Life Style Refugee – The Ajijic Blog

There is a new posh sign at the movie theatre, and the village has been buzzing. But listen to this! We went to see “El Hombre del Arana” last week and they’ve started showing commercials for local businesses before the movie. It is just like going to the movies back home, except that you know everyone in the advertisements. When they first started, Bruno and I were thrilled, but our excitement turned to a kind of appalled fascination as image after image of gringos going about their day flashed on the screen. Oh my God in Heaven, we all look exactly alike! To the Mexicans it must seem that an unending sea of blobby white marshmallows with fanny packs and pedal pushers has just climbed off a space ship somewhere.

We were extremely relieved when the the new ads were finished, after promoting every grocery, gift store and coffee shop in town, and we hadn’t been featured. But next time you stroll over to Dona’s Donuts, keep your eyes open. I doubt disclaimers and the like will be produced if you happen to be shopping at El Torito while their new commercial  is being filmed. Although it’s more likely that once word of the new ads gets out we’ll all be parading around town gussied up like Zsa Zsa Gabor and mugging for every camera in sight.

There’s a free website, chapala.com, that is just full of content. It should be great, there’s a lot of info and free stuff on it, but something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. Whatever you do, do not start reading that webboard! It is a cross between The Lord of the Flies and The Ring. They will draw you in and then feast on your flesh. Twice in this week I have seen people who were once happy and excited and in love with the Lake Chapala area decide that they’re moving to Panama after posting on those boards for a while, because they think they’re in touch with the real community of Lakeside, when in fact, it’s Amityville! Do you think Judy Eager is lurking on a free bulletin board to chat with people who are getting ready to move here from British Columbia?! No! Just don’t do it. It’s really, really wonderful here, and there’s room for everyone, especially since people keel over on a regular basis, but here’s what I want you to know. You have to get here to be here, and then you will love it here. Cyberspace has it’s limits, and this is one of them.

Recently my friend Georgette and I examined my sorrowful-faced cocker for some minutes before she finally commented doubtfully, “Well, if you tell me he’s glowing with health, I have to take your word for it.” And as his mommy, I’m here to tell you that health in the world of cocker spaniels is a relative term. Although it’s subjective, I’m almost positive that he’s leaking, oozing, scabbing, smelling and itching much less than normal, and that his patches of hairless scaly skin are shrinking. I attribute this miraculous cure to his new all raw diet. Oh, and let me point out that in the states Mozart had his own dermatologist, like he was Burt Reynolds instead of a scrofulous cocker spaniel, and the dermatologist cheerfully prescribed a drug cocktail that should have cured leprosy for what it cost, but didn’t do a thing. So what’s the miracle cure? Chicken feet.

When I was young there were a variety of scary stories that featured severed hands. I can’t remember how they go, although I believe they usually involved a hand climbing the stairs and thumping down the hall. I’m here to tell you, if I’d spent as much time dealing with chicken feet then as I do now, I would never have slept a full night. They do look exactly like miniature hands to me. But the dogs love them and the most important thing that I’ve learned this year is that dogs can eat any bones, including chicken, as long as it hasn’t been cooked.  ( and they should not eat any bones that have been cooked.) The results are that Mozart’s black necrotizing skin is turning pink, and that makes dealing with miniature horror movie hands all worth while.

Have you been to a tianguis? It’s a one day travelling market show, a marvel of fruits, vegetables and unidentifiable chotchkes. In Ajijic it’s on Wednesday, and that’s where I buy the chicken feet. I hand the chicken man a 20 peso note, and he fills a bag so that I can barely carry it away. While I’m there I stop by the vegetable lady and buy a bag of “picarra”, usually cauliflower, broccoli,carrots,and chayote squash cut up into little pieces. I use that in the following recipe of dog food that has saved Mozarts life.

MOZART’S MIRACLE DIET

2 bags of chopped veggies from the tiangui

2 sweet potatoes OR beets

1 apple

1/2 c oil, such as olive

process all in food processor and then mix with:6 kilos of ground beef ( I go to the meat man here in San Antonio and ask for “barata” It costs 40 pesos a kilo) divide into meal size portions (maybe 1/2 c twice a day for a 20 lb dog.) Keep all but a few days worth in the freezer.It’s cheap and easy to do here, and as much as I joke about Mozart, I love him and it is a miracle to me to have him getting shiny and even a little, …dare I say? … ”peppy.” In an immobile 3 toed sloth kind of way.

Hmmmm, I seem to have wandered a bit off topic here. I do not get how Jack Kerouac pulled off that rambling  stream of conciousness nonsense, (written on a scroll, yet! ) and goes down in history as a big genius, while if I stray away from my original thought everyone sees right through it….that I’ve forgotten what the hell I was talking about. Now I’ve run out of room to tell you about how I was watching the Dog Whisperer on Oprah and I’m trying to establish that I’m the alpha dog in the house by looking into Lupita the Crackheaded Dog’s eyes until she submits by showing her tummy. Well, that’s what we call a cliffhanger in the blogging biz! Hasta Luego….