The Best Laid Plans …

So, yes, I do remember that when I sold my 80-year-old house in Los Angeles a few years ago, I went all Scarlett O’Hara and raised my fist to the sky declaring, “As God is my witness, I’ll never buy an old house again.”  

You tell 'em, girl

I have total recall of how exhilarated I felt when I got rid of most of what I owned, enabling me to fit into a 600-square-foot bungalow near the beach and being all excited because I was unencumbered and light on my feet. And how liberating it was to just call the landlord when the plumbing was acting up.

Further, it’s burned into my psyche that the most miserable I’ve ever been in my life was in the early 90s when I lived in Fawnskin, a tiny community in the San Bernardino Mountains.  After three years I hot-footed it back to Los Angeles, done with solitude, wood fires, shoveling snow and the whole damn mountain woman lifestyle.

Just in case you think I'm
making this up.

A year ago, I wholeheartedly agreed with those friends who said, "Okay, live in Mexico if you must but for heaven’s sake, don’t go and buy a house."

 “Of course not,” I said. “I’m not totally crazy.”

Do you hear God busting a gut right now?

Because what I have gone and done? Why, I’ve bought a 300-year-old colonial house, bigger than anything I’ve ever lived in before, that needs fixing and furnishing and that I’ll likely be working on for the rest of my life.



Looking at my front door from the courtyard.



The washing machine gets filled from a hose with water from an actual garden well, the house is heated only by a wood fire, and in the kitchen there’s a plastic bag duct-taped around the overhead light bulb. I can only guess the rain comes in and since clouds are gathering, I’m sure I’m about to find out. Oh, yes, and it’s in a ghost town 7,500 feet up in the Mexican highlands.

An actual well

But ohmygod, it’s so cool!

The house has bullet holes from the Mexican revolution around the 12-foot high front door, two-foot thick rock walls, and every room has French doors that open to a courtyard with pomegranate, lemon and fig trees; lavender and rosemary; succulents and cacti. Steps lead up to a roof terrace with a stunning view of the church and the town’s picturesque ruins.

My view

Golondrinas have built a nest in the entry way and it currently has babies in it (the seller tells me the swallows come back to the same spot every year). So I’ve named my new home, Casa de la Golondrina.

These sweet golondrina tiles are popular here.
I'd like to score some for my bathroom.

Gulp. This bathroom.

If you haven’t guessed yet, it’s in Pozos. I did lay down clues when I blogged about Pozos some time ago. From the moment I set foot in the town, it was almost an inevitability that I would end up there. I don’t why know; it’s just so. I looked at all the houses I could afford in town and from the moment I walked into this one, it called to me although at first I resisted. I’ve always strongly believed that buying a house is an entirely emotional decision. I’ve experienced it myself before, and I’ve seen it in other peoples’ faces when I’ve been selling. I always knew who would be the one to make an offer on the house.

Pozos rush hour.

Buying a house in Mexico is vastly different than buying in the States. There are no credit scores, mortgage applications, bank appraisals, inspections, termite reports, punch lists, disclosures, escrow, and so on and so forth. Once the buyer and seller have agreed on a price, they go to a notorio: an attorney who specializes in real estate matters. The notorio takes care of some business like a permit for foreigners, title searches and possible liens, camital gains tax if any, and then both parties sign a document that’s kind of a combination contract and deed. The buyer pays minimal closing costs, and then you make an exchange of the money and the keys! My file of paperwork for the sale of my last house in California is six inches thick. This transaction was completed in a five-page document. Of course, without all those inspections and disclosures, you are pretty much buying a pig in a poke.

But it’s so freakin’ cool!

It's really cool.

The next part of this blog is like an academy awards speech in which I thank everyone who helped make this possible. So if you are one of them, read on. If not, go and look at the pictures.

I’d like to thank Pam Ernst, Anthony Perez, and Claudine Rajah at Ameriprise in Santa Monica, California, whose brilliant handling of my retirement funds made it possible for me to take this flyer without feeling like I’ll end up in the poor house. Nick Hamblen was the realtor in Pozos who patiently showed me houses and knew this one was mine even before I did. He also held a luncheon for me at which I met the ex-pat townsfolk (yes, they fit around a table).  Sculptor John Osmond, an early adopter of Pozos, was the first person to take me there and became my go-to guy for all Pozos knowledge. The seller (I’ll respect her privacy but she can identify herself if she wants) entrusted her much loved home to me along with some of her furniture, plants, the golondrinas, and the home’s welcoming spirits (um, what now …?). Mario Ortiz at Golden Bear Moving went above and beyond anything expected of him to get my belongings out of storage in California even to meeting my brother, Jimmy, at a truckstop to pick up some additional pieces of furniture to transport to Mexico so that I’ll have my meager amount of much loved stuff in my new house very shortly. And finally, Eleanor Piazza, whom I brazenly made my sounding board about buying a house although it meant I would be vacating her casita. She good-naturedly even went looking at houses with me!

Come back next week when I'll be taking an up-close and personal look at buyer’s remorse.

My Love Affair with Mexico Continues

Ever since I moved to Mexico about 10 months ago, I’ve been trying to figure out why I immediately felt so at home in here. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s due to a combination of factors.

Oddly, it reminds of where I grew up in Africa. But it’s not quite so strange when you realize that San Miguel de Allende is roughly the same latitude north as Bulawayo is south: both are 20 degrees from the equator. Both are also situated on high plains although at 6,500 ft, San Miguel is a 1,000 feet higher; and both are land-locked. So the climate is quite similar: hot summers relieved by thunder storms and winters with dry, sunny days but cold nights. And that means that much of the flora and fauna are also familiar.

These aloes grow here.
In Africa we called them red hot pokers

Jacaranda and acacia trees, cascading bougainvillea, cacti and aloes, plumbago, and frangipane all populated the landscape of my youth as they do here.  We used to eat the big, orange-colored papayas – we called them pawpaws –  mangos, passion fruit, and loquats. Occasionally, when I walk through the market, I’ll catch the scent of guavas and be instantly transported. The same applies when I hear doves croo-crooing and crickets chirping (but I could do without the damn mosquitoes!).  Often I’ll be driving along a country road with a narrow strip of paving and red dirt on either side cutting through a largely empty, arid landscape with hills on the horizon and get a momentary flash that I’m back in Africa.

Both places also have small groups of ex-pats existing within much larger host populations. Apparently, wherever the people come from and wherever they land, exp-pat communities share the same characteristics: They’re seething caldrons of adventuresome (sometimes, lost) souls; gossip, scandal, do-gooding, entrepreneurship, nostalgia, comradeship, and cobbled together surrogate family groups.

An ex-pat Christmas. Who wouldn't feel at home?
Thanks, Ruth and Collier.

If the state of Guanajuato reminds me of Africa, the 600-year-old city of San Miguel de Allende, on the other hand, is totally reminiscent of Europe.  You could pick it up and drop in onto a Greek Island or the hills of Tuscany and it could blend right in. And there’s one street that every time I turn into it, I feel like I’m in a London mews with its narrow, cobblestone streets, brick row houses, ironwork and greenery.

San Miguel de Allende
or London Mews?

Another reason for my comfort here is that I lived for 30 years in Los Angeles, where 40 percent of the population is Hispanic. You can’t help but absorb some of the language and culture when you’re that immersed in it. California, of course, used to be Mexico, so Spanish names abound – both of people and places. That gave me an ear for correct pronunciation, although it doesn’t always come out of my mouth the way I hear it in my head!  

Sometimes, too, I feel not so much that I came to a foreign country, but that I went back a couple of decades to a time I lived through once before. That’s not to suggest for a minute that Mexico is “backward.” On the contrary. It’s just that socially people aren’t as reliant on technology, even though they do have it. Occasionally, you’ll see a teenager with those little white buds in his ear or someone walking along the street talking on an iPhone but it’s the exception rather than the rule. I see kids kicking balls around in the street in the evening after school (they all wear uniforms to school, just as I did) and families going out together for dinner or at weekends.  

You get service here like you did in by-gone times. A service station truly is. The attendant pumps your gas, washes your windshield, and offers to check your oil, water, and tire pressure. And it’s easy to find people skilled in the likes of dressmaking or carpentry. Neighbors make elaborate home-cooked meals from scratch and raise chickens in their back yards. There's also a refreshing lack of regulation and political correctness.

Dog on the pharmacy counter:
how quickly would the health
inspector be there in the US!

But I’d be doing a grave disservice to Mexico if I didn’t point out that all these reason put together are only a small part of the picture. I love Mexico because it’s Mexico.  It’s stumbling across a procession of people dressed as Aztecs carrying a crucifix; looking off my patio and seeing a string of burros walking down the street; the guy playing a guitar and singing on the bus; the mariachis in el jardin in those tight pants!; the fish tacos at La Sirena Gorda; strangers in a restaurant wishing you buen provecho; the graciousness of the Mexicans when faced with my atrocious Spanish; and generally the immense kindness shown to strangers.

The only people who should ever wear
skinny jeans.

I could go on but at risk of sounding like a tourist bureau brochure. So suffice it to say that I’m now so love-struck with Mexico that I've changed my status from tourist to resident. I no longer have to make a run to the border every six months to renew my visa. Also, I can bring in my household belongings – few as they are –without paying import duties.

Which is a good thing, because oh, yes; I bought a house.

Mi Casa es Su Casa?

Since I moved to San Miguel de Allende 10 months ago, I’ve lived in my adorable casita. It was a find on the Guanajuato Craigslist and I took it sight unseen.  

My casita patio off the kitchen

Happily, the gamble paid off and both the casita and Eleanor, above whose house it’s situated, provided me a soft landing in Mexico.  The one-bedroomed casita with it's georgous patio was immediately home and Eleanor has been a font of invaluable help and information about living in Mexico (not to mention a supreme maker of margaritas!)

The casita came furnished and fully loaded, so I didn’t need to bring a lot of stuff with me. This enabled me to travel light: driving down from California with just a couple of suitcases and my little dog Henry. On account of me being Miss Adaptability – a veteran of four continent, five country, ten city,  and approximately 27 house moves – those suitcases contained just enough of what I needed it make any place home. My Bhutanese Buddha tapestry went up on the wall behind the sofa and my red silk drapes in the bedroom.

Buddha presiding over my living room

I whipped out my candles, photographs, a few special books, favorite mug, and French press coffee maker and supplemented them with finds from the flea market and yard sales; and voila, a nest.

The sun coming in through my bedroom window
wakes me up in the morning

I also fell in love with the neighborhood: Fraccionamiento Insurgentes.  Just a short number nine bus ride from el centro, it’s a world away from the lovely but bustling tourist mecca that is San Miguel. As much as I catch my breath every time I see the parrochia or stumble across one of the daily parades or fiestas, I’m equally happy when I crest the hill on the outskirts of town and feel the temperature drop 10 degrees and see the open rolling hills, vast sky, and little white-domed church in my neighborhood. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remind myself that I actually live here and don't have to go back to the rat race next week!

Aztecs and architecture: just another day in
San Miguel de Allende

There are no traffic sounds or overhead jets, so it’s quiet here, too. Except, that is, for the tweeting birds, barking dogs, copulating cats, crowing roosters, church bells, gurgling fountain, thunder storms, and frequent fireworks. But hey, that's just Mexico.

I recently met a gringa, married to a Mexican man, who also lives in Insurgentes. Now Eleanor and I can no long boast that we’re the only ones in the area. I suspect the locals regard us as the thin end of the wedge and are secretly thinking, "there goes the neighborhood." Nevertheless, they treat us with immense kindness. Eva, the lady who runs the laundry, always greets me with a toothy grin and a torrent of very fast Spanish that I nod and smile at. Saul, the guy who makes the best longanisa tacos, will bring them to the door if you call him up with an order. And his wife, Marie, who runs a little clothing shop not only loaned us some of her display racks for our yard sale but had them delivered.  

Our yard sale looked very professional
with Marie's display racks

A few days ago, Eleanor bought a piece of furniture from a consignment store - a lovely painted cabinet - that I brought back in my car. She corralled Adrien, a teenager from a few doors down to help us unload it. He spurned my attempts to take one end, hoisted it on his shoulder, and staggered into the house with it. When Eleanor offered him a tip for a cafecita or a coca, he politely declined it. He had enough money right now, he said.

The beautiful painted cabinet that
Adrien hauled in on his shoulder

I’ll miss all of this tremendously when I move out in a few weeks on to my next adventure, but whoever takes over my casita will be a very lucky person indeed for however long they are here.

How I Went Looking for Jesus on a Donkey and Ended Up a Mexican Movie Star

It started with a weekend road trip to Uruapan in the state of Michoacán, about 160 miles from San Miguel de Allende. I went with my friend, Eleanor, and we were planning to rendezvous with other friends who were going to the same destination by bus. We were all headed for the wonderful annual crafts fair there.



Ceramics at the crafts fair



Michoacán is the headquarters of La Familia drug cartel that has a penchant for beheading people. But it was the beginning of Holy Week, which is a big deal in Mexico. People spend a lot of time in church and in religious processions so we figured the narco traffickers would be too busy with all that to be committing mass homicide.

I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again: I love driving in Mexico. We sped south on the magnificent toll roads, mainly through immaculate farm land and occasional marshes that are home to otherworldly white herons.  We only had one uncomfortable moment when we thought we’d missed the by-pass around Morelia, the state capital. So we stopped at a gas station and asked two handsome and kind young men for directions. They led us in their pick-up truck to the on-ramp and waved us off with dazzling smiles.

The road climbed even higher into the Sierras then as we approached Uruapen dropped sharply down into a sub-tropical climate zone. Wending our way through the outskirts of the city I almost ran a couple of red lights as I’ve been living in a town with no traffic lights for the last nine months.  We checked into the fancy-pants Plaza Hotel (a whopping $52 a night each for bed and full buffet breakfast) and it was a good choice as it was on the square where the crafts fair was happening.

Lunch was first on our agenda and we certainly earned it. To get to the restaurant we had in mind, we hiked the length of the stunning national park that starts on the edge of the city and scales a large hill. It was lush with tropical foliage and waterfalls around every bend.

A waterfall in the park

Sweaty and low on blood sugar we finally reached the Urani Restaurant and plopped down at an outdoor table overlooking the park. Uruapen claims to be the avocado capital of the world and the macadamia nut capital of Mexico so we leaned into that: guacamole, macadamia encrusted fresh local trout with jicama and mango salad and cappuccino ice cream.  

Macademia nut encrusted trout.

The rest of the afternoon we made a start on the overwhelming display of beautiful craftwork and gaped at the gorgeous women in their ethnic costumes and waist-length hair. We topped off the day downing margaritas in the hotel bar with our friends from San Miguel.



Stunning fine embroidery work by these women



The next morning the big adventure began. This being Palm Sunday and knowing how Mexicans love a parade – especially a religious one - I was convinced there was going to be a procession with a man dressed as Jesus “riding into Jerusalem” on a donkey. I can’t get enough of that kind of thing so we left the hotel early and headed to the cathedral on the plaza. The entire sidewalk was lined with women making and selling intricate palm weavings to be taken into the church and blessed. I grew up Catholic and we always had a simple cross made from palm fronds but I’d never seen anything like this.

Women weaving palm fronds outside the cathedral

There was also a professional looking film crew setting up outside the church so I was more convinced than ever that Jesus was imminent. As we were hanging around a young woman with a clipboard approached us and explained that the crew was making a promotional film for the Mexican tourist board and would we be in it? “Hot damn, yes,” we said without hesitation. Next thing, my hair was being primped and we were being given our instructions by the handsome director, Sergio.

Our director, Sergio

Eleanor was at the bottom of a short flight of steps and I was at the top. We were both supposed to be buying the palm thingies and interacting with the women making them.  There was a camera dolly set up and when Sergio yelled “action” the camera rolled along the sidewalk as Eleanor and I crouched down and “bought” palms. It was all fairly simple but in true movie fashion we did take after take for over an hour.

My vendor, though a beautiful looking woman, was quite surly. I tried desperately to talk to her but she simply scowled at me. I learned later that this commotion was preventing her from selling her wares so I felt bad for her.

My "co-star" wouldn't crack a smile or even tell me her name

I was quite jealous because Eleanor, on the other hand, was having a wonderful interaction with her co-star. And the woman turned out to be a psychic who was telling Eleanor all about her life as they acted out the charade!

After it was finally a wrap and the releases were signed, we realized we didn’t have that long to take in the enormous craft fair so I sadly gave up any idea of seeing Jesus that day and we headed into the mass of tented booths in the middle of plaza. (And where, incidentally, Eleanor took the photo of me that I’ve made my new profile picture.)  As we were trolling the aisles full of ceramics and lacquer work and embroidered clothing, I heard singing.  It was the parade!  I knew it. Abandoning Eleanor, I took off bobbing and weaving through the packed crowd to the perimeter of the plaza where I thought the parade was headed. Nooooo! I missed Jesus! All I caught were the apostles as they headed into the church.

I missed Jesus!

Oh, well. This is only the beginning of holy week. We have a packed few days to come of a bloody and beaten Jesus dragging the cross from church to church – in some cases, town to town – as he’s flogged and then strung up on the cross (seriously, I’m not kidding about this). I’m truly sorry I didn’t catch him on his last good day, but in compensation, I finally became the movie star I knew I was destined to be when I was eight years old.

The Magic of Pozos

So picture this scenario. You’ve driven close to an hour to a remote ghost town 7,500 feet up in the Mexican alto plano with a couple of friends. You park and get out of the car. As you breathe in the crystalline air you realize an odd sound is encroaching on the silence – and it’s coming from your car. The engine is running. In one sickening moment you realize that your engine can only run with the keys in the ignition and you distinctly remember locking the car door from the inside when you got out. That’s what happened to me on Saturday.

All the facts are true; but that’s only part of the story.

We were in Pozos: to use its full name, Mineral de Pozos (Mineral Wells). It is a ghost town but not the kind you typically see in Westerns, with a saloon, a jail, and hitching posts.

The area is rich in minerals and since 1540 has had a checkered boom-and-bust history as a succession of peoples have exploited its silver and gold. By the late 1800s, there were reportedly 500 mining operations fueling a city of more than 70,000 people. It was the first city in the region to have a railway and electricity and boasted a “model school.” But the early 20^th century dealt Pozos a one/two punch as the Mexican Revolution siphoned off workers and then disastrous floods rendered many mines unworkable. The wealthy mine owners packed up their picks and shovels and abandoned the place.

An Abandoned Mine

Now the hills are strewn with their detritus. There are hundreds of fabulous stone ruins of mining operations, haciendas, homes of the wealthy and poor alike; and municipal edifices in various states of decay and reclamation by nature.

Nature Gets Back

The fabled railway station and model school are massive hollow shells: the first for sale and the latter reportedly sold for developing into some kind of art school: because a place so historic and hauntingly beautiful cannot stay forsaken for long.

The Old Railway Station (it could be yours)

Consequently, Pozos is now experiencing yet another renaissance. Some years ago, it was put on the National Registry of Landmarks. A few charming bed and breakfast inns and restaurants have been fashioned from the ruins and the town square has been spruced up. A lavender farm as been established by a group of women. The population has crept up to about 2,000, about 200 of whom are ex-pat Americans and Europeans.

I was taken there for the first time a few months ago by renowned Australian sculptor, John Osmond, who lived in Pozos for 15 years, and who provided an invaluable guide to the history and people of the town.

John Osmond and one of his sculptures

Those who have gravitated towards the rarified air of the ghost town tend to be of a more pioneering and intrepid ilk even than those who land in near-by San Miguel de Allende. Understandably, many of them are artists.

And that brings us back to the story. Barbara, Wendy and I were in Pozos for an art walk. The little town was packed as buses had been laid on from San Miguel. There were 12 official galleries on the map, but it seems like many other places participated. We stopped in on the family that makes pre-Columbian musical instruments; the women’s collective that dresses dolls in traditional Mexican costumes; and the roadside stand selling local crystals and geodes.

Entrance to one of thegalleries in a fixed-up building

The three of us enjoyed a leisurely lunch and a margarita at the posh Hotel Posada de las Minas before getting back on the art route. The last stop of the day was at a remote gallery – an artist’s studio actually – a little way out of town. We bumped along a barely-there road and pulled up outside the small stone building. That’s where I locked my keys in the car

Almost simultaneous with realizing what I’d done, the following thoughts flashed though my mind: this is the worst possible place this could have happened; I’m an idiot; why did I even lock the car in such a remote place; I’m an idiot; I’ve stranded two other people out here in the wilds and we’re all going to die; I’m an idiot; I should call John Osmond and ask who in Pozos could help me but none of us has a phone plus I don’t have his number with me; I’m an idiot; the only way out of this is to break a window. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed. Barbara, who is lovely and gracious and with the hint of a South Carolina drawl turned out to be the epitome of a Steel Magnolia. The only saving grace was she and I both had left our front seat windows open by a couple of inches. While I swung on mine with all my weight in a futile effort to push it down further (well done, Toyota), she went into the studio and asked the artist in residence if she had a coat hanger. As chance would have it, the artist actually had brought a change of clothes with her from her house for later that night and her dress was on a wire hanger. Barbara straightened it out, got it through the window and with me guiding her – down a bit, to the left a bit – actually managed to unlock the door! Thank goodness I have an old car; it wouldn’t have been possible with a more sophisticated lock. The entire incident had transpired in less than ten minutes.

Giddy with relief I twirled my keys on my finger and joked that this had happened because Pozos didn’t want me to leave. Indeed, like many places rich in minerals and crystals, Pozos seems to exert a strange magnetism that you feel either drawn to or repelled by. I’ve been drawn there five times now, twice this week alone and once by accident when I was on my way to somewhere else!

Stay tuned.

You Don't Need a Weatherman ...

San Miguel de Allende is one of those places that draws boasts from people who live here about having the perfect climate. Although it’s in the tropics, it’s also at 6,400 feet so altitude cancels out latitude. Most of the year it’s warm to hot during the day; cool to cold at night. There is a distinct dry season when the sky is an impossible cobalt every day; and a rainy season when it clouds up building to late afternoon thunderstorms.



The thin air and clear days equal crazy blue skies



It’s perhaps a good thing that the weather is so predictable, because we don’t have a six local TV stations with dedicated weathermen giving us blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute up-dates on what’s going on right outside our windows. If I want to know if I should put on a jacket in the morning when I walk my little dog Henry, I stick an arm out of the door.

I’d recommend this technique to those people (and I’ve met many) who complain bitterly because forecasters sometimes understate the anticipated high temperature by a couple of degrees or the estimated arrival of rain by a few hours. “Those weathermen are so useless,” they whine.

Are you freakin’ kidding me?

There was a time when people had to depend on the color of the sky, grandma’s arthritic knee, or some old fisherman’s ability to smell a storm on the wind to know if one was blowing in. Even if they got it right, they had no idea of the intensity or exact time of arrival. People died in droves when they were caught off-guard by a hurricane or torrential rains that resulted in a flooded river.      

Livingstone, the African town where I spent my early childhood, had a tropical climate: hot, humid, and given to spectacular thunderstorms that dumped an average of 30 inches of rain a year on the region. The rain fell in summer and it would usually come as a blessed relief right after the most blistering part of the year. “Long term forecasting” meant we could literally see a storm coming from a distance. When we spotted the steel gray curtain reaching from the sky to the horizon line, shot by jagged streaks of lightening, my mother and I would sit on the veranda and hope—pray—the storm was moving our way.

As it approached, we’d watch its progress with anticipation tinged with a little fear. First we’d begin to hear the rumble of thunder, becoming louder and more synched to the lightning as it neared. Next we’d catch a whiff of the unmistakable smell of rain wetting the parched, red earth. The sky would darken as we heard the sound of the fat drops first drumming on the hard ground and the broad leaves of the pawpaw and mango trees. Then it was overhead, pounding on the corrugated tin roof. Often the lightning struck trees or wire fences outside the door and the thunder rattled both the windows and our nerves. The storms were fast moving and they’d pass over within minutes.

That was a typical year. But there were times when no rain came and we went into drought mode. Other years we’d get more than usual rain. The hydroelectric power plant located in a Zambezi River gorge at the foot of the Victoria Falls would flood and we’d be without power for weeks.

The Victoria Falls in full flood: the power station
was down below in the gorge

We had no television and got only crackly radio signals from the BBC World Service so weather reports were not part of our lives. Consequently, most people were caught flat-footed, without sufficient supplies of kerosene for their Tilley Lamps or dry fuel for fires to cook on.

This was the early 1950s. But even in later in the 60s, when I lived in England, we used to get weather forecasts from ships at sea sent by Morse code. If you carefully turned the dial—yes, the dial—on the radio, you could sometimes pick up the signal: dah, di di di, dah. Weather balloons, telegraphs, and human weather observers were about as technical as it got.

Now we’ve got weather satellites, Doppler Radar, and long-range computer forecasting. We can have an idea by October if it’s going to be a wet December by the temperature of the ocean currents. We can plan a weekend picnic on Wednesday with some assurance that it’s going to be sunny on Saturday.

Think about it. There’s this bucket of bolts and wires and some special kind of camera up in space circling the planet and letting us know whether to take an umbrella to work the next day.



This picture was taken just about when I was
writting this blog! Wow!


When I lived in Southern California, the weathermen would tell us four days out that a storm was on its way. I’d sit on the sofa in my living room watching pictures from space on TV of the big, white swirling mass out in the Pacific Ocean and a computer simulation of how it’s projected to come ashore north of us and travel down the coast bringing two to four inches of rain, depending on whether you live on the coastal plain or in the mountains. When we’d had fires over the summer, leaving mountain sides denuded and prone to mud slides and flash floods, people who lived in those areas would strategically place sand-bags and build drainage channels. And can you imagine the chaos if nobody had known how severe the recent blizzard of the century was going to be? This is something we wouldn’t have had opportunity to know in the dark ages, say about the time I was sitting on an African veranda, storm watching.

Personally, I think being able to forecast the weather so accurately is a nothing short of a miracle. So they’re not100 percent correct all the time. That’s because all the sophisticated equipment in the world can’t second guess Nature: she’s one capricious, perverse, moody mother.

This whole weather thing is just illustrative of what a bunch of entitled bellyachers we’ve become as life has gotten easier, more comfortable, and a whole lot safer. Even as we complain that all the technology that serves our lives doesn’t work well enough to make us unequivocally happy, we simultaneously bemoan a “simpler” time when we weren’t the proverbial slave to it all.

You know, the “simple” life hasn’t actually gone anywhere. You just have to shut off your computer, turn off the TV, take the plugs out of your ears, and sit on the veranda. Or take a walk. But remember to take an umbrella just in case: you won’t know if it’s going to rain.     

The Zen of Underpants

Ever since I moved to San Miguel de Allende, I’ve begun to appreciate the art of doing nothing.  I don’t mean in the formal sense like meditating. Nor do I mean in the Seinfeld sense of making a big to-do out of daily trivia. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say the art of not doing anything in particular.

I have three favorite places in which I practice this high-powered inertia. The first is the jardin, San Miguel's town square bordered by the rose colored parroquia, side-walk cafes, and vendors selling everything from fresh fruit to dried flowers. I go into town a few days a week to pick up my mail. Then I head for the jardin and take up residence on one of the wrought iron benches in the sun or in the shade of one of the manicured laurel trees, depending on the day. I get through my mail, mostly junk forwarded from the states, pretty quickly. Then I just sit there.

The parroquia bellringers don't do anything
in particular between bonging out the hour

Lots of other people just sit there, too. There are locals, gringos, young, old, single people, couples. Occasionally, some over-achiever will strum a guitar. But it’s the little kids who are truly unclear on the concept. Apparently unaware that they could be home sitting in front of the TV doing nothing, they rebelliously play with balloons and bubble makers or other low-tech toys.

Their parents sit watching them: not talking on the phone, listening to their iPods, texting, or tweeting. What’s the world coming to?

The second place I don’t do anything in particular is the local botanical gardens. I tend to picture Kew in England and the Huntington in California when I think botanical gardens: formal, pretty, landscaped. But El Charco del Ingenio is more of a large, enclosed wilderness area. A nature reserve with three different zones – high desert, canyon, and wetlands – it’s home to lots of waterfowl and is a winter stopover for Northern birds. One of these days I’m going to take the Audubon tour so I can learn to identify all the vibrantly colored birds that I see darting among the cacti, but that would be doing something. Right now, I go there an hour before sunset and just walk.

I suppose walking is technically doing something. But I’m not also wearing a pedometer or heart rate monitor, one of which I would always have on when I walked in California, where walking had a purpose. My favorite route in El Charco is along the banks of the presa, the man-made lake.  Ducks are great at not doing anything in particular. They just … float. When I get to the dam wall, I walk out along it and stand in the middle, facing the canyon and watching the setting sun get all crazy on the horizon.  I saw a beautiful fox doing the same there once.

When that gets too hectic, I switch to the lake side and wait for the big fly-over. At dusk, the water fowl take to the skies as one.  Hundreds of them head off towards the north, the whirring of their beating wings breaking the silence.  I don’t know where they’re going; probably to the big lake on the other side of town where they tuck in for the night, exhausted by all that floating.

The third place I don’t do anything in particular is the roof terrace of my casita. This is dangerous territory because it’s in such close proximity to where I should be doing something; namely working at my computer.  I can see it from where I write, and it exerts a strong pull. Sometimes I just gaze out there looking for inspiration then figure if I'm not doing much I may just as well be out there as in here.  

There are a number of different seating options and views on the terrace. Sitting one way, I can commune with the neighbor’s dog, Carmela, who recently had a litter of puppies so we know what she’s been doing.

Sitting another way, I can watch the full moon come up over the wall.

Sometimes, though, I just watch my neighbor’s underpants drying in the breeze.