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CAROL'S BLOG
(Note that this entire website is copyrighted. Please send people to this website, www.fallinginlovewithsanmiguel.com, rather than forwarding sections without permission or credit. And only the latest two months are displayed--the older posts are being saved for our next book. Thank you.--Carol Schmidt and Norma Hair)
May 5, 2008--Reliving our own musical roots, supporting an inexpensive fundraiser, swapping books
Someone just asked again, why do you love San Miguel? Answer number one: the magical moments that just keep on happening. The '50s and '60s Rock and Roll DJ Dance Saturday night at Arte Vivo was going to be my kind of event, I knew from the first announcement. A friend whose "doo wap" collection of songs from that era is second to none offered to do a rock and roll night for the owners of Arte Vivo, who already present live salsa music many weekend nights, aiming at a more Mexican and younger crowd.
Their rooftop ordinarily seats a maximum of 50, and reservations for that number came in fast. They added more and more tables and I counted 100 seats filled at the height of the evening. There will be more such events--stay tuned, or walk by the restaurant and sign up for their mailing list.
Old fogies that we are, gringos that we are, the music started promptly at 8 pm and "Good Night, Sweetheart" sent us home at 10:30 pm. The restaurant could have scheduled its regular salsa night for after we left--Mama Mia, for example, doesn't really get jumping with its salsa nights until after 11 pm.
To get to the roof there are even more steps than to La Posadita's rooftop dining--my knees got a workout. I did get up and dance, though I relied more on shimmying than on much fancy footwork.
The owners seemed overwhelmed by the crowd and service was very slow. We arrived early, at 7:10 pm, asked for dinner menus, and didn't get our nachos and club sandwich to split until 8:20. Even drinks were slow to arrive much of the night. The 45-peso nachos, being delivered to tables all through the evening, were enough for a meal, though light on the hot sauce and mostly refried beans--no jalapenos at all! Still tasty. No cover charge! My kind of evening for sure. The margaritas came in two sizes: large and humongous!
We all sat around and listened to the first songs from the early '50s, few daring to actually dance, until Little Richard's "Tutti Fruiti" came up and instantly the floor was jammed. The louder and faster the music, the more people were on the dance floor, though it was nice to see silver-haired couples still madly in love slow-dancing to "In the Still of the Night" and "Earth Angel," with the romantically lit Parroquia as backdrop. The sun set as a red globe as we danced--the DJ could have put on "Red Rubber Ball" from our time warp.
I got kicked out of a seventh-grade dance in Detroit for doing "The Chicken" to "Shake, Rattle and Roll" in 1955, and the same moves that were forbidden back then (when Elvis was photographed only from the waist up on "The Ed Sullivan Show" after complaints about his first TV appearance) still looked good on our crowd.
We walked home past the loud music coming from the second floor club at Sollano and Correo, and plowed through the noisy crowds on Umaran and Canal and all the other booming club locations downtown, and loved it. This is Mexico! The beautiful young people from DF (Mexico City) and all over central Mexico crowd into San Miguel every weekend, bringing their own tourist dollars to enrich the local economy. We were just a small part of the night--and our part was over at 10:30! We all have our own little niche in San Miguel. Gringos who arrive on time and leave early are a part of the scene.
Last weekend we went to a 25-peso fund-raiser for the SPA at La Cava de Princesa at Recreo 3, presenting three guitar players doing their original music, and realized why community organizations are charging more and more for benefits lately. Less than 100 people were there, and at 25 pesos each, the night grossed less than $250 US. The SPA's needs are far greater than that. The event probably took no less time to organize than a major concert, for which they could have charged 250 pesos admission and made ten times as much for the same number of attendees, and probably could have even gotten more people there.
Still, it was a good chance to see the inside of one of San Miguel de Allende's classic small concert scenes, one that has been around for decades featuring salsa dances in particular. It has a beautiful boveda (domed brick) ceiling and does feel a bit like un cava (a cave), an intimate setting for a small concert.
People often ask, what do you do about getting books to read, other than the lending library at the Biblioteca? English-language books are more expensive in Mexico because of shipping costs, so that prices at Tecolote bookstore on Jesus and at the Biblioteca tianguis and other places books are sold in SMA are higher than the prices printed on the back of the book covers. We did see that Mega now has about ten English-language books for sale in their book section--popular authors like Jonathan Kellerman and Norah Roberts and also "Love in the Time of Cholera," tieing in with worldwide release of that movie.
Many SMA residents swap books a lot, either informally or in more structured ways, and I now am part of three book-swapping groups: our book club which features a book exchange every Christmas; a large book swap that happens quarterly; and a new book swap we attended Sunday at a home in Fracc. La Canada. We brought thirteen books and came home with nine, though Norma was hoping I'd only find one or two I wanted to read.
She's always hoping to get rid of as many books as possible that clutter our apartment, and she is always piling on one more for me to take, and bad-mouthing every new-to-me book I pick up at any of the book swaps. "Are you really going to read that?" she'll ask. "Probaby not," I'll admit. Yeah, I'm the pack rat in the family.
But I feel good about having nine new books to read. Have to say, I follow the national trend and am reading fewer and fewer books while spending more and more time reading online. Still, I have to have my stash of books to be read, or, as we call them on my book email lists, our TBR stacks.
A new barter books store has opened up in SMA at the Hotel Sautto, Hernandez Macias 59, to the left when you enter the courtyard. Garrison & Garrison, the shop is called, and owner Michele has original artwork on the walls and fancy coffees, teas, pastries and wifi to lure you in. She doesn't have a lot of books yet, so if you find you're not actually reading anything in your TBR stacks, bring the books in and trade for new ones. Expats are a resourceful lot. If you need something that you think can't possibly be found in Mexico, we can probably do it for you in San Miguel de Allende. I'd better keep checking her shelves to make sure Norma didn't sneak some of my books over there!
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
April 26, 2008--Don Felix's taco stand grows up; the Rolling Stones tribute at the Thirsty Monkey; stumbling onto the filming of a movie at midnight; and Milagros (miracles)
Norma had defrosted ribs tonight but when she started to gather the ingredients for the new bourbon-based BBQ sauce recipe she'd planned to try, we had no bourbon. Okay, we'll do a traditional catsup and molasses based one--we had the molasses that was brought down from the US by a friend but we were out of catsup! An unexpected dinner out for us--why not try to find the new location of the Don Felix taco stand I've been raving about for a couple of years?
Don Felix was the white-tarped joint on Independencia at Ignacio Cruces that inside had tableclothes and candles on the tables, the waiters wore white jackets, and the enchiladas and seven-taco platters brought crowds every weekend night. We heard they'd moved into Don Felix's house nearby while I was in the hospital, and "It's really close, you can't miss it." Right.
We had visions of taking a cab to the old site, hoping that there were directions on the old tarp for the new place, and that the cab would wait around while we deciphered the new directions. And then how could we ever tell a cab where to come pick us up afterward? At least Norma's cell phone was recharged and the taxi phone number was programmed in.
Billie Mercer, who also blogs about her daily life in San Miguel, wrote about the new restaurant last month at http://billiemercer.blogspot.com/2008/03/tacos-don-felix-restaurante.html . She even has a photo of Don Felix himself, waiting to show new customers around. And it turns out that Don Felix has started a webpage for his restaurant, complete with a map, at www.tacosdonfelix.com. He has his menu and more photos on it.
But I didn't know that yet. We needn't have worried--our cab driver knew exactly where the new Don Felix was because it was one of his favorite restaurants. At the old site Don Felix hires a couple of neighborhood kids to run out to cars and cabs slowing to see what happened to the old restaurant, hand them a card and a map, and even escort them the three blocks to the new place.
It's actually easy to find--turn left onto Ignacio Cruces, go three blocks to Calle Fray Juan de San Miguel, turn left again and go half a block to #15 on the left, which has a big sign out front. Of course none of the streets have any signs on them, and the numbering is erratic, but that's Mexico. Three blocks and left, that's the key.
Don Felix remembered us, was concerned about my knee, took my arm and helped me over all steps and cobblestones, and escorted us to the courtyard which has four tables, still with tableclothes and candles, still served by waiters in white jackets.
His house is three levels, and the entire first floor is now the restaurant, with a dining room and large table for crowds, and another four or five tables in the previous living room. So his capacity has more than doubled, and still it is usually crowded. I have photos on our Photo Gallery page of this website of both the interior and exterior, and of the nachos and the seven-taco special platter.
Norma had her usual chicken enchiladas in salsa verde--cheese covered meals don't photograph well. But the shrimp stand out in the shot of the seven tacos, which can also include chorizo, chicken chile verde, pork carnitas, ribs, beef, and huitlacoche (the Mexican delicacy of corn fungus that tastes and looks like black scrambled eggs--I always get a substitution for that one). Prices are higher--the enchiladas were 35 and now are 48 pesos, and the taco platter was 48 and now is 65 pesos. But they are still a bargain considering the quality and quantity, and now the ambiance.
(Reminder to self--I still haven't updated our "Cheap Eats" page to reflect rising prices in SMA as in the entire world in this current food crisis. You can still get a meal for under 50 pesos many places but I'm going to have to raise my definition of "Cheap Eats" to 60 pesos to include many of my favorites.)
The horchata (a rice drink that tastes like rice pudding) is still just as good, and you can buy beer along with soft drinks and various coffees, and you can still bring your own bottle of wine that the waiters will uncork at no charge.
Now Don Felix also serves a BBQ ribs appetizer, a chicken soup with a big piece of chicken in it, a steak and enchiladas platter, a bone marrow soup, a creamy bean soup, a chef salad with ham and cheese, and a house salad with pecans, among other additions.
Two women at the next table stopped us as we were leaving and invited us to join them for desserts--they live two blocks away and know Don Felix and the entire menu well. So he brought us samples of the pecan pie, carrot cake, and mantecada ice cream--rich vanilla with prunes and pine nuts, much better than it sounds. It's made by another neighbor, the man who runs the ice cream stand on the Jardin at the corner closest to Correo, and it's our favorite flavor, other than Norma's homemade ice creams.
Don Felix offered to call us a cab to go home, though it was only a short walk down to Independencia where taxis are plentiful (the neighborhood felt very safe with many families on the streets). But our two new friends drove us home. What a wonderful evening--how happy we are that Don Felix is doing so well, and expanding the right way, building slowly. His new hours are 6 pm-midnight Friday and Saturday nights, and 2 pm to 9:30 pm Sundays.
We'd had another memorable experience the night before at the Thirsty Monkey, on Canal a few doors west of the Jardin, sharing the building with Mechicano's restaurant that now has only the second floor. TM used to be on Codo by Espino's but recently moved to Canal. The owner was trying something new, bringing in an untried group called Vudu Chile that promised to do a Rolling Stones night. Cover was only 30 pesos for the concert, which was supposed to start at 9 pm. We got there at 8:30 to get a good seat and were the second table from where the band would be--and almost no one was there. Oh oh.
The Thirsty Monkey has five tables in the first room and five more in an adjoining back room, plus you could seat five more at the bar. There were five of us, and no band. Two of the others left at 9, having finished their New Orleans style dinner. We sipped Diet Cokes and waited, nodding to the other customer. A few more people straggled in. No band. At 9:10 the band arrived and started to set up. They finished around 9:45 and stopped to have a few drinks at the bar before beginning. We were going to walk out.
But before 10 they launched into "Paint It Black" and we were hooked. "Jumping Jack Flash," "Angie," and "Honky Tonk Woman" soon had the joint packed, dancing in the aisles, everyone having a great time. They played for an hour and took a break. We didn't think we could make it another hour, we were already exhausted from pounding on the table, moving our feet, applauding and shouting, so we passed on the second set. Too bad we missed "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," everybody's Stones favorite.
On the walk home we stumbled upon a movie filming going on in the courtyard of Las Mongas church! Shades of LA where you never knew when you would find yourself detouring around a live set. Our income tax office on Sunset and Santa Monica even appeared for a few seconds in a 1984 kung fu movie.
The SMA streets are torn up even more than usual, for the installation of water pipes or something. Hernandez Macias is being devastated block by block, there are detours on Calzada de la Luz, big road equipment is standing in the middle of the intersection of Independencia and San Antonio Abad, and so many one-way streets are temporarily the other direction, confusing everybody. At least it is being done in low season, before the June 15 Day of the Locos and then the July and August Texans escaping their summers.
I also posted a photograph in the SMA Scenes album of a bracelet of milagros I received from a friend recently. Milagro means miracle, and small metal icons that represent important items or events are called milagros and incorporated into all kinds of arts and crafts. Often in churches there will be a display of items representing miracles, such as discarded crutches, or a small box or hand painted sign with items of significance to the person leaving them.
My milagros include two leg symbols representing my new knees, a cat (all three of our indoor cats say it's them), a car since we'd just sold our SUV, a book representing Falling...in Love with San Miguel: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security, and a heart for our 29th anniversary!
We're getting back into our old groove, exploring more and more of San Miguel. The city didn't stop changing while I was recuperating.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
April 24, 2008--Cheap events return to San Miguel
After some very hot and humid days, last night around 6 pm the skies grayed and the lightning flashed and the clouds dumped a ton of water on our heads. We had plans to meet a couple for dinner on the rooftop of La Posadita for dinner and debated cancelling, though Norma kept saying, it will be over by 7, just watch. And it was.
Turned out La Posadita was closed, so we all walked over to El Pegaso (I was secretly hoping they'd have their famous raspberry pie but that was all gone already). Chiles en nogados, Kung Pau chicken, marlin tacos and excellent conversation filled us up so that we barely missed the rooftop view we were supposed to have that night.
Was it the premature start of the rainy season as a few have said this morning? I doubt it. It's hot again today, and it will be for at least another month--April and May are the hottest months of the year in San Miguel, and we're all waiting for the rains to come and cool us down around mid-June.
But the quick and intense shower last night was exactly the kind of rainy season deluge we get June to October--starts fast and extreme, crescendos quickly, and then it's over, only the overflowing streets and submerged curbs showing that we just were in a thunderstorm. I can't wait for the real rainy season to arrive!
Tonight we're going to see a Rolling Stones imitation group at the Thirsty Monkey, only 30 pesos cover. Sunday night is another cheap benefit, this time for the SPA, only 25 pesos, at La Cava Princesa on Recreo 3, from 5 to 7:30 pm--featuring three guitarists. May 3 is the '50s and '60s Rock and Roll DJ Dance at Arte Vivo, Sollano 28, at 8 pm, no cover. Finally, some lower cost events!
I'm really looking forward to the '50s and '60s dance--all my favorite songs from those decades keep popping in my head. I'm even dealing with "Alley Ooop Ooop" scrambling my brain right now. I sure hope my knees let me do more than keep rhythm on the table by then! I ran into another dancing fool on the streets last night and reminded him of the dance coming up--he said he's going to miss it because he'll be in the States having a hip replacement. Damn, we're all getting old!
I'm remembering the '50s TV show, "Your Hit Parade," which did just fine with the music of the early '50s, like "Via Con Dios" and "Shrimp Boats Are a Coming." By the time Giselle MacKenzie and Snooky Lansen had to perform "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and "You Aín't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" week after week mid-decade, they were frazzled and stretched beyond their capacity and the show died.
And I was secretly listening to what was then called "race music" on a Detroit radio station, and I heard Big Mama Thornton do "Hound Dog" long before Elvis co-opted it. "Work with Me, Annie" transposed into "Dance with Me Henry," a much milder lyric, when it moved from the black radio station to mainstream. I'm having a great time remembering the mid-'50s, thanks to this upcoming DJ Dance. It ws a lousy period of my life in real time, but it made for good memories! I have to say, looking back over 65 years, these past six years in San Miguel have been the best years yet, with many more to come.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
April 19, 2008--Our 29th anniversary, at Bella Italia to hear Doc Severinson and Gil y Cartas
Actually this celebration was a week early for our actual anniversary but it was the last night Doc Severinson was playing with Gil y Cartas at Bella Italia restaurant for many weeks. They're off on a tour of the US, with Doc Severinson also doing an additional performance at Carnegie Hall.
Remember Doc Severinson, the band leader/trumpet player for Johnny Carson for decades? He's retired to San Miguel and one day dropped into the small band of Gil y Cartas, guitarist and violinist with a few rotating other band members, as they played at Bella Italia. Instant hit, they clicked fabulously, and Doc has joined them most of their performances ever since.
We saw Gil y Cartas when they first played at fondly-remembered Finnegan's bar, and then at Bella Italia when it was located in the courtyard of the Hotel Sautto. Now Baccho Italian restaurant is in that location. A couple of years ago Bella Italia moved to a much better location inside Plaza Colonia, the walkway/interior courtyard/shortcut at the corner of Hernandez Macias and Canal.
We've wanted to go ever since we learned Doc Severinson was playing with the group, but the minimum is 200 or 250 pesos, and there are so many great splurge restaurants around and so few times for splurges that we never got around to it. Their last appearance in SMA for awhile coinciding roughly with our 29th anniversary made it time.
First, what to order, since we hate to waste money on food that Norma could make better at home for less. I asked for advice ahead of time and heard I should order the whole red snapper (270 pesos), the squid, eggplant parmesan appetizer, goat cheese salad, artichoke and asparagus pasta, and salmon penne, among many other suggestions. It sounded like everything was good. We watched orders go by and decided on the cheese appetizer platter (140 pesos), shrimp with black fettucini (250 pesos), and mussels with anchovy pasta (85 pesos).
The cheese platter must have had three ounces each of six kinds of cheese, one a grilled toasty smoky provolone, another a hunk of blue cheese, another a chunky spring vegetable white brick, and more. A big bunch of huge seedless green and red grapes, sliced tomatoes, and a sliced pear also adorned the lettuce-based presentation. In the future we decided we could get only that appetizer platter and drinks and make a night of it to fulfill the restaurant's minimum; it was big enough to split for two dinners. So much for thinking the portions would be small. Bella Italia is certainly catering to gringo expectations on portion size.
But we'd also ordered the two entrees. I posted photos of the two dishes, of the restaurant decor, and of Doc Severinson playing with Gil y Cartas, on the SMA photos page of this website so you can see for yourself how good it all looked. The food tasted as great as its presentation. We watched platters of four large meaty lamb chops, each with its own little white pantaloon on the bone end, go by and wanted to follow. Shrimp looked good in many permutations.
We arrived at 7 to have finished eating by the time the music would start promptly at 8:30, as we had been told was best. The wait staff apparently gets flustered once the music starts and your service may be iffy. But we should have come later and had that cheese platter instead of a full dinner. We finished early and sat, waiting for the music, as the restaurant slowly filled. Every cranny had a table in it, and we had to squeeze to get in and out. Once the music started and diners moved their chairs back to relax, movement was almost impossible.
Doc Severinson was unmistakeable, even though I'd never seen him in person before. His hair is white and full, he had on a light red shirt, and he was so personable he worked the room at intermission, even coming over to our table to chat. I had to tell him that he had improved Gil y Cartas immeasurably. Before they had been good, if a bit relaxed. Now they snap, they have showmanship, they have vibrancy.
They even had a few gimmicks the audience loved, such as the percussionist coming down and slapping on the guitar strings while the guitarist only fingered the strings to change notes. Gil and Cartas did a bit of a duel on guitar and violin, and Severinson got up sometimes and stood aside to let the performers in the back do their solos with a better view for the audience.
They played for almost an hour, took about a 20 minute break, then played for almost another hour. What a show! I remember their arrangement of "Sweet Georgia Brown" best, but they did songs I had never heard before, too. Almost all were lush and upbeat, with a few ballads.
Norma and I debated whether Gil y Cartas are now as good as Paco Renteria, our favorite guitarist and supporting group who visit SMA at least once a year from Puerta Villarta. I've raved about Paco here several times in the past and we had a video of a few minutes of his last concert in SMA on our SMA Videos page of this website. No, on their own they still were not quite as good as Paco Renteria, but with the addition of Doc Severinson they were in another league entirely. He still has that star quality, even at age 80-something and "retired." He called out to his gorgeous wife in the audience, "Mamacita" and made us all laugh. (Mamacita would be the rough English equivalent of "hot stuff!")
It was a wonderful night, meeting new people at tables near us, greeting old friends we didn't know would be there, people-watching a dressed-up crowd we usually don't see. Now I know why Doc Severinson with Gil y Cartas is such a draw for Bella Italia. It was one of the most fun nights we've had in a long time.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
April 6, 2008--Surprise, a parade breaks out!
I finally, definitively, left my walker behind this morning and walked to the Jardin using only Norma's arm. I suppose I'll have to give up my jaunts on the mobility carts at Mega and Soriana now, too. Oh, first we stopped for brunch at Harry's because I've been fantasizing about their crab cakes ever since Norma's son ordered them as his entree when we took him there his last night in San Miguel.
One of the Harry's weekend brunch items is two poached eggs on top of two small crab cakes, smothered with hollandaise sauce, accompanied by two potato patties and a fruit plate, 85 pesos. Norma had a Monte Cristo, a ham and cheese sandwich dipped in egg batter and fried like French toast, served with syrup, plus the fruit plate, 60 pesos. Both were great for the diet. But our total bill was 190 pesos, including my decaf cappuccino and her diet Coke, not too far out of line for a Sunday brunch.
At the Jardin we relaxed and enjoyed people-watching, Norma laughing about her favorite brass band playing off-key in the kiosk but giving their enthusiastic all. And suddenly a parade broke out! It would be nice if somebody some day could write down all the holidays and causes for parades in San Miguel so that most of us have some clue what is happening or is going to happen. But even Atencion rarely gets them all. Probably many are spontaneous.
It was the usual mixture of sacred and profane--a float featured the Blessed Virgin Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus, guarded by angels in white with feathered wings and foil halos, and right behind it were Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I think. Ahead of the float were pagan conchero dancers, and bare-chested indigenous boys seemed to be reenacting the perpetual battle of good and evil. Giant mojigangas puppets danced through it all, one of them this time portraying a bald-crowned old man, gray hair cascading from around his shiny pate down to his shoulders. The parade had its own music, a very loud if small band with drums for the conchero dancers, and the band in the kiosk either tried to drown them out or to supplement them with similar-sounding noise, er, music. And then they were gone, winding their way east on Correo.
A woman in a Locos costume, maybe getting ready for the Day of the Locos parade in mid-June, went through the Jardin taking up a collection for the parade costs. It could be that one of the neighborhoods that is most active in the Day of the Locos was staging the preview parade to collect money for the costs of the biggie. Or it could have been some legitimate holiday--fireworks woke us at 5 am and kept it up all through the day, alarming our neighbor's golden retriever no end. The dog ended up huddled on our porch, terrified, which annoyed both our indoor pets and the outdoor feral cats who came to eat on our porch and were blocked by 75 pounds of quivering fluff. You never know what will happen in San Miguel.
Wednesday we ordered a chest of drawers for our bedroom from the two wood furniture-making stands on Canal past the bridge, and they promised that the furniture would be stained and delivered to us Thursday morning. We stayed home. Thursday at 5 Norma took the bus out there and asked when it would be delivered. Friday morning. We stayed home in the morning but had to go out the rest of the day, sure we would miss them. Hah.
Saturday morning we showed up at the shop and there our chest of drawers was, getting dusty but stained and ready to go. The woman assured us that their pickup was out making a delivery right then, and ours would be next, but they didn't have our address.
I showed her our copy of the receipt with the address and clear directions in Spanish plainly printed. Oh. Well, wait just a moment more, the pickup will be here ahorito. Now, more or less.
Norma had actually remembered to bring her cell phone, and it was actually charged. She called a mixta cab, the yellow pickups that will make deliveries for you, but the company said they had no mixtas available at that time. Just a moment more, the woman assured us. Ahorito.
A mixta drove by and we almost jumped it, making it come to a screeching halt in front of the furniture stall, where we quickly paid up and had the chest of drawers transferred to the mixta. The woman looked very sad--I'm sure her husband or son would have expected a big tip for delivering the piece and bringing it upstairs for us, even though delivery was "free." Just one more case of how everything takes longer in Mexico.
Our cat gets his stitches out Monday, after he broke his leg on our circular wrought iron staircase the same day I was having my leg operated on, and he hung in pain in the stairwell for at least 24 hours until the housekeeper found him. Dr. Vasquez worked a miracle to save him, first having to bring down the inflammation in his leg before he could be operated on and a metal pin inserted the length of his leg. Pico spent nearly two weeks in the vet's, and since then he has been limping around the house himself, both of us doing sympathy limps. We knew the vet bill would be outrageous and would have to wait until our April Social Security checks arrived: 6750 pesos, or $675 US! Guess where our economic stimulus checks are going! A human could have had a broken leg set at Hospital General for probably $400 US or less. I suppose the vet bill would have been well over $1,000 in the US, but it was still a shock.
Norma is doing our personal tax returns this weekend herself, since we have to file to be able to get our economic stimulus checks. I'm staying out of her way as she gnashes her teeth and keeps searching for more papers. Shades of the bad old days, when Norma would be on automatic the entire tax season and on April 16th we'd go to Vegas and join all the other tax preparers around the blackjack tables, unable to get numbers out of their heads. The few US tax preparers in San Miguel have a bit of that glazed look about their eyes right around now when they come out of their offices for a break. Did you know that the word for retired in Spanish is jubilado? Retirement is jubilación!
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
April 2, 2008--Stitches out, a stop at Chilo's
A friend with a brand new Honda offered to drive us to Queretaro yesterday for me to have my stitches out--he's in that newlywed phase of being in love with his shiny silver car that still has the new car smell, wanting to drive it everywhere, which was great for us. We paid for gas and bought him and his friend comida at Chilo's Seafood Restaurant on the way. Chilo's is so popular that I've seen four more branches opening in the same general area, the original one being at the intersection of Highway 57 and the road from SMA toward Queretaro. You have to watch carefully or you will miss the turnoff that is right on the freeway in the middle of a curve.
So many people had told me I must eat at Chilo's some day that I didn't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't a football field-sized open room with possibly fifty tables for six, noisy as it could be, no particular ambiance, more like a truck stop. It was more than half full at 2 pm on a Tuesday. It reminded me of Pollo Feliz in many ways--an industrial strength restaurant.
Norma couldn't figure out from the menu what the items actually were so she strolled among the other diners and reported back. Two whole-fish entrees looked great, big enough to share, price determined by the market and the size of the fish, but today averaging 75 pesos for a big platter. I had to have the shrimp cocktail served in a large hollowed out pineapple, with a grapefruit-sized cone from the pineapple insides served alongside.
So we shared the two items and had plenty of food, though the fish turned out to not have that much meat on it anyway. The shrimp cocktail sauce wasn't as overpoweringly sweet as it is often served in Mexico. Our friends had only a tuna tostada and a smaller shrimp cocktail, and then we convinced them to have the cheesecake while we had flan.
Chilo's didn't serve any kind of coffees or tea with dessert, though most tables had at least one gigantic bottle of beer or one of those mile-high narrow beer glasses per customer. I'd been told that the only thing on the menu we probably wouldn't like was the fried shrimp, which tended to be dry and hard--pop open a box of frozen fried shrimp and dump it in the deep fryer and serve. Next time we'd probably get something like the fish fillet stuffed with seafood, but for sure I'd get another shrimp cocktail in a pineapple shell. What a nice presentation, to make up for the lack of room decor. A Chilo's can open in San Miguel any time, preferably in the now-vacant former seafood restaurant across from Mega, next to the new Oxxo.
We zipped through Costco before my apointment with Dr. Schmidt, buying our usuals, such as the six packs of smoked oysters, tuna, and canned chicken that are the base of our desperation meals when we're too tired or unimaginative to cook. We keep wondering whether we should renew our $40 USD membership a year in June--with Mega and Soriana's in SMA, there isn't that much need for Costco runs any more. We let Sam's Club lapse for the same reason. San Miguel is getting pretty self-sufficient lately.
Another restaurant we enjoyed this week was the Food Factory at Fabrica Aurora, where Norma and I split the Greek salad and the Mexican passion pasta. Our friends tried new entrees: the Vietnamese hot pot, and the parilla, a mixed grill platter similar to fajitas. Both looked really tempting. We get in a rut when we find something we really like, such as the red, white and green pastas topped with shrimp that is the Mexican passion pasta dish. the colors of the Mexican flag. Maybe next time we'll remember how good the hot pot and the parilla looked. Entrees were in the 75-95 peso range.
With my stitches out, it is time to hit the leg-stretching exercises. I walked to Belles Artes this morning--be sure to drop into the puppet display there until April 27. For brief jaunts I can walk without my walker, using Norma's arm for stability. Soon I'll be back to normal. Can't wait to start exploring San Miguel again.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
March 27, 2008--Starbucks opens
(Already posted on the forums)
I've added two photos to the photo album section of this website, including one of the Starbucks sign for those who are not in town to see it for themselves.
The other photo is of a woman using her laptop inside the Starbucks, but she may have been one of the owners or managers--she jumped up to help me navigate the stairs with my walker when I came in. (I walked four blocks yesterday!)
Norma and I had to check it out and we estimate there were 18-20 Mexicans and 6-8 gringos inside at around noon Wednesday. The cappuccino mocha frappes are 32, 40 and 48 pesos, about the same as they were at a Detroit Starbucks in January, while the 48-peso size is 30 pesos at the Mega coffee bar and 34 pesos at the Italian Coffee
restaurant in La Luciernega. The Mega and Italian Coffee frappes have more flavor, we think.
A basic cup of coffee was 17 pesos--more than many small Mexican coffee shops around town, but less than in many upscale SMA restaurants, and this is definitely an upscale joint.
Right across the street is a sidewalk window coffee place that I know serves pretty good coffee for far less, when it's open, but then you don't have the comfy seats and ambiance of the Starbucks. It's location, location, location.
We saw one sandwich go by and it seemed to be all bread, no lettuce or tomato, little filling. But the man who bought it seemed to enjoy it a lot.
As far as whether this Starbucks allows free internet, I didn't see any signs about internet usage, and the only person I saw using a laptop seemed to be one of the owners. But there is free wifi right across the street in the Jardin, so it's easy enough to buy your coffee there or elsewhere and set up shop on a park bench.
The Starbucks we've visited in Detroit and McAllen have not had freeinternet at all, you had to register and pay for the connection.
The young Mexicans in line for the expensive brews seemed excited to be there--it was the happening place. They'll be the ones who determine if it succeeds. On another list, a man noted that four Starbucks have already opened in Queretaro, not exactly a hotbed of gringos.
I have to make one more point, in response to many comments that gringos are ruining San Miguel now that Starbucks is here.
When Stirling Dickinson and the other early pioneers arrived, San Miguel was a ghost town. Expats brought about the artistic reputation of San Miguel that has drawn Mexican artists as well to this flourishing community.
Many longtime Mexican residents will say that it is expats who have organized most of the charities around town.
We've sent thousands of local kids through high school and college, fed 4,000 kids their only meal of the day every school day, provided surgeries that have transformed the lives of hundreds more children who were otherwise doomed to live quiet lives of severe handicaps, built low-cost sturdy homes to get people out of their tarps and ruins, provided exposure and contacts for young artists and musicians who want to do more with their lives than work in mom and pop shops, beautified Parque Juarez so that it is now a functioning community center and playground, and so much more.
The anti-immigrant sentiment against the presence of gringos in Mexico sounds an awful lot like the sentiment of those in the US who want all Mexicans to "go back where they came from" and don't make any changes to US culture.
Too late, we live in a global economy, a global culture, a changing world. We are all one, borders often are mere fish netting, TV and the internet trump geography. Borders don't stop dreams.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
March 24, 2008--Boogers and beasties
Somehow kids just don't do what you expect, they keep insisting on being their own persons. My controlling self drew up a complete schedule of what Eric needed to do to see all of Semana Santa and San Miguel, complete with the photos I thought he needed to take. Norma said, your family is not my family, forget schedules. Go try to herd the cats.
I sent the two of them off to the Night of the Altars Thursday night as soon as he arrived. He came home not with shots of the interiors of San Miguel's finest churches, particularly the golden chapel in the Oratorio that is only open to the public a few times a year, but of a beautiful and intriguing shot of the contrast of a freshly painted black glossy park bench against the mottled and faded paint of Belles Artes. That one could be an award winner when he finishes tweaking it. He has a $5,000 USD camera and lenses.
Friday morning I hoped he would be able to get in close to the reenactment of the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate, since I've never been able to get photos of that event to my own satisfaction. With his camera and his 6'2" height, I hoped he would get right in close to the expressions of all the participants. I'm sitting at home unable to get out that much with my knee, and so I am attempting to live Semana Santa vicariously through him.
Yeah, he has shots of the morning, but the shots he shows off are of the altar boy who picked his nose and ate the booger during the solemn ceremony, with a girl behind him showing her disgust. Like the park bench shot, this one belongs only to him. No common shots of this weekend are going to come out of Eric!
All three of our cats adore Eric. He is fighting them off his bed at night. Fickle beasties.
I've done six shots of corticosteroids through Chelo now and am taking a few days off to see if this is enough to calm the sciatica. It's fun watching the tourists stop on the sidewalk outside her pharmacy to see the gringo pull down the side of her slacks to get a shot in the hip in public. "Mildred, did you see that? We're not in Kansas any more."
I do have to say that Chelo is a pharmacist, not a doctor, and my raves should not be taken as a medical endorsement--medicine in Mexico is a multi-faceted issue, with the easy access to drugs that would be prescription only in the US leading to some problems as well as the benefits. It's too easy to self-diagnose, and to overuse antibiotics, and to get some drug some friend used for a similar symptom without having a doctor take into account interacting medicines, etc. So that is my disclaimer for the day.
Easter Sunday the church chimes started at 11 pm the night before and never seemed to stop. We took a cab to Villa Santa Monica for their buffet breakfast to show Eric one of the nicest places in town--his final night Monday we're going to Harry's, too--and then we all walked over to Parque Juarez to show him the basketball courts, the Art in the Park, and the children's playground for potential photos. I never did see any shots out of his camera from any of those places. This 46-year-old retired Navy man just doesn't take orders any more! (Ignore my digs--I like the kid a lot!)
But at least he did get plenty of shots of the exploding Judases, and the boys scrambling to pick up the paper mache body parts afterward. And he did get over to the Instituto Arts and Crafts Fair, and he went out tonight to the Jardin to get some night shots. Tomorrow we take him to Ramirez Market and the Artisans Alley, maybe Ole Ole, maybe Fabrica Aurora, maybe San Juan Dios, as much as we can cram in his last day.
At 6:30 pm in the Jardin is a free puppet show that I'm anxious to see myself. All week long will be puppet shows in the Jardin and at the theater in Belles Artes. I'm getting up and walking outside more now, after two weeks, and I'm not using the walker inside the house at all. The cane is at ready to replace it for even outside soon.
Saturday night we took him to a fantastic party by friends who just wanted to throw a thank you for all those who have made San Miguel so wonderful for them. Eric eavesdropped on all the conversations and said SMA expats sound just like those in the artsy towns of Baja--houses, health, and art were our main topics. Well, yeah. When I as a kid I vowed I would never sit around and talk about my health when I got old, and here I am, writing about it, too. He lives on the beaches of Baja and the Philippines most of the year and brings a broader perspective to expat life. We're 180 degrees apart on most things but we're having good conversations about it all. It's been great having him here.
He does tell people he has three moms. (He was anxous that we would become Mexican citizens fast so that he could tell people he had two Mexican moms, but that plan got sidetracked when Mexico hardened its rules on becoming citizens.) And after 29 years with Norma and her family, I can truthfully say I have three kids, four grandkids and three great grandchildren, too. And now we're getting to know each other.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
March 19, 2008--Big winds gonna blow
Dallas airport closed last night due to tornado strength winds, and among the hundreds of thousands of passengers whose plans disappeared into the wind was Eric, Norma's son. He's coming in Thursday instead, only getting four days here to discover the magic of SMA, Semana Santa not exactly being typical times anyway.
Also disappearing into the heavy winds that extended even to SMA were our two plastic water bottles that we'd left out on the porch with two 20-peso bills for the next water delivery. We're out $4. Our housekeeper helpfully told us we should have used coins, or tied the bills into a plastic bag onto the bottles' necks.
Yesterday was loco anyway. First, our hot water heater pilot kept going out and we couldn't get hot water. Hmmm, we'd replaced it ourselves only six years ago when we moved in and noticed the charring on the walls around the original one. How long do hot water heaters last anyway?
Then, Norma planned to make gourmet pizza for our annual hosting of our book club, until she discovered we were out of propane! No wonder the hot water heater hadn't worked. Can't bake pizza without the oven. She thought she'd just checked our propane level on our roof, too, but apparently in the confusion over my surgery, we lost track. Quick change of menu to the pepperoni and cheese going on crackers and Caesar salad substituted as the main dish. All her meal planning blew away with the winds that disrupted Eric's schedule as well, so we're a bit disjointed today on all fronts. I'm going to sleep away the rest of the day with my leg on ice to quiet the sciatica.
Here are my usual comments on development and the alleged ruination of San Miguel by rich gringos that I posted yesterday on our forums. The issues are so much more complex than the blame games.
....I'll agree, after six years here I see far more charity events way out of my league compared to the first benefit we attended in SMA: a BBQ Bob's all you can eat ribs and chicken buffet for 50 pesos to raise money for a separate area for sick cats in the SPA. Anyone else there, sometime in early 2002?
It was one of the best initiation parties to SMA we could have imagined. I haven't seen anything in that price range in a long time! That was truly a diverse crowd of people. Economic paths don't cross as much any more.
At the same time, not just the wealthy expats are "discovering" San Miguel, nor are they the only ones who can afford to live here. As Jim Karger's five-part investigative series in Atencion titled, "Is It Really Cheaper to Live in San Miguel?" concluded:
>...The commonly heard refrain that you can live in Mexico for a third less than you can live in the United States has just enough truth in it to give it credence. The fact is that it can be a third less expensive to live in Mexico...depending on the lifestlye to which one aspires....Mexico is a comparatively cheap place to be poor and an expensive place to be rich."
Actually, to try to look as if you are living rich. Not all higher income people are spending it visibly. Others are.
In Mexico, San Miguel, the US and all over the world, different economic classes have coexisted and shifted. The expat community is multilayered just as the native community is. Those on the bottom half may not get the PR and attention of those with more money, but we're here, we're happy, we're surviving just fine, get used to it. We're not going away.
We may have to move out a few more blocks to find a cheaper rental but so long as it's on a bus line, we'll be fine. And we might be experiencing daily life in this wonderful town more fully than those expats who live far out of Centro in McMansions and rarely come into town except for the $250 USD benefits. (But with those benefits they're supporting more far-reaching, effective charitable programs than ever before.)
Also within weeks of our arrival in 2002 we were invited to hear former Atencion editor Sareda Milosz speak to the Unitarians on how San Miguel was going downhill fast--too many rich new expats were coming without really wanting to love Mexco and San Miguel, unwilling to learn Spanish, jacking up prices, importing their expensive US lifestyles and then complaining about imported US lifestyle costs here.
She felt she had to escape the hostile audience fast when she ended. We took her out to an SPA garage sale to unwind. She'd been in SMA 20 years at that point.
And shortly after that I met Kendal Butler, who had been coming to San Miguel since the '60s, and she'd been told then, "You should have come to San Miguel in the '50s when it was great."
I think San Miguel is still great. Of course it's changing--it's alive and growing. Those places which remain "quaint" are the same ones that are stagnating, dying, where the girls born into the mom and pop shops leave school even before the sixth grade supposed completion date to help out at the store--barefoot, pregnant, quaint.
Ask a Mexican kid whether he or she would rather get even an entry level job at McDonald's or Mega with at least some chance to learn something and maybe even advance or take the skills elsewhere, or stay in the mom and pop shop restocking chips and making change forever.
The support stores that come with a growing Mexican middle class and an influx of expat money are not necessarily going to destroy San Miguel, they may help to save it. Without the expat community SMA could be Comonfort. (Not that Comonfort doesn't have its charm, too.)
The influx of wealthier expats isn't necessarily good or bad, it's just another stage in San Miguel's nearly 500 year history, and in the thousand-year-plus history of Mexico before Spanish conquest. I'm just along to enjoy the ride!
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
March 17, 2008--Homage to Chelo
Chelo owns a pharmacy on Hernandez Macias at Canal, and just as in many pharmacies in Mexico, she gives shots without prescription. Oh, I don't think you can get heroin from her, but you can get many drugs that would be prescription only in the US. She's the first one I recommend you see if you get severe turista, or motion sickness, or need a US prescription converted to a Mexican named equivalent. She'll charge more than some of the other pharmacies, but with that first box you can then go to Guadalajara Farmacia or other drugstores for cheaper refills.
I woke up with my sciatic nerve twisted the other night and called Dr. Schmidt, who said that three days on Alin (a corticosteroid shot) and a Vitamin B Complex shot would help. I can't take any of the NSAIDs at this time because they thin my blood too much.
Off to Chelo's by cab. I sat in the chair next to the woman making and selling lace doilies. Chelo came out from behind the counter and I simply hiked down one side of my pants to expose one hip for one shot, then the other. The world did not come to an end when I exposed my pulchritude to the masses.
She would have had me come into the back of the store for the shots but with my walker I'm not maneuvering tight aisles very well.
I felt so good after the shots I assured Norma I could go with her on another cab ride to Mega, where I got to use those mobility carts that I keep thinking of as dodge-um cars from amusement parks of my childhood. What fun! No wonder I've seen teens in US supermarkets using the carts for races down store aisles when somehow they were able to get control of one or two. I had to leave my drivers license behind as my deposit.
I esconsed myself at the coffee bar and hoped somebody, anybody I knew, would come by--I've got cabin fever even though I've actually been cooped up inside very little with all my escapades. Just about every day we go out someplace by cab, since the operation nine days ago. I'm managing the 21 steps just fine now, if slowly.
Luckily friends did happen to be there at the same time and we used Mega as our little gathering spot once more. Who would have thought that I would look forward to Mega as a place to hopefully run into friends I haven't seen for awhile? It's like my afterschool teen hangout in Detroit in the '50s.
I think Mega is serving the same function as the Jardin, though the shaded benches in front of the Parroquia are still packed with expats and Mexicans every day, seeing and being seen, meeting and greeting. I don't recall such places back in Phoenix.
My dad's crowd met for breakfast at McDonald's every morning all the six years he lived with us in rural Michigan--McDonald's encouraged them with free coffee for anyone over 65. Many of the men were in the Michigan Militia--you wouldn't have wanted to overhear their conversations.
After the Oklahoma City bombings and the involvement of the Nichols family down our road, the FBI moved into McDonald's every morning too, pulling up in big black SUVs and vans, the men and women both in dark suits, the two sides of the confrontation eyeing each other, my dad's crew in flannel shirts and work boots. It kind of ruined the McDonald's site as my father's generation's FaceBook.
I'm doing well overall, and our broken-legged kitty rejoins us tomorrow. Norma's son joins us for a week to photograph Semana Santa and see what his crazy moms are up to. He's the one who lives part of each year as a Baja beach bum, so he approves. We approve, too.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
March 14--The $50, 50-minute, 85 mph taxi ride back to Clinica Queretaro
Norma was changing my bandage at 10:35 am Thursday when she noticed too much blood. She called Dr. Schmidt, who's usually hard to reach personally at the clinic unless you start wailing, "Sangre!" to anyone who picks up the phone. He ordered: Get back to the clinic by noon.
Gulp. The ride is usually more than an hour even under perfect conditions. I wasn't moving any too fast in getting dressed mode. But it could be done. I rushed as best I could, we called for a taxi to take us to Queretaro, and the fee was to be 400 pesos. (In many of the Queretaro cabs there is a rate chart in the visor above the passenger seat that says the standard fare from Queretaro to SMA is 380 pesos, but we were being picked up at our home.)
Hobbling down the 21 steps went much faster than going up, and we arrived in the courtyard at 10:55. The cab didn't come.
The cab didn't come.
Our cell phone didn't work to be able to call the company back.
The cell phone of a friendly guy walking by didn't work.
At 11:10, fifteen minutes late, the cab arrived. The driver apologized, the children's Primavera parade had had traffic in gridlock.
Moral: Never get sick while a major parade is going on. I could see pre-school daisy girls and bumblebee boys now walking home with their mothers. We hadn't noticed no traffic was flowing in Centro up to that point.
On quick glance, the driver impressed us: solid, responsible, intelligent, caring. So was Ted Bundy. I offered him 500 pesos if he could get me to the clinic by noon. No problema! Did I expect anything different?
Fifty minutes later, at speeds often over 140 kph (abut 85 mph), zipping past the 100 kph speed signs, we were all the way to Wal-Mart on B. Quintana, maybe five minues from the clinic, when a motorcyclist was hit and cars spun every which way.
When police and ambulances cleared all away, we made it to the clinic only ten minutes late. We gave the driver the full $50, he'd earned it. And Dr. Schmidt had waited for us.
He rewrapped the bandage and announced I had a hematoma (blood collecting under the skin, like a black and blue bruise), not any fresh bleeding. I should be able to go home now, but call if the problem recurred.
Relieved, we took another cab (35 pesos) to Wal-Mart where a new Blue Bell ice cream shop had just opened next to McDonald's, the Chinese fast food place, and the gourmet coffee and cookies place. A Big Mac and chocolate ice cream cone, the perfect brunch.
Blue Bell, for those of you unfortunate enough not to know personally, is an internationally renowned Texas ice cream company. When we were in McAllen one of the first things we bought was a pint of Millenium Crunch to eat in the parking lot.
The Soriana's in Dolores Hidalgo, to the left at the first traffic light after the big glorieta statue to the Four Heroes on the main road into Dolores from SMA, has a similar-sized Blue Bell outlet, behind the checkout lanes. But that one has maybe 20 flavors (though no Millenium Crunch) while this one in the Queretaro Wal-Mart has only five or six. It sells mainly various ice cream bars that looked good, too. The clerks kept walking around the store with samples of strawberry, trying to lure customers to the new shop. Worked on us.
So now we were feeling pretty relaxed and relieved when Norma noticed my bandage was red again.
Cell phone still didn't work. We asked the woman in a Nex-tel kiosk to sell us a phone card or a battery or whatever it would take for me to call the doctor, and she called the doctor for us. Back to Clinica Queretaro.
He said we should spend the night in the hospital so he could watch it. I was having a reaction to the blood thinner shot, now discontinued, and going back on Advil hadn't helped. The pain killer he'd prescribed gave me headaches. Back to Tylenol, which doesn't work as well.
Guess what the evening meal was at the hospital? Corn flakes, milk, grapes and Tang. At this point I'd been served corn flakes for six out of twelve meals there. And the cups and plates still had unsanitary chips and cracks. I complained again to Dr. Schmidt.
He encouraged me to write a detailed email in Spanish to the administrator--he doesn't own the hospital, and his complaints are ignored. If only patients complained more, something might change. But Mexicans don't complain. Their stoicism has a 500-year history that if you complained, or accepted responsibility, you were killed immediately.
So the gringa with lousy Spanish is the one who will do the complaining? Oye. I'll have to work on that email carefully. Mañana, my head isn't all that clear right now. I'm still not answering many emails until I can be sure what I'm saying. I've been known to pop off a time or two. I'll have to have Norma sit on my typing fingers.
I was fine in the morning, we were released, and we took a cab to El Porton by Wal-Mart for breakfast. The nurse looked surprised I'd left the morning corn flakes untouched. Chilaquiles somehow were calling me.
The first cab driver who rounded the parking lot and stopped was very agreeable to driving us to San Miguel for the 380 pesos on the rate chart in the taxi. We chatted nonstop the whole hour and twenty minutes. (He slowed for all topes in recognition of my leg.)
One definition of fluency is that you can carry on a conversation for an hour with a native speaker without having to hesitate for words or stumble a lot. We talked of San Miguel versus Queretaro and Guanajuato and Monterrey, of scorpions and rattlesnakes and javalinas, of dessert and jungle and beach, of marriage and children problems, of dogs and cats and burros (he was intrigued with the idea of the upcoming Burro Festival this weekend). Gee, I must be fluent.
But then why didn't I understand a word the nurses and nurses aides would spout to me whenever they (rarely) entered my room? I fell back on Norma's standard response: Si. Yes, of course, I'd like to have a lobotomy this morning, with fries, gracias.
I kept showing the cab driver San Miguel as he drove us to our casa. He was totally lost and Norma drew him a map to get him back to Queretaro. Better a map from her than from me. He agreed, San Miguel was certainly beautiful. So glad to be home again. As usual I fell in love with San Miguel all over again in the drive into town.
I only wish I could get out to see all the altars today and to marvel at how well the pre-teen portraying Mary is holding perfectly still, except for her blinks, at the altar by Teatro Angela Peralta. If she set up her routine in Ghiradelli Square she could probably make $100 USD a day.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
March 12, 2007--Our cat is having sympathy surgery on his leg
I can't stand the narrow wrought iron circular staircases that often lead up to Mexican roofs, or even to second story apartments. I'm no usually afraid of heights but standing on see-through wrought iron while trying not to bump my head or lose my footing, I get dizzy. And so I rarely go up to our apartment's roof patio, much to Norma's dismay.
She had her batik work area up there for awhile, until the bees decided she must be hurting a hive or something every time she heated up the bees wax to cover each layer of completed dyes before going on to the next dip in the dye. She also fantasizes about one of those thousand-dollar stainless BBQ grills that are a complete kitchen onto themselves, though how even ingenious Mexican workers could get one up that narrow circular stairwell is beyond comprehension. They probably could, involving one of them hanging by a rope with the BBQ on his back as he is hauled up to the roof or something. We'll have to continue to make do with a charcoal Weber.
Now Mexicans often use charcoal grills that look as if they are a galvanized steel bucket with a grate over the fire area, available for maybe 50 pesos at San Juan Dios market stalls. One of the first things new expats start looking for when they move here is a nice little gas grill like the one they left at home and that they will never see again unless they bring one down in a future car load or with a family mule. Relatives and friends always get loaded down with goods to be brought to Mexico, until you learn to make do, do without, or figure out what Mexicans do instead if it's a necessity.
All this is a prelude to the fact that our new black and white cat Pico is at Dr. Vasquez's vet hospital waiting for the inflammation to go down on his back leg that he broke running up our circular metal staircase, his foot slipping between the metal and he didn't stop in time. When the vet can operate, Pico will get his own little metal pin into his leg, so that we can hobble around the house in sympathy.
The poor baby, it could have happened any time from early Friday afternoon until Monday at 1 when the housekeeper arrived and found him. As I've said before, it is uually the housekeeper who finds her employer has died or is sick. Don't worry about whether to buy air transport back to the US in case of a medical emergency, make sure your housekeeper knows what to do in any emergency.
Join the Twenty-Four Hour Association (which will take care of all the details according to your wishes once they are contacted) and have the number by your phone so your housekeeper won't have to ask her friends what to do. Ours does go on some flights of fancy sometimes, and I can imagine her calling her son in Texas for advice before thinking to call the US Consular Agent and the Twenty-Four Hour Association.
So meanwhile my hospital stay was uneventful, and I am using a walker to get around the house. Dr. Schmidt had me walk a few steps the next morning on my second replaced knee, and by Tuesday I was whizzing around the clinic. Well, whizzing is a bit overstated.
And then we hit our first obstacle: getting into our friend's SUV who had volunteered to drive us home. Norma had checked out all friends' vehicles in recent months, evaluating which ones had lower road clearance (though generally you went higher road clearance if you're going to be doing any off-road driving or expect you might encounter a detour through a dry riverbed or something).
So there we were, attempting to fit me and my leg into any of the SUV doors, while assorted other patients and staff gave advice. The first knee I had replaced was the right one, and that was simple: approach passenger side, sit down, swing good leg inside, have Norma gently pick up bandaged leg and move it into place, with the passenger seat back as far as it could go.
Now it was a matter of my left leg having to go first. Nothing worked. I was contemplating lying down in the back of the SUV if I had to. It didn't help that several other patients were waiting to be picked up at Clinica Queretaro, their cars lined outside on 20 de Noviembre waiting for us to exit the loading space. The clinic has a few parking spaces in an interior lot across the street, but few of us leaving the clinic are ready for that much of a walk, across heavy traffic.
The other patients sat stoicly, their designated drivers giving us all sorts of advice trying to get us out of there so that they could go back to their own interrupted lives.
Norma and our friend suddenly realized that if they moved the front passenger seat up as far as it could go, then I could fit my leg into the space behind it. Easy. Thank heavens someone in this family is spatially coordinated. The ride home from Queretaro went much faster when someone else was driving. All I had to think about was stiffening for the next speed bump.
Home we faced the 21 steps up to our apartment. Norma brought down a white plastic lawn chair to put just ahead of me as my goal for every few steps toward the stairs (nice thick cement and tile Mexican stairs, though like so many Mexican stairs the heights are not the same from step to step). Good railing to hang onto.
As I sat in the lawn chair eyeing the 21 steps, all sorts of people kept arriving in our courtyard, all concerned about me! Very nice, but what I wanted was to be alone with Norma to maneuver in whatever humiliating way was necessary to get up those damned steps, without an audience! Plenty of people have volunteered to help us in any way they can. I'm not even going to think about pretzeling myself into a taxi for a while, and I definitely can't get up that first bus step for that mode of transportation.
If worse came to worse, Norma would have called the Red Cross and/or the bomberos, the volunteer firemen. We knew once I got up inside I'd be fine. Luckily our apartment is all level, unlike so many Mexican casas which may have 70 steps all over the house, every room on its own space.
I have a ton of personal messages to answer, so if I haven't gotten to yours yet, please forgive me. My head is still as wobbly as my leg.
What little things happened in the hospital this time around? Let's see, we were given room four, out of the six patient rooms on the second floor of Clinica Queretara, and it was so cute we exclaimed to the nurse, it's a hotel! And then we noticed the bathroom design.
As you enter the sink is straight ahead on the same level as the room, but off to the right is a ramp up to the shower, and the ramp veers sharply to take in the toilet, which is sitting nine inches above the sink, with very little foot room on the toilet level. I took my life in my hands every time I dared try that ramp, edging myself into the small foot area, usually my feet hanging down over the step. Not good for a night run, not good with a walker.
I complained to Dr. Schmidt and he agreed, he is having a new level of patient rooms built onto a third floor that will be designed better. The two well-functioning operating rooms on the second floor are designed well, he says, but the rest of the clinic leaves much to be improved. He is planning for it. The clinic has been jammed every time we have gone there.
I also complained to Dr. Schmidt about all the chips in the coffee cups and bowls. Norma knew I was feeling better when I started to pick at nits. But since we once owned a hobby ceramics shop in rural Michigan, I know how unsanitary chipped china is. Replacing the dishes will be a lot easier than building a third floor of patient rooms. The existing elevator I suppose can be made to go up another floor.
And as usual I had to notice every meal. Of eleven meals brought to my room, five consisted of a cup of generic corn flakes, a cup of milk, a glass of juice, a half cup of yogurt or gelatin, and apple, pear or papaya slices. On the other seven, the cornflakes and milk were replaced by one small corn tortilla grilled with cheese (twice), one piece of dry toast (once), the toast and a scrambled egg (once), a kind of chili relleno patty, a chicken drum stick in a cup of broth with a few onions and carrots, and a chicken thigh in the same soup. We figured patients got 1200 bland calories a day if they ate every bite. Probably fine for a surgical area.
Meanwhile Norma went to the Lebanese restaurant nearby and came back to the room with baba ganoush, falafel, taboulli, and spicy feta cheese balls. One meal she brought in from a KFC within walking distance, and the other meals, especially for her, she bought at Soriana. We did a lot of peanut butter sandwiches, since there was no refrlgerator.
Mexican hospitals expect that a family member will stay with a patient and do much of the routine nursing care like bed pans and feeding. I think they also expect the families will bring supplemental food.
Soriana, by the way, was not at all as nice as the one in Queretaro by Home Depot. Since the Soriana chain has bought out Gigante, our Gigante up at the SMA La Luciernega mall is in the process of transitioning into a Soriana. We're hoping it will be more like the upscale one by Home Depot rather than the one by the clinic. (Thw clinic is located where Constituyentes cuts off from B. Quintana freeway and then runs into 20 de Noviembre, behind the Soriana parking lot and mall). Complete address and contact info for Dr. Michael Schmidt: 01-442-213-4683, 20 de Noviembre, 328 Sur, Queretaro. I'm just as happy with him after two surgeries as I was at our first appointment.
Norma, meanwhile, was run ragged taking care of my every whim. When you're sick you get some latitude. But then the caretaker gets really dragged down. We've always taken turns nursing each other. I'm pickier though. Wait until she's sick next--I think I'm going to get what's coming to me!
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
March 7, 2008--The town is jumping while I head off to the hospital
We're going to Clinica Queretaro tonight for my knee replacement surgery at 7 am Saturday, so we won't be posting (or reading) online until around Tuesday. No wi-fi in the hospital, though we've downloaded a dozen games (especially sudoku) for Norma onto my laptop. I'm going to read our Book Club's upcoming selections when I feel good enough. Luckily Mexican hospitals allow a family member to stay with you in your room your entire stay. This time we're both bringing our own pillows, though. The pancakes in pillow cases didn't cut it our last visit.
Behave, everybody! Old-timers, please take a moment to answer any urgent questions that may be posted onto the forums while I'm off-line.
San Miguel is bursting with conchero dancers everywhere for Lord of the Conquistadors celebrations today. I still can't figure out why anyone would celebrate their religion being oppressed and and a new one imposed on them, but it's not my holiday. Last night the Parroquia was throbbing with drums and dancers, the celebration moved down Recreo to a building called Syndicato until dawn, and then at 10 am the dancers flooded the Jardin streets once more.
I took photos as if I had never seen a conchero dancer before, and even snapped the Parroquia, probably photo # 1,000 I've taken of the church, because the sky behind it was so blue today. Thanks be for digital cameras. The Lord of the Columns celebration comes up in a few days, and then we are into Semana Santa, the holiest and most extravagant week of the SMA year. Norma's son may be in town for that week, we're hoping. I hope I can hobble around the Jardin Palm Sunday and see all the artwork done in woven palm fronds.
There's no reason to expect I'll have any problems with the surgery but I'm nervous anyway, even after all my experience in hospitals. I even got my heart rate racing and irregular and headed into Hospital General yesterday morning, just to make sure I was fine. For five hours they watched me in an ER bed to make sure my heart beat leveled off by itself, which it did, with no drugs needed. They sent me home saying to go ahead with the surgery, there was nothing wrong.
What did five hours in an ER cost me? 400 pesos, under $40 USD. In the US my Medicare copay would have been around a thousand dollars alone, plus my part of the rest of the charges. As usual I received excellent care from everyone, except for one nurse who just couldn't find my veins. Oh well, at one Michigan hospital it took the entire staff thirteen tries to get an IV running in me. Who says I'm tough?
Two US women in white physicians' lab coats were observing my care, and later we talked to them. One was a medical student, the other a faculty member from the Family Medicine department of the University of Texas at Dallas. They were part of the ongoing program that brings US physicians to the Hospital General to learn medical Spanish in the classroom in the morning and on the floor the rest of the day. That program is one of the great benefits of the Hospital General--the interaction between the US and SMA doctors is a good exchange for both sides.
Last night we were both tense and only comfort food would do. There's none in the house. Where did we go? Gustos to split an order of nachos and cheese fries, ending with sopatillos and chocolate ice cream. My, how my idea of comfort food has changed. Harry's New Orleans doesn't have meat loaf any more anyway--that would have been my other choice.
I took a photo of the Gustos meal, and of chilaquiles and migas we had for brunch today at Cafe de la Parroquia. I'll post them when I get home Tuesday or so, along with my newest photos of conchero dancers and anything else I've filled up my camera with the past few days. Suddenly I noticed I'd shot 163 photos and had no idea where or when, so it will be a surprise to me to download them, too. Of 163, I hope 10 are good.
Gustos is celebrating St. Patrick's Day with an Irish blowout, and a hangover day March 18. All month they've been serving pitchers of green beer.
For those who don't know about San Patricio's, during the Mexican-American war hundreds of Irish immigrants joined the US Army to fight Mexico because of promises of easier US citizenship if they did. Once they signed up they were treated very badly as immigrants, and they were suddenly fighting in a very Catholic country where the Mexicans were nice to them, contrary to how their officers and fellow soldiers were treating them. They deserted the US Army and joined the Mexican Army, where they fought so valiantly that the leader of the army said that if all his soldiers had been so courageous, Mexico would have won the war.
When Mexico lost the war and half its territory, the captured Irish soldiers were treated especially harshly, many of them shot or hanged publicly as traitors. But a few escaped into the campos and blended into the Mexican population. The San Patricios are celebrated in Mexico every March 17 in memory of these immigrants.
Gustos also won in several categories in this year's Chili Cook Off. Norma had their two for one lemon-lime Margaritas, and we were tempted by their People's Choice award-winning chili, chili dogs and chili burgers. Next time. Gustos is on Relox between Mesones and Canal, tucked into part of Milagro restaurant, and it is owned by two young women from Dallas. It's our favorite neighborhood bar even if it is right in Centro.
The prices have gone up slightly since the last time I wrote about it. Three burrito entrees, an enchilada dish and a few other items still qualify as "cheap eats," but the loaded US-style nachos were 75 pesos and the large size cheese and bacon fries were 65 pesos. They even have a few items at 140 pesos now, like their fajitas. A small dish of chili is 35 pesos, though, and I bet that and a 20-peso order of fries could fill you up if you wanted Tex-Mex comfort food on a budget. They start out with excellent complimentary fresh chips and homemade pico de gallo.
We did go to the Immigration Conference yesterday and I reported on it over on the SMA News page of this website. The University of Texas at Austin had a contingent of researchers at the Biblioteca doing a survey on expats moving to Mexico. They were looking for 900 expats to fill out their survey form in four days, and they interviewed for half an hour on tape anyone who would sit still that long. Norma was rushing around doing errands. I sat.
By the time I was through the woman who was on the Communications Department faculty said she was ready to retire here. She even went over to the Tienda to buy our book to read on the plane going home. I didn't sugercoat a thing. She said she was surprised I had such a global awareness of the issues. That was nice.
Meanwhile I could overhear the usual grumblings from some of the others filling out the survey, every question making them rant aloud. People who are generally unhappy bring it with them when they come.
How could they be unhappy--it was such a pleasant day in the Biblioteca courtyard, especially for a Thursday when the weekly book sale was going on and lots of Mexican kids were studying and using the computers inside and the informal Spanish-English practice sessions at several tables were bringing together expats and Mexicans both wanting to learn the others' language. I was glad the U-T faculty could see SMA harmony in action to outweigh the grumblers.
By the way, the cat food I talked about last entry was delivered two days later than promised, at 8 pm. We happened to be home. Of course there were no apologies or explanations. I'm just glad we finally got it. The neighborhood gatos won't starve for another month.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
March 4, 2008--The waiting game; La Media Naranja is our new favorite "Cheap Eats"
We ordered 60 kilos of Whiskas for our feral cat feeding from Alimentos Para Mascotas on 5 de Mayo #18 in Col. Allende, and it was to be delivered today en el tarde. For us that would mean from noon until around maybe 5 pm. In Mexico it might mean after the 2-4 pm siesta closing, up until dark. Or it could mean some other day entirely. Here we sit. The joys of Mexico.
One of the old cats we started feeding six years ago died yesterday. Our housekeeper found him. It's the housekeeper who usually finds the bodies, whether of expats who live alone or of stray animals. We took the body to Dr. Vasquez for disposal. He'll do a cremation and give you the ashes for a beloved pet. Otherwise, he assures us that he'll never send pets' bodies out with the basura, they will be treated with respect even after death. He charges 200 pesos for this service. We couldn't let this cat just lay in the courtyard.
We waited all last night and this morning for Dr. Schmidt to call us back from Queretaro, too, and never got the call. Oh well, we'll assume we're still on the calendar for my surgery this Saturday. I called yesterday mainly because my cold from two weeks ago never really went away, and I wanted to make sure my occasional sniffles and coughs couldn't lead to pneumonia. When you're out cold and immobile for so long, it is easy for fluid to accumulate in the lungs and lead to pneumonia. That happened to me in one life and death surgery in 1975 and it took weeks to recover. But today I'm not sniffling. Full speed ahead.
We walked to Bios-Lab on Hidalgo in the Hotel Allende lobby, a few doors north of Mesones, for my preliminary tests, and I noted that Hotel Allende advertises room rates as low as 300 pesos a night. It looks like a decent place. I'll add it to my inexpensive hotels list in the SMA FAQs.
I'll also add El Hotelcito, online at www.elhotelcitosma.com, which is now in the rear of yet another real estate office. There used to be a very inexpensive hotel in that building that had a coffee shop and internet cafe in the lobby. We had gotten used to their great freshly-ground or whole bean coffees from Chiapas and Oaxaca at 150 pesos a kilo, and then they were gone. And now the hotel is back. I was pleased to see several homes listed in La Lejona behind Mega for under $150,000 USD, among the pricey ones.
Since we were so close, we finally tried La Media Naranja, on the corner of Hidalgo and Calzada de la Luz, above the pharmacy on the southeast corner of that busy intersection with Aurora. It's now on our list of favorite "Cheap Eats." People have been telling us to try it for months and we just never were in that area at the right time. Now we'll go out of our way to eat there.
It's a converted second-story apartment with seating for 24 in what would have been the living and dining rooms, which are separated by a wide archway. Windows are all around--great for light, not so great for noise, especially with all the buses at that corner. It's a pleasant space painted a light pumpkin color, with nice wood tables. A Mexican family was having a birthday party when we arrived at 11 am, all having a grand time. Some day I'll know all the words to the Mexican happy birthday song. We weren't sure whether we would want breakfast or lunch. Both menus were highly tempting.
An omelet with goat cheese and roasted red peppers, multigrain toast, nicely done potatoes O'Brien, and their signature half an orange (40 pesos) was our final choice, and it was a good one. The featured "New York Special" is two eggs, toast, potatoes, orange juice, coffee or tea, plus that half orange, for 45 pesos. Others we considered were a ham and cheese omelet, French toast, or a bagel with bacon and cheese for 35 pesos. A lunch bagel with smoked salmon and a side salad was 45 pesos. The day's specials included home made banana bread and two soups, sopa Azteca or a lentil with organic spinach, both 35 pesos.
Sandwiches were mostly 50 pesos and were served with a curried potato salad. I kept loking at the falafel on pita bread, the salami with goat cheese, and the BLT with chipolte mayonnaise. Service was slow--I dropped my fork, loudly, and no one came out for ten minutes to see if somebody needed something, like a new fork, or more coffee. I ate my omelet with my coffee spoon. No free refills on the coffee, the owner brought out a new second cup. No matter, the food was terrific, and much of it was organic (yeah, I'll have some organic lettuce on my salami). We'll be back.
Thursday from 10 am to noon will be an Immigration Conference at the Santa Ana theater in the Biblioteca, to try to explain all the various regulations involved in moving to Mexico. With all the confusion going on right now on how to nationalize (register) a foreign-plated car in Mexico, because of an announcement that only cars built in the US or Canada in 1998 can be nationalized this year, the need for the conference is great. Older pickups can be nationalized far more easily.
Expats can always temporarily import a vehicle from anyplace with them on their FMT or FM3, since your vehicle importation permit says that you are going to take that car out with you when you leave. But if you go to an FM2 and inmigrado status on the possible route to Mexican dual citizenship, you have to get rid of your foreign-plated vehicles or have them nationalized.
The pathway for that is long, confusing, and expensive--I've heard figures ranging from $600 to $1,000 USD and up. Seems to me it would be cheaper and easier to sell the car in the US and buy one here that is already registered and plated in Mexico. I know that there are heavy fees each year on new cars bought in Mexico, the amount of the fee going down each year as the car ages, but there are plenty of used Mexican cars for sale. I'll report on what I learn Thursday. [Added later--I did, over on the SMA News page of this website.]
Meanwhile, I just called the pet store again. Six pm, they promise. We'll see.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
February 26, 2008--Goofing up even in restaurant Spanish
Another new friend took us to lunch at the La Finestre in the Plaza Colonial, where Bella Italia is located. I had another experience of messing up in Spanish, a minor one, but irritating. What we did was to misunderstand two Spanish words, molettes and enmoladas. I thought at least my restaurant Spanish was pretty good.
We knew the first are Mexican rolls spread with black beans and cheese and then put under the broiler until the cheese melts. Sometimes other items are on the rolls, but that is the basic recipe. And somehow we kept thinking enmoladas would be the same thing. Like sopa is not soap and ropa is not rope. We asked the waitress what enmoladas were, just in case we were wrong, and she said, "Tortillas maiz. Pollo. Ensalada." Okay, now I was thinking of what were called tostadas in LA, a kind of open face crispy taco.
But when they arrived they were tortillas folded over chicken but smothered in chile-chocolate black mole. Very good, but not what I wanted. Because I expected the dish to be covered with salad, I had ordered soup instead of salad, pollo con fideos, chicken with small fine noodles, that turned out to be almost as thick as gravy and tasteless. A bowl of hot salsa and a lime squeezed into it, with abundant salt and pepper, made it edible. We love the La Finestra on Ancha de San Antonio near Santa Clara Dairy, especially for their cazuelas (eggs baked in a red salsa), but won't be back to this one, though it wasn't their fault I got my menu items confused. The conversation was good, though.
Today we took a Deportiva bus that only had seats open on the rear bench, and we lurched and bounced so badly that I feared falling out the rear door. All of us in the rear were laughing about the ride. If that had been my first bus ride in San Miguel, I might not have ever taken the bus again.
But the ride was redeemed with two men with an accordion and a guitar got on and sang their way through the next six stops or so, collecting change from the passengers when they departed to get on the next bus and repeat their performance. I took their picture and will post it in "San Miguel Scenes" in the photo gallery of this website later tonight.
We're having two old friends over tonight and Norma made chicken burritos US style, the big flour tortillas with rice and all sorts of goodies inside, topped with homemade pasillo chile salsa, fresh pico de gallo, crema (like sour cream) and grated cheese. Besides black beans and julienned jicama with the Costco garlic bread seasoning and a little blue cheese dressing, for dessert we're having a fruit salad of fresh papaya, mangos, tangerines, bananas, cantaloupe, green seedless grapes, and red apple, with a dollop of peach yogurt on top. Life is good.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
February 24, 2008--Revisiting Gallo Restaurant
I already posted this piece on the forums--nothing new out of me tonight, I'm afraid.
It's been a very low-key few days for us. I was ready to explode from staying in bed with my cold and had to get out of the house. Norma is sniffling a bit but it hasn't hit her hard yet. It was Friday night, time to par-tay, with no place to go, and I couldn't get close to anyone so as to avoid spreading germs.
Norma wasn't up to cooking, I needed something spicy to even hope to taste it anyway, and we wanted someplace close to Centro, not too cheap, but not really expensive, and not only high calorie dishes on the menu.
We thought of Gallo, owned by Juan Carlos and his family who also own Nirvana, one of our favorite splurge restaurants. It actually has some lower-cost items and breakfasts, so we go there a lot. Gallo is a few blocks farther away and we hadn't been there since its grand opening at least several months ago. Why not, we wanted something different, too. Not just a Cheap Eats, I needed to feel indulged.
(How nice to have all these choice in SMA! Back in rural Michigan our choices to go out were McDonald's, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut, Little Caesar's, the bowling alley snack bar, one nice place connected with the only hotel in town, and a greasy Chinese mess. But I could afford to live there on Social Security.)
Gallo means restaurant, and when you walk into the dining area on the left there is a huge vibrant wall painting of a red rooster, all vivid brush strokes. I took a photo of it and later tonight will post a few pictures of that painting and our food items onto Carol's Photos, Food Scenes, in the Photo Gallery of this website. I'll put them on our SMA Jigsaws page, too. The restaurant is on Hernandez Macias in the same block as Romano's and El Bistro something, the over-priced French place.
We split an appetizer, a 55-peso chicken and green chile gordita that was presented beautifully. The two halves were as big as a small sandwich and could have been a meal with one of Gallo's many soup choices.
Norma had San Miguel Cheese Enchiladas, not just your ordinary rolled corn tortillas with some red sauce poured on, but more sophisticated tastes. My meal was a special kind of pork-stuffed tamales steamed in maguey leaves, not corn husks, and also plated very nicely.
None of the dishes was particularly spicy and I ended up pouring hot sauce on mine to be able to taste anything. So I can't tell you how mine tasted, only that it was a feast for the eyes and Norma enjoyed hers. At 75 and 85 pesos, with three diet Cokes, our meal came to 269 pesos. It was worth it. The wait staff are so attentive you do feel special.
(Saturday night Norma made pork red curry for probably 60 pesos total, the best Asian food in town, and she made it so spicy I didn't need more heat.)
After Gallo we walked to the Jardin and enjoyed people-watching. I took some photos there, too, and they will be added to the Jardin scenes photo album. The unemployed mariachis were especially mournful, nobody hiring them that night. We fell in love with the spunkiness of a little white Maltese in a red plaid jacket that reminded us of our old Shih Tzu Lacey. The Maltese was ready to take on a pit bull when its owner finally picked it up.
We took a bus Saturday morning to La Luciernega to see "Sweeney Todd" and wished we hadn't. I wasn't expecting a black comedy musical with continuous spurting blood. After "No Country for Old Men" and "Away from Her" I need fluff, I tell you, fluff. I think I have an "American Idol" taped someplace. Since the writers' strike is over, maybe "Saturday Night Live" is new tonight. I need to vegetate and heal some more.
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
February 22, 2008--Maybe it's the flu, maybe it's a cold
I forgot to add in the SMA Chinese restaurant comments in my blog post below that El Pegaso serves kung pao chicken and a Thai beef salad that are both usually pretty good.
Since Wednesday night I've been battled a bad cold, though I'm never quite sure what the difference is between a cold and the flu. Since the flu is hitting the US so hard and we do keep meeting with people here visiting from the US, I'm not ruling out the flu. I'm avoiding people in the meantime to avoid spreading it.
What is particularly bad is that I can't take any Advil, aspirin or other pain relievers or anti-inflammatories because my second knee replacement is scheduled for March 8 (again with Dr. Schmidt in Queretaro), and my favorite over-the-counter medicines have a side effect of thinning my blood. Even Jamaica tea thins the blood. I had to empty a half-gallon bottle of it when I happened to read that little tidbit on Google. Garlic does, too--Norma's menus are a bit blander than usual these days.
If you read my report of my first knee replacement (one of the last posts in the SMA FAQs section of this website), you remember that I was actually on the operating table last August when the final blood work showed my blood wouldn't coagulate as needed. I had to go home and stay off of Advil as well as aspirin until new lab tests showed I could handle the operation. I don't want to go through that again!
Forewarned, my head is not functioning, this blog entry has very little new, I've already written about most of this over on our forums, to save you some time if you read our forums first.
We did go to Queretaro Monday, taking the economy class Flecha Amarillo bus.The fare was 46 pesos each way, or only 23 pesos with our INAPAM (Mexican senior discount) cards. The ride took 75 minutes each way and was peaceful and fairly smooth. The seats were pretty comfortable, though economy class does not compete with ETN luxury.
The bus only stopped a few times, not at every block as we feared. It does make a stop and pickup in front of Mega. The line runs every 40 minutes during the day. ETN runs only a few times a day, leaving SMA around 7 am and 3 pm, which didn't fit our schedule. We also didn't see any first class Primero Plus buses leaving at the times we needed. We'll have no qualms about using economy class after this trip, at least for fairly short rides.
The reason for our visit was our appointment with a highly recommended opthalmologist: Dr. Manuel Saenz, with offices in Hospital Angeles and also his own at Luis M. Vega 29-3, Colonia Cimaterio (off Constitutientes, a main road in Queretaro). Phone is 01-442-212-1828.
A very thorough office visit with two techs performing all the initial tests for glaucoma, macular degeneration, cataracts, etc., and then half an hour with him was 500 pesos each.
We decided to go to an actual medical doctor for this test because as you age there can be changes in your eyes that don't show up in many optometrists' eye exams done primarily for glasses. At our last eye exams at Optica San Miguel four years ago none of the additional tests were done.
Luckily we did decide to go to an opthalmologist. Turns out I have early stages of a macular hole that must be watched. Most people with this never have any further problems but it can grow into a full-fledged hole and big central blind spot in that eye, though surgery can be performed if any expansion of the hole is caught early enough.
The thought of surgery on my eye is repulsive, but blindness in one eye is more so. So I'm glad we went. He does recommend occasional visits to an eye doctor as you get older to catch these kinds of things.
Norma's eyes, by the way, were perfect, and she can see 20/10 with her new prescription. Mine's 20/30, and if mine goes down to 20/100, or if I start seeing a spot in the center of my vision, it's surgery time. The joys of aging.
Dr. Saenz spoke excellent English, though he chided us for not being more fluent in Spanish after six years here. When we both had to read a paragraph in Spanish as part of our exam for nearsightedness, he changed that to say Norma was the one who needed to do a lot more study. She feels so helpless at not being able to learn the language easier. I complain, too, but she has a much harder time.
We took a few cabs around Queretaro after the exam and feasted on Kosher beef hot dogs when we were making the round of the big box stores. I'm always delightfully surprised when we walk through a store and there's nothing we need.
The Soriana supermarket next to Home Depot was superb, as good as a Wal-Mart Superama, with which it is in direct competition. Soriana bought out the SuperGigante chain to make it more competitive with Walmex, and I had worried that the grocery store in La Luciernega mall would then deteriorate to the level of the very-average Soriana in Dolores Hidalgo.
But if we get anything like the gourmet Soriana from Queretaro, we will be thrilled. Expats have always had the option of driving or bussing to Celaya or Queretaro for major upscale supermarkets and the big box selections and prices. Now average Mexicans in San Miguel have the same choices at Mega and at whatever emerges from the transition from SuperGigante to Soriana at the mall.
And a cab driver gave us further confirmation that one of the Wal-Mart chain stores is being build out by the train station, the other side of the libramiento at the extension of Canal. It will probably be an Aurrera Bodega, one of the lower-end Walmex stores (two in central Celaya predated the big Wal-Mart built on the Celaya outskirts last year).
Or it could be one of the new Aurrera Expresses, that Walmex has announced will be aimed directly at mom and pop grocery stores, which their press release called inefficient and inadequate for poorer Mexicans' shopping needs. Now when those start to pop up in cities across Mexico right next to mom and pop shops, you can really expect some protests.
Cab rides throughout Queretaro averaged 35 pesos. We caught a Flecha Amarillo back at the Queretaro bus station the moment we were dropped off. A Canadian couple headed for four days at the Sierra Nevada also got on the bus and picked our brains on what to see and do in San Miguel--they'd been turned off by the 390-peso price for a cab ride back to SMA. They said the economy bus wasn't half bad.
So then back in SMA we had to find a place to make our glasses. About four years ago friends visiting from Florida said that the titanium frameless polycarbonite glasses with progressives (no-line bifocals) and Transitions automatic sun darkening they'd just bought were more than $650 USD a pair, while we'd just paid under $300 each for the same thing.
Using our new prescriptions from Dr. Saenz, we shopped around at various eyeglass shops in Queretaro first and had found that Devlin's in Queretaro was having a sale on frames, up to 70% off. We decided we'd rather support an SMA shop so we went to the Devlin's in La Luciernega mall across from SuperGigante/Soriana's--but they didn't have the same sale!
Surprise: the English-speaking woman behind the counter said to come to the Devlin's on Zacateras (almost to where it turns into Ancha de San Antonio) at noon the next day and she could give us the best deals there. She is the English speaker for both stores.
We went to the Zacateras store Wednesday before my cold made itself known. We found that the lenses were going to be 3000 pesos for each of us, with all our fancy stuff, but the second frames would be free from selected models. Norma picked out very nice frames for 800 pesos, and mine that would have been 500 pesos were free.
So for 6800 pesos we got two pairs of glasses with all the above features, for about what our friend paid in Florida for one pair four years ago.
The eye exam at Devlin would have been included for free. But as I wrote earlier, it was important to us to have an excellent opthalmologist check out our aging eyes for every possible problem this time.
I don't know what glasses cost these days in the States. Seemed like a good price to us. Those responding on our forums said that 3800 pesos seemed pretty standard for good glasses, though there are online discount optical services that would have made comparable glasses for around $180 each.
How important is it to have an optometrist locate the center of your vision ahead of time on your new frames so that the glasses will be ground to your specifications, and how important is it to have a fitting and have someone knowledgeable spot something that could be wrong? Seems important to us now. In my twenties I would have had no qualms ordering prescription glasses over the internet if it had existed them.
On another topic, a Mexican friend who is a metal worker is making decorative tomato cage-type covers for our new herbs and flowers on our porch. Three of the feral cats in our courtyard have decided our planters make wonderful sleeping perches, especially with all the thick new plantings as their mattresses. We need a return of the Candelaria nursery displays in Parque Juarez!
Carol Schmidt, Falling...in Love with San Miguel de Allende: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security
February 15, 2008--Our Valentine's Day, and the search for the elusive perfect Chinese restaurant
My aunt did remember to pay for our trip to Detroit to see her, or at least half of the expenses, after we'd already recalculated our budget to cover her oversight, so we had some extra money to splurge with.
After going through a dozen favorite places in our planning, we decided to try El Palacio Chino one more time. Norma cooks excellent Chinese and Thai dishes but we didn't feel like cooking today. Last time we went was at least five years ago, and the inconsistency soured us on it forever. But five years is a long time, and we were desperate for Szechuan, so off we went.
We still didn't trust the hot and sour soup, which was just brown gravy five years ago, but we ordered an egg roll and the six steamed dumplings as appetizers.
The dumplings were supposed to be fried, according to the menu, but we preferred them steamed anyway, and that is how they came without our asking, steamed on lettuce leaves as they are supposed to be. 60 pesos.
The wrapping was a bit doughy and thick, but the dumplings were huge and excellent. We added a spoonful of chilis in oil to the soy sauce-based dipping sauce for our own tastes.
The egg rolls (23 pesos) did have thin crispy wrappings and were also very good. The four sauces also included a fruity dip and hot Chinese mustard.
We should have split an entree but we can never agree, and so we have enough carryout for tomorrow's dinner with a salad.
Norma got General Tsao's chicken, excellent, though the platter was swimming in sauce. I ordered the "Happy Family" of pork, beef and chicken with many vegetables, made spicy. It also had too much sauce, and the beef pieces were tough (a very common problem in local restaurants other than those specializing in steaks), but I would certainly order it again. 90 pesos for Norma, 120 for me.
With two diet Cokes the bill was 330 pesos, a splurge for us, but I wonder how many US Chinese restaurants in the heart of tourist cities would have cost so little? (The hole in the wall family restaurants would be cheaper, for sure--I'm talking about the nicer places with a little atmosphere.) And for Valentine's Day the waiter brought us each a red and yellow streaked rose.
Could we manage to not end our evening our favorite way, with the dark chocolate truffle cake and the Velvet Elvis (bananas Foster) at Harry's? No we could not. Harry's was jammed with Valentine's Day diners, and we saw many cute theme desserts going by, little red puddings and decorated creme brulees. My cake arrived with "I Love You" stenciled in cocoa. Another 130 pesos but worth every calorie.
Another wonderful evening in San Miguel.
Tomorrow is leftovers with a big salad.
Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!
Added in the morning--I first typed that the Chinese meal had cost us 265 pesos but it was 330 pesos, looking back and checking my math. Back in my LA PR days, before I developed all my medical problems and lost my insurance, that would have been an average weekday expense account lunch. I used to feel sorry for the retirees getting the senior discount meals off of the Denny's and Country Buffet menus, considering anything over $5 a big outing, and now I are one.
There is a cheaper Chinese restaurant on Zacateras that I loved the first time we went, though Norma was not impressed, and neither of us liked it our second try. Dila's has a range of Asian dishes--the cook is Sri Lankan--but twice Norma's mouth was burned badly by their over use of hot spices, though we indicated we wanted ours medium. It is in the same price range as El Palacio Chino. Consistency again.
And two different Chinese restaurants have opened on Ancha de San Antonio near Stirling Dickinson that looked ve | 
