Obviously, this is one of those moments that sneak unobserved into our lives, like peeing when you sneeze and viagra, the moment that Proud Mary starts to  seem like a rocking dance song. Hello? It’s not.  “Cocaine” is a dance song. “Shout” is a dance song. Anything by the Black Eyed Peas or Michael Jackson.  Don’t they know, these men who once wore their slippery polyester shirts half unbuttoned and the women who wore sequin tube tops over spandex jeans, that the first time they ask a band to play “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog”  there’s no turning back?  Seriously, what happens to baby boomers and their ability to get their groove on?

I was born in 1958, a few years before the Twist changed the world, as people say. The Stroll, a seriously sexy song, had been out for a couple of years.  Even the Madison was a pretty groovy line dance situation, far more than the abominable heel clicking nonsense being taught to unsuspecting grandmas these days. (Oh, I’m on to you, line dance teachers! No, it is not cool to do country line dancing. Not. Cool. Nor is it a good way to meet men, because you’d only meet one who was willing to do country line dancing, a disqualification so comprehensive that it ranks higher than being registered as a sex offender.)

Throbbing rock and roll and dance floor foreplay is our legacy, isn’t it? That’s what being a baby boomer is all about..we’re the generation who broke the chains of dance position. We do dirty dancing!

Last night I wandered over to Cafe Adelitas, a boite around the corner from my house. The Lucky Dogs, a justifiably popular band, were playing, and I know the guys. This has none of the cachet that “I know the band” has backstage at an Eagles concert. Here, it’s impossible to not know the band, as there is a small pool of musicians who group and regroup regularly, and can be found at the gardening supply store or waiting to get their blood pressure checked when they’re not playing. They have a following among the dancing gringos, and play all the favorites, whether they like it or not.

The Cafe is around the corner from my house in the village of San Antonio, and I told Bruno I’d meet him at the plaza, so I had occasion to walk over alone, taking my time and thinking about Mexico. It was well after dark, and only one out of three street lamps has a working bulb, so the lighting I walked by was iffy. Still, there was added illumination from doorways that opened into living rooms where Mexican families waved hello as I ambled by, and from a bright moon that made the cobblestones glitter like a dirty river, so the street was never fully dark. The weather was perfect, of course, as it only knows one way to be around here,  perfect. I passed a dog or two, old friends who thumped their tails but didn’t bother to look up. I enjoyed it.  It suddenly occurred to me that over thousands of vacations in thousands of enchanting locations, I have always tried to grab and hold on to the magic of the place where I visited, a magic that was wanting in the place where I had to return at the end of my rented week.

Until now. Now, I’m satisfied with the magic where I live, of which there is plenty

The Christmas season is coming to our village, so the magic is getting cranked up a notch, if that’s possible. There are going to be parties and concerts and children’s posadas at which I will cry for the sweetness of it.  I’m going to have my tamale making party and go to the tree lighting ceremony on the Plaza, when they plug in the lights that sit on the tree all year, along with the wrapped shoe boxes that decorate it. The school will put on their annual Nutcracker Ballet, although it doesn’t teach dance.There will be dozens of chances to dance to dumbass songs like Proud Mary and Joy to The World and there will be some Alvin and the Chipmunks thrown in.  It’s going to be awesome. And I’ll be back in 2010 to continue my bitching.  Until then, XOXOXO

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

December 1st, 2009 | Category: Blog Notes | Comments (6)

Once in a while my maid will traipse in unannounced,usually followed by one or more of the endless parade of relatives that live up and down Calle Jesus Garcia. I am effectively surrounded by her family, as if some hole in the paperwork allowed me to buy a house in one of those weird polygamous ranch/personal countries up in Utah or Montana. I can only hope they don’t someday turn on me.
On this occasion, Carmen and her daughters wore the look of delight that often accompanies the belief that they’re doing something particularly American, like cooking with trans fats. Citlaly, the lanky middle daughter who is shy, and hides her eyes as though behind a fan, thrust a small envelope sealed with a pink bow at me. ” Good God,” I thought to myself, startled that this visit involved paperwork. “What awful thing is this going to be?” The most common transactions heralded by these random visits are small loans,  the sale of sweepstakes tickets to raise money for the local school, or solicitations to help purchase flowers to decorate the shrine on the corner for one of the 363 days of the year that honor the Virgin. Opening the envelope, I found one of the pictures that Citlaly, a budding artist, likes to draw. I studied the picture of cheerful…pelicans? pterodactyls?…

“Abrir! Abrir!” they chorused, and I saw that the paper on which the capering… turkeys? dodo birds?… were drawn was folded, and opened to reveal instructions in Spanish that made no sense to me. Still afraid that I was being served a subpoena of some kind I looked puzzled until Carmen sang “Baybee Shour!” Baby Shower! The mysterious avians were Storks!
I’ve never heard of a baby shower here. Who was pregnant? How did they come up with the idea of storks and goofy invitations? Clearly, there was a yankee in the woodpile at the Mexican fiesta.

I have far too much Gringa Angst to ever decline one of these invitations, so I’ve been to dozens of dreadful parties. They always follow the same formula; white plastic chairs lined up against a wall as if outside a free clinic, giant bags of the pork flavored fried air that is served with hot sauce for refreshments, a boom box belonging to the friend of an obscure relative screeching at the highest volume, and two litre bottles of orange soda on the table next to a stack of plastic glasses. There is usually a time announced for the party to begin, a time which can be construed as the mildest of suggestions to perhaps start bathing. The arrival of the guests somewhere between two and three hours later than the time the fiesta is supposed to start is taken for granted and it is quite common for hostesses to say that a fiesta will start at 3:00 in the afternoon, and then make a hair appointment for that time so they’ll look nice when the first guests actually arrive.

Carmen’s “baybee shour” followed the familiar blueprint, including my being the only guest there for about an hour. As usual, I underestimated how tardy was tardy enough, and was left to sway uncertainly  with Karina, Citlaly’s younger sister, on a rusty porch swing that leaned apathetically in the dirt yard. A few chickens pecked nearby as our halting conversation limped along, and Karina obligingly filled my cup with Fanta. To my surprise, we were soon joined by a youngish man that I had never seen before.  I was surprised because this was clearly a women’s event, and the hombres usually stay far, far away from such boozeless venues. It turned out that the man was Chuey, newly returned from California. It was he who had imported the newfangled idea of a baby shower with storks and invitations to celebrate his wife’s pregnancy, and now, with typical Mexican civility, he had come out to keep me company with his very good English.

I enjoyed our conversation, and encouraged him to tell me of his dreams and ambitions. He had the vast good luck, he confided, to be 5 foot 2 inches tall, and to work at Disneyland in Anaheim. This was good luck because 5′2″ is the perfect height to wear not only the Mickey Mouse costume, but also the costumes of Winnie the Pooh and both Chip and Dale, so he got a lot of work at the park. He also invited me, after chatting for about five minutes, to join a group of friends who were travelling by bus that Friday to Ciudad Guzman for the Patronales Fiesta, assuring me that I could stay overnight at his mother’s house. These sorts of invitations always flummox me, as I am torn between my Gringa Angst and the possibility of actually finding myself on a 3rd class bus lurching off to Ciudad Guzman in the company of thirty five or forty amiable Mexicans that I’ve never met before.

Eventually, of course, the rest of the senoritas arrived with their gift bags and boxes. I had to leave long before young Mrs. Chuey got around to opening gifts, but when I passed Carmen’s open door the next day, they called me in and brought out each and every gift for show and tell.

This all happened a couple of weeks ago, but I was reminded it of it today because a yellow cab brought the young couple home from Guadalajara with their new baby, an adorable little tamalita wrapped in wool and crochet and down comforters as if it was below zero outside, instead of 80 degrees. This captivating baby, as sweet as anything ever born, has distracted her proud papa for the time being. Soon, he will return to the States and take up his giant Micky Mouse head.

And the trip to Ciudad Guzman will have to wait.

November 23rd, 2009 | Category: Blog Notes | Comments (2)

Last night  I dreamed that I was in vaulted courtroom, the kind where the judge sits behind a huge desk and the gallery sits on dark wooden pews. The two double doors at the back of the room banged open, allowing uniformed bailiffs to drag in huge bags stuffed with mail. The judge pounded his gavel, but the bailiffs kept coming. I knew the mail was from irate blog readers pleading with me to keep my blog up to date, and reminding me that I was being lax.

As soon as I woke up, I recognized my dream as the penultimate scene from Miracle on 34th street, but whatever. It still demonstrates my distress that I’m  suddenly struggling to keep my blog updated. This blog and those of you who read it are very important to me, and I have no intention of giving it up, but I admit that  something strange seems to be happening.  And by strange  I mean that I’m selling real estate. The snowbirds have returned, and after a reasonably crappy year or so, people are buying houses again. And you know, your blogger gots to get paid, yo.

Having my unbroken stretches of leisure time suddenly compromised by client appointments  has combined with another phenomenon, which is that Mexico no longer seems all that kooky to me. Oh, it hasn’t changed! It’s still as odd as it ever was. It’s just that I’ve gotten used to it. After writing about it’s peculiarities for several years, I no longer see anything as out of the ordinary.  Well, if I came across a public toilet that had a seat and toilet paper, that would probably get my attention. Otherwise, the things that once seemed strange and old world to me have grown familiar. For example, when I opened my gate this morning to let the dogs out, the folks heading toward the plaza with their empty pails didn’t seem quaint or picturesque to me…. I mean, duh. How else are they supposed to bring home their traditional Sunday pig foot and beef stomach soup from the cart where  fat Maria’s got a big pot cooking at the village square, right? The soup’s not going to come to them!

I will say that last Saturday night I participated in an event singular enough to pierce my complacency. As a matter of fact, I let last week’s post slide because  I was counting on a youtube video groovy enough to more than satisfy my readers.  After all, how many chances do you get to see twenty five middle aged gringas performing the Zombie Dance from Thriller? After a couple of secret rehearsals, (secret because the vision in my head was similar to the Oprah audience who surprised her with a choreographed routine to the Black Eyed Peas performing live on her first show of this season) my Zumba class hit the dance floor at La Tasca on Halloween night with our own flash mob. I would have to confess that my vision was not one hundred percent realized, possibly  because at least half of my dance troupe was paralysed with tequila by the time we heard our musical cue. However, no harm done.  Let’s face it, it’s hard to be so knee walking drunk that you can’t dance as well as the undead, and we were enthusiastic about our task. Unfortunately, the youtube didn’t happen. Our production crew (Bruno) wasn’t up to managing the band’s break, the floor show– done by a James Brown impersonator, just to switch it up from the Mexican Elvis’s that dominated local stages–and the lighting required for a good video. In addition, it took the crowd some time to realize that we were performing a precision choreographed routine, and not just hanging out on the dance floor and waving our arms at the waitresses for more shots.

So, that would have been a good blog post, but the Halloween moment has kind of passed.

As if that wasn’t enough, there’s one other thing that has been interfering with my ability to update you, dear readers, with the local goings on, and which may continue to hamper my ability to keep up the furious pace of posting once a week. I am trying to win a contest sponsored by Jane Velez-Mitchell, the Headline News anchor woman, that has to do with stories about overcoming addiction. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that I am well qualifed to write on that particular subject. The prize is dinner with JVM in New York, and I have a friend here that I would like to set up on a date with her, as they both share the same sapphic tendencies. Surely there can be no argument about the worthiness of that cause. L’amour!

So, I hope you’ll stick around, and cut me some slack. I’m thinking maybe this is a good time to start editing the blog from the beginning, which I have to do if I ever want to succeed at my elusive book project.  Don’t get confused if you check in next week and it seems like I’m just getting here for the first time. Adios for now…

November 8th, 2009 | Category: Blog Notes | Leave a comment

I am a big fan of quantum physics. No, no, not the kind that you have to go to math class to learn about, puh-leese! As if! No, I’m talking about the kind of physics that you learn  from Wayne Dyer, the kind discussed on Oprah, the kind that teaches you to make the universe do what you want it to with the power of your mind.  The way I understand it is this; a mahoghany desk is made of particles of energy. My thoughts are also made of particles of energy.  Nothing but an easily correctible flaw in my thinking prevents me from being able to get all these particles onto the same wavelength, and rearranging the mahoghany desk into a pile of money.

Yay!

Here in Mexico we are getting ready for the Mayan Y2K, which will occur in December of 2012. Some people think it means the end of the world, but I’m not one of them. Either is Ac Tah, an Indian hottie that wears a headress of peacock feathers and a leather sporran over a lot of fringed white cotton, and who is sexy enough for me to try to befriend on Facebook.  Oh, c’mon, I’m a groupie for indigenous anything, don’t act like you don’t know it. I’ve said a million times that it’s a good thing I didn’t come to Mexico in my drunken twenties.  I would have tried to sleep with all the mariachis, just as I kept falling in love with lifeguards and cover band singers  on beach vacations in the ’80’s.

A word about Ac Tah’s peacock headdress and fringe. The local Indios are nothing if not at home wearing traditional garb, much more so than anyone I ever witnessed in the States, and I lived in Oklahoma, which everybody knows is Indian territory.  Those guys all dressed like truck drivers, and I never saw anyone rocking a buckskin outfit like  the ones worn by those fun loving Injuns from F Troop, for example.  Around here you get the real thing.  Nobody bats an eye at the most outlandish layers and combinations of brilliantly colored textiles and embroidered cotton, woven straw, headbands, feathers, leather huaraches, beads, flowers, drums, ribbons, animal fetishes and dangling bags of herbs,  you name it.  That a LaCoste shirt or madras shorts  or sweatpants with “jail bait” embroidered on the seat may also sneak into the costume doesn’t matter.  Why should it? All aboriginal wardrobes reflect the influence of many successive cultures. In my opinion, it’s  a blessing for contemporary Mexicans, especially the ones who walk to work,  that iron breastplates didn’t catch on with the native peoples. Those goofy mushroom pants worn by the conquistadors remain trendy in some remote parts, so it was a closer call than you might think.

Anyhoo, back to the walking Mayan priest. Act Ah is a Yucatan Mayan who spends his days strolling around the lower half of the North American Continent and spreading the message that we don’t need to panic over 2012. He has a regal bearing– I guess you need  good posture if you’re going to walk the earth’s surface as your full time job. He wears his feather  headdress and the pure white of his cotton quite naturally, and his features  are serene and benevolent. Clearly, this dude is at home rearranging the particles of his thoughts and doing other quantum style stuff, and he has enough charisma to fill a courtyard with new age-y white folks, as I found when I attended his lecture with a couple of girlfriends last week.  It was probably riveting, but he had to speak through a translator, which slowed the message down.  The hostess of the event, a cosmopolitan stunner that I assumed was your standard issue patron -of-the-arts, impressed me as a woman of discernment when I overheard her muttering  ” Jesus. Two and a half hours and he’s only up to ‘Don’t Worry, be Happy’ ”

‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ was indeed the gist of his presentation, but he wasn’t suggesting that we seize the day because the Earth is going to collide with Planet Nibiru in 2012.  That prediction, which has been made by extra terrestrials* through their earthbound channels , some of whom may have been in Ac Tah’s audience for all I know, is one of the dire warnings that he is trying to debunk.  Ac Tah the Mayan Wanderer wanted us to know that in 2012 a portal of light was going to open,  the planets were going to arrange themselves in a cosmic cross, and our frequencies were going to alter from sub-sonic to ultra-sonic, thus revving up our ability to convert those mahoghany desks into bling.  No collision.* Again, I say….yay!

Gong to see Ac Tah wasn’t our only  celebration of Mayan tradition this week. Yesterday, some of my girlfriends and I participated in an ancient Mesoamerican sweat lodge ritual called temezcali. An earnest brown adolescent in a headband explained that the temezcali, which looked like an abandoned water storage tank, was a metaphor for the womb, and the intention was to return us to a childlike state. Before we actually entered the flattened beehive, the youthful Indio led us in some opening ceremonies. We honored the four cardinal directions and then saluted the sun. That was easy. Then he asked us to get down and salute the earth, which was slightly more challenging. As he began to chant, the six of us, clad in our bathing suits, went into the various routines that get us from standing to kneeling. For some this started with a straight knee toe touch, followed by walking the hands forward into a modified push up position. Some of the girls chose to sink into a half knee bend and then topple gently over onto their sides. We got up in a similarly graceful manner, grabbing handholds on the way up from all fours to one knee, heaving ourselves back into standing position and facing our Indio guide, who held his conch shell in one hand, unable to hide his astonishment at our calisthenics.

I loved the temezcali. You can find plenty of solemn first hand accounts of the mysterious prehispanic rites that accompany the sweat lodge. But one of the things I notice about the Mayans is that they don’t take themselves anywhere near as seriously as we take ourselves when we’re doing Mayan things. Ac Tah cracked himself up a few times during his talk, and our young shaman was charmed with our enthusiasm for our communal steam bath. My friends and I ended up baying like bassett hounds in the warm darkness,  singing and chanting like we were at a girl scout jamboree, and indeed returning to a childlike state in our cozy womb metaphor.

It’s been a great week  to be in Mexico, fun and interesting and educational. As it draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on the Mayan people of ancient times, with their sophisticated astronomy and calendar. And wondering if they would have found it necessary to screw around with Daylight Savings Time, which we in Mexico started last night.

*There is a vast community of people who believe in this, and other wacky shit. The internet is the front door to crazy town.

* Hollywood likes the collision theory and there’s a peculiar Mayan block buster coming out in November. It is ominously, if not originally, titled “2012“

October 25th, 2009 | Category: Blog Notes | Comments (1)

Bruno and I love going to the movies, and it is one of our great pleasures each Friday to see what eccentric selections are going to be featured at our cinema for the week. Last Friday, “Drag me to Hell” arrived at our local theatre, and we were all set to go until we realized that it wasn’t being shown at 6:30, our regular time. As usual, when our routine is thwarted in any way whatsoever, we stomped our feet and waved our fists, whining ” but we always go to the six thirty” like a couple of four year olds, but the fact didn’t change. If we wanted to see “Drag me To Hell”, we were going to have to stay up until 9:30. Which of course, is out of the question, since I go to bed at ten o’clock.

When did that happen? When did my curfew change from “Please God, don’t let it be light outside, because my eyes can’t take it now that I’ve been up for two days having all this fun” to “Gosh, I can’t go to a 9:30 movie! I wouldn’t get to bed until midnight!” When we visited Ajijic the first time, we arrived at our hotel late.  I was disappointed to find that not only was the dining room not full of languid  Spaniards dining on tapas and tossing coins at classical Flamenco guitarists,  but that, actually, I had the wrong country completely. In the country we were in, the hotel dining room was closed. Sergio Alvarez, who is a local driver, tour guide, moving man, and all around concierge, explained that Mexicans do like to party late, but  in Ajijic they roll up the sidewalks early. This was, he explained, a courtesy to the Gringos, who complained about noise after 10:00. 

Maybe,  maybe not. I suspect that there may be a whole Mexico that I’m missing because of my inability to stay up and see it. Sort of like when all the toys come alive.

I have managed one time only to stay up late enough to go to the ephemeral Club Exotica, a giant speakeasy that appears on the plaza on Saturday nights at 11:00 (ish) in a wreath of chemical fog, colored lights flashing like the mother ship in E.T. They have a mirror ball, and a smoke machine that the employees are madly in love with. They can’t get enough of filling the dance floor with clouds of ozone smelling vapor, shooting out jets of smoke in regular,  closely spaced, intervals.  The Exotica has an upstairs balcony  and several bars and three vast movie screens displaying scandalous music videos in the worst imaginable taste. Lots of breasts and g-strings and rodeo scenes. Awful. The one time I was motivated to stay up late enough to actually catch this mirage was because I wanted to show the disco off to my stepdaughter. Overall, our night out was a big disaster, as her presence caused hysterical showing off among the cholos,   who tryed to impress her by having gang rumbles in front of our table and flipping coins over who should get to dance with her. I might as well have been invisible for all the influence I had on their behaviour. 

The Exotica also serves as our local gay bar, although I surmise that there is some telegraph or tom-tom network inaudible to heterosexual ears about which night the doors open up to the friends of Dorothy.  Mexico is famous for it’s tolerance of all lifestyles, but I can’t imagine those cholos sharing space with some of my friends from the, er, arts community.  Luckily, it’s not their only option. Lounges and piano bars are always opening and closing around here. There was quite a buzz  recently over the opening of a new gay disco in Riberas, but I gather that it was something of a disappointment. I didn’t attend, as it would have required my staying up past Leno,  but the reports are that there were cafeteria tables lining the walls with cups of punch and that all the boys hung out in knots waiting for someone to start the dancing. The mirror ball was not impressive, the size that can be found hanging on rear view mirrors, not enough to transform the garage into a nightclub, and there certainly wasn’t a smoke machine. That gay disco has closed after it’s first weekend.

Our season starts in earnest with The Day of The Dead, so there will be plenty to do in the evening pretty soon. The winter social whirl is a big blur of benefits and concerts and recitals. We’ve already had the Polynesian dance-off.( Mexicans are besotted with the hula, don’t ask me.) It looks like it’s going to be a big year for Elvis impersonators, if the advertisements for Halloween are any indication. But except for Club Exotica and the parade of gay bars, there just isn’t much for the after hours crowds.

As always in Mexico, there’s a way. Finding a place to keep the fiesta going after dinner and dancing is hardly a challenge…those so inclined just go on to private parties.  It’s a rare dinner that doesn’t progress on to someone’s house afterward, and it’s not unusual for it to go another house after that. And of course, if you really want some night life, the Las Vegas kind, there’s Guadalajara, with its seven million people and narco zillionaires. Guadalajara is like the Mexican South Beach for discos and nightclubs. Again, this is hearsay, as it all happens past my bedtime.

I have a dream though. My dream is to get Bruno to take me to the Salon Veracruz, a giant dance hall in Guad that has a big Ricky Ricardo style band with conga drums and trumpet players wearing shirts with ruffly sleeves. They have taxi dancers who look like tired Jessica Rabbits loitering outside who can be paid to come in as dance partners, and the same cholos that I think would be unsuitable company for my gay friends cheerfully salsa with fat abuelas wearing their best  sneakers.  Little kids and grandpas, hookers and grandmas, it makes no difference; at Salon Veracruz,the dance is the thing. The only criteria for a partner is whether or not they’re in the same groove when the horn section starts wailing. Like all the big dance floors in the city, the Salon doesn’t really get rocking until midnight. Except on Sundays. On Sunday, they have the equivalent of a tea dance, and the band starts at 7:00 in the evening.

That’s the night for me. See you at the Veracruz.

October 13th, 2009 | Category: Blog Notes | Leave a comment