Time for a Haircut

Hey!  I just wanted a trim!

If you read my blog about my little adventure with the Policia, you already know that I was considering getting my hair cut to try and appear slightly more presentable.  I guess not having a haircut since last November was a little too long, so my friend Karen, after a little vodka fortification, agreed to cut my hair.

Well the cut turned out great and I guess I'm not going completely back to my long-haired hippie days after all.  Thank you Karen for yet ANOTHER favour!  :)

Lucy wrestling with Ruby

Of course Lucy is always in heaven when we go to Casa Celeste Vida as she gets to play with her best buddy Oliver, and her new special friend Ruby.  Although Ruby is about 10 times her size, Lucy manages to get on top in wrestling and Ruby even lets her win the tug of war.
Ruby is a beautiful, healthy, well-trained, 10-month old rescued beach dog.  She is available for adoption, has been spayed and has all of her shots.  She'd make anybody a wonderful family pet and a great companion and watch-dog.  If you are at all considering getting a dog, whether you live in Mexico or Canada, please contact Karen or Wanda at k.strass@sasktel.net to learn more.

Lucy playing tug of war with Ruby

 

Pilates del Mar

Ocean view from pool-side terrace

When you're retired and living on the beach in the hot, Yucatan March heat, cleaning the pool once in a while, between siestas and margaritas, is about all I feel like doing most days.  However, in an attempt to not let my physique waste away (any further than it already has) I was convinced to start going to a Pilates class.

Sandra helping a student with a position

Our Cuban friend Sandra lives about 2 km north of us on the beach and has a drop-in Pilates class 3 times each week, usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  It's great exercise for core strength and flexibility.  So a few of the ladies around here and I get together with Sandra, at Sandra and Peter's home on the beach, and do our Pilates on their ocean-front, pool-side terrace.  The view and atmosphere are incredibly beautiful and Sandra's friendly personality makes the event a lot of fun.  They also rent rooms in their home which they call Castillito-Kin-Nah (Maya for House of the Sun) guest house.

Chris kneeling on Sandra to help her with a stretch

With my recent shoulder injury I have to be a little careful with some of the moves as I'm not able to raise my right arm above my head, but there's no pressure to do anything more than you are able to so that's never a problem.


      

Barefoot no more!

Hot, summer weather, cool tile floors, swimming pool right outside the door; what better reasons for going barefoot could you possibly have?  Well, for three reasons I will be barefoot around here no more!

Reason Number 1
We've been getting some painting down around here lately and with an older stone and cement house, you have to expect a few deteriorating maintenance issues now and then.  While I expected a lot of paint scraping and chipping to be going on, I was a little surprised to find them chopping holes in the concrete ceiling above my terrace with a hatchet prior to painting.  So there are bits of stone, cement, paint chips, rebar, etc. all over the place.  Way too easy to get a puncture in bare feet.




Reason Number 2

Do NOT be fooled by how cute Lucy looks in this photo!  She has entered what I can only describe as the Terrible Twos!  She can spend three hours outside only to pee the moment she comes inside.  Then another half hour outside only to run and poop in one of the upstairs bedrooms as soon as she comes in.  I don't know WHY I ever thought it was a good idea to teach her to climb the stairs!  It is way too easy to step into a dark room and get a very unpleasant surprise in your bare feet!  YUCK!





Reason Number 3
Lucy has turned into quite the little scrounger and hunter.  When outside she is constantly digging up bugs, wood, stones, shells, bones, cat poop, you name it, she's dug it up and ..... eaten it!  When indoors if a bug happens to get across our Home Defense chemical barrier she's all over it; ants, flies, spiders, whatever.  Just today I was saying to Chris that it was time to spray our perimeter Home Defense bug repellent again but I probably wouldn't have time for a day or two.  This evening Lucy started chasing something across the kitchen floor.  We went over to see what she had caught only to see legs hanging out of her mouth!  Then a tarantula half the size of her little head crawled out and started walking across her face!  Chris smacks it off and yells at me "Step on it!"  Luckily, I remembered that I was barefoot and there was a fly swatter handy so I grabbed it and pounded the ugly thing to death!  So no, I do not have a photo of the thing crawling across Lucy's face, and the photo below is one I found on the internet that matches the 2 or 3 inch tarantula that Lucy almost ate!  BAREFOOT NO MORE!

Friday night Ex-Pat dinner, and Roger chats with the Policia

A weekly ex-pat dinner party has developed on Friday nights at the restaurant at Hotel Gutierrez.  Peter, the chef at the restaurant, is a wonderful host, speaks English, Spanish, German and possibly some other languages.  The meals are large, served quickly and very reasonably priced.  And somehow, even with about 20 of us there last night, he always manages to have all of the meals hot and ready at the same time.  Peter is open for breakfast 7 days a week and also late for dinner Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

As usual, we had a fun time meeting guests of various ex-pats as well as some people we hadn't met before that own at Playa Maya, about 8 km north along the beach.  Peter's restaurant is licensed to serve beer only. Many guests used to being their own wine and use Peter's glasses.  However, he has mentioned that this could cause him a lot of trouble with the authorities so if you go there, PLEASE do not bring any alcohol with you.

Ex-Pat Friday night dinner at Peter's restaurant

Menu is on the left.  All dishes under 100 MXP

So, that was last night.  Then this morning Chucho drops off two guys to finish up some painting at our house.  They're not there even ten minutes when one of them comes to me to say they are out of paint.  My first thought was "Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?" but then I remembered that this is just how things work here.  I had briefly thought yesterday of checking their supply but I didn't.  The biggest problem here is that they only work about 4 or 5 hours on Saturday and the Comex paint store is over an hour drive away.  Regardless, I jumped into the car and took off for Merida.

I may have mentioned some time previously about the military and/or police road blocks all over on every major road and blocking many intersections.  They are primarily looking for guns and drugs and always seem to just wave me on by although they seem to stop a lot of the Mexicans.  Lately, Chris and I have been joking about my dark tan and hair getting so long that they're going to start stopping me soon.  Well, today was the day.

So the Policia stopped me at the Chunchucmil corner, just 15 minutes out of Celestun.

In my haste to leave for the drive to Merida, I found that I had left with no driver's license, no ID and no passport.  Then to make matters worse, I couldn't seem to find the car's registration document, only the insurance paperwork and of course, that was in someone else's name!  Naturally, the cop spoke no English and so I fumbled along in my poor Spanish, understanding enough to realize they wanted to write up an infraction, I could not drive away, and I was in a little bit of trouble.

So the cop was friendly enough, in response to my naturally friendly Canadian smile and easy-going personality.  But then his boss came over to talk to me.  His entire English vocabulary turned out to be "Where you from?"  Well, just when the first guy was sounding like he was thinking of letting me drive back to Celestun, his boss wasn't about to let me go anywhere.  I offered to call a friend to bring my license to me and they said I had one hour to do that but I was still getting an infraction written up.  I grabbed my cash to ask how much the infraction was, when ....... I found my license!  After all that, I had it with me after all! They still weren't happy about no other ID or passport and the car not in my name but decided to let me go. But they warned me that if I got stopped in Merida I would definitely have an infraction.

Time for a haircut?

The day went from bad to worse when I discovered that I hadn't brought enough cash with me to buy the paint and not even a credit card.  I did have my debit card but after 7 different cash machines refused to give me money I had nearly given up.  The Comex store said I could pay on debit but it wouldn't work there either!  Luckily, I found a HSBC bank in the mall across the street and that cash machine worked for me!  I was so delayed getting home that the boys were gone for the day so, no painting today.  :(

Sprucing up the place

So of all days for Chucho to show up and decide to start our outdoor painting project, he picks the ONLY day in weeks that it has poured rain off and on.  But they did manage to get our beach-front fence posts painted in-between downpours and it looks great!  Much brighter and fresher looking.  I can't wait for all of the house and bodegas to have the trim repainted this colour.

Old colour on the left, new on the right.  What do you think?

We either need taller painters or a taller ladder

Lucy has a margarita

Yesterday, Tuesday, March 4 was Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, which is the last day of Carnival, widely celebrated in Mexico.  Chris and I did nothing this year, other than have a margarita in the afternoon. Otherwise it was a nice, hot, quiet day, laying around the pool, napping, reading my book.  In other words ... PERFECT!

Lucy celebrating Mardi Gras with a margarita

Karen's Birthday

Had a nice afternoon and evening at Casa de Celeste Vida celebrating Karen's birthday.  Just a small group with Chris and I, Karen and Wanda, Tom & Meche, plus the pile of dogs and cats of course, including Lucy.  Lucy just LOVES her buddy Oliver and also made good friends with Ruby this time.  The video here shows Oliver finally completely tired out and doing his best to ignore Lucy trying to get him to keep playing.

                                                          

Karen celebrating with champagne

Tom and Lucy

Bath time for Lucy

Two weeks ago we were sitting in the kitchen having our morning coffee when I got tired of the increasingly loud howling of some little mutt nearby.  I stepped out of the kitchen to see a small puppy struggling to keep from drowning in the center of our swimming pool.  She was on top of our floating pool cover but sinking fast and I could see she was about to be tangled up in it and in real danger of drowning.  We quickly dragged the pool cover up onto the side of the pool and hauled out a tiny, shivering, whimpering little puppy.

Lucy, Feb. 15, 2014

We decided that someone had placed her under our gate to "abandon" her with us; a fairly common occurrence here as the locals do not believe in spaying and neutering but also don't want to take care of all the resulting puppies.  She seemed healthy enough so we got some food for her and had the vet check her out the next day.  She weighed 1.485 k and the vet started her on de-worming, otherwise she was fine.

A facebook poll for names resulted in Lucky, Sochi, Nemo, but she really seemed like Lucy to us, so Lucy she became.  It's now two weeks later and she's getting pretty comfortable here although we're still struggling with the house-training.  She's a little too young for flea and tick medicine so Chris bathes her regularly with Flea/Tick/Lice soap.

Lucy, Mar. 1, 2014

Luckily, we found her a new owner to take her in a few weeks, our friend from Mexico City, recently retired and moving into his vacation home this month near Chuburna.  I have to admit, as much of a pain it is, running her outside every time we find her peeing in the house, and her waking us up in the middle of the night to go out, having to deal every day with having a dog to take care of .... I think we'll miss her a lot.

Lucy and her buddy Oliver, Feb. 25, 2014

Lucy and Roger, Feb. 19. 2014