Of Elevens and Pennies

When I was a kid, I commandeered the number 11. I declared it my favorite number, and for some reason, felt warmly attached to it. Perhaps it was the pleasing three-syllable word, sounding a little like elfin, or maybe it was the look of the figure, the symmetry of the two ones. In any event, whenever I was asked to “pick a number” or ascribe a number to anything, it was always 11. Eleven was “my” number.

Jump forwards a few decades. From editing a book for a numerologist, I learned that 11 is regarded by many as a master, even magical, number.  For the purposes of their trade, most numerologists reduce numbers down to a single digit. For example, 176 would be reduced to 14 and then again to 5. Except for 11; it stays as is.  In some interpretations, 11 represent balance; in others a gateway. By all accounts, it’s a good thing to have in your life.

My birthday falls on the 29^th of the month, so based on all of this, it turns out 11 actually is significant for me. At the time I was working on the book, I lived in a house in the Mt. Washington area of Los Angeles. The last two digits of my house number were 65; the last two digits of my zip code were 65; and the last two digits of the phone number randomly assigned to me by the phone company were 65. I just thought it was an amusing co-incidence. I started to incorporate the numbers 11, 29, and 65 into all my pin numbers and pass codes.

I also was vaguely aware that there was something called the 11:11 phenomenon. People all over the world claimed that they saw this number with unusual frequency. I thought it sounded a bit silly, but truth be known, since I regarded 11 as my personal number I was mildly miffed that I was not privy to this.

That is until a couple of months ago.

Then it started. Suddenly I began to see 11, 11:11 or even bigger multiples of the number everywhere I looked. I’m not kidding; everywhere.  Yes, it seemed to be 11 minutes passed the hour whenever I looked at the clock, but it was way more than that. Here’s just one example I caught with my camera. I was sitting in a coffee shop and glanced at the building across the street. There were two number 11s on the one wall.

You could put this down to what some people call “red car syndrome” where you see a red car of a certain make and then notice it everywhere. I believe in the psychological world it’s called perceptual vigilance, where your attention is drawn to things you are interested in. That could well be the case some of the time, but there have been too many weird occurrences that seem to fall outside of that explanation.

For example; before I went out for the night on New Year’s Eve, I checked my blogger dashboard to see how many hits my blog had had. The tally for the year was 111111 and the post with the most hits for that day had 111. Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast of NPR’s Morning Edition while I did some chores. It stopped broadcasting as occasionally happens if the internet goes woozy. But instead of coming back on in a few seconds, it stayed off. I went to look to see if I could click it back into action. The little slider thing that tells you how much time has elapsed was stuck at 11:11. When I glanced at the time in the corner of my screen it was 11:11. And oh yes, the date was 1:11. It is kind of strange; no?

It’s not the first time something like this has happened to me. There was the case I refer to as pennypalooza. For a few months before I left my California home and moved to Mexico, I found a one-cent coin almost every time I left the house. I would be walking Henry and glance down and see a penny at my feet. Or I’d take the trash out and find one in front of the dumpster. They would be next to where my car was parked. Once, I found one as I walked across a grocery store parking lot. I dropped it into the little plate on the checkout counter that had a sign saying “Leave a penny; take a penny” and promptly found another while walking back to my car.

The incident that really made my hair stand on end was when I'd been out for a short while and came home to find a penny that hadn’t been there when I left, on my doorstep. I had not told a soul about what was happening with the pennies so no one had put it there just to mess with me. And I lived in a gated complex of just three units. The people in other two homes were at work all day so only I was around. Even the mailman and delivery people couldn’t get in without someone to open the gate. I could think of no rational way that penny could have got there. I actually started to wonder if I was having some kind of psychotic breakdown and was dropping the pennies for myself to find!

I saved the coins in a jar. When I was packing up to move to Mexico I decided to cash them in at one of those Coinstar machines that they have in supermarkets. Just for fun, I thought I’d buy lottery tickets with the money. I went to two stores and the machines were both out of order. So I put the bag of pennies in my glove compartment and gave them no more thought once I got caught up in the frenzy of moving. Until I started writing this, I had forgotten they were there. I just found the bag under all the papers and other stuff that accumulates in the glove compartment. Here they are.

There’s a tendency to want to find some meaning or message to things like this. Is the Universe trying to tell me something?  If so, what the heck is it? There’s no point in the 11s and the pennies having significance if I don’t know what it is. That’s just plain frustrating. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s just odd co-incidence; maybe synchronicity.

Oh, wait a minute. Eleven’s made up of two ones and a penny is a one-cent coin. Perhaps it’s number one  that’s haunting me ... ? 

Okay: After typing that last sentence, I looked to see what the word count was for this blog and this is what I saw. Hand on my heart, I did not arrange this. Now I'm all creeped out again.

San Miguel de Allende: The City of Fallen Women Part II

A while back, I wrote about how San Miguel de Allende is known as the "city of fallen women" because its picturesque but lethal cobblestone streets and wonky sidewalks have brought many a virtuous woman to her knees. Well, it was only a matter of time, right?

The story of my fall from grace is not without some high irony. I was in San Miguel for the day from Mineral de Pozos to attend a birthday lunch for a game old girl who was turning 97.  Marie lives alone except for week day help on the outskirts of Pozos and has more energy and enthusiasm for life than most people I know a quarter of her age. She collects art, gardens, and is engaged in politics. So of course she was going to have a birthday party.

There must be something in the water in this part of Mexico; either that or it attracts a lot of Americanos with great genes because in my 60s, I was the “kid” in the room. I probably brought the average age down to about 80. And let me tell you, these geezers can really knock them back. The martinis, margaritas, and wine were flowing in abundance. As a general rule I don’t drink during the daytime because it leaves me sleepy and headachy, plus I had to get back to Pozos; so as well as being the youngest person in the room, after a while I was the only sober one.

I was a bit concerned about how some of these sweet old dears, who were half in the bag, were going to get home and was feeling a bit responsible for their safty. But that turned out to be hubris, since I was the one who ended up ignominiously sprawled all over the street on leaving the party.

Yeah, image cracking your skin on this curb.

I’m not quite sure how it happened: usually you don’t know in these cases. One minute I was upright, the next I was pitching forward and landing with my left shin on the curb. I’m not going to blame my trusty Birkenstocks because I wear them all the time without mishap.

As I sat on Calle Potranca clutching my shin with tweety birds flying in a circle around my head, all I could think was, oh no, I’ve done it again!

Several years ago I was on a hiking vacation on Vancouver Island in British Columbia (which, incidentally, is one of my favorite places on the planet). I was walking slacked jawed through the stunning old growth forest not paying a lot attention to where I placed my feet, when I lost my footing, rolled down a slope, and landed with my right shin wrapped around a moss-covered boulder.

Breathtaking Vancouver Island

You know how much it hurts when you hit your shin on the coffee table? Multiply that by infinity. That incident resulted in an ambulance ride to the emergency room and all I can say about that is, “yay for Canadian socialized medicine." I had to shell out a whopping $104 Canadian for all that treatment. It also necessitated a premature return to Los Angeles. That left me deeply disappointed as the next day I was scheduled to have the renowned afternoon tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria. 

The world famous afternoon tea at the Empress in Victoria

Although I do have to say that the ride through the airport in a wheelchair, early boarding, and a bulkhead seat were some small compensation. After I got home, I spent days on excellent painkillers; weeks on crutches; and months in physical rehab.

But, painful as it was, I hadn’t inflicted anything like that kind of damage this time. I had a nasty scrape and in subsequent days my lower leg turned from black and blue to green and yellow. I might have nicked a bone because I still have a small painful lump on my shin that jars a bit when I walk. All told, though, it was just another day in colonial Mexico.

The following week I had a little birthday tea party for Marie and her Pozos girlfriends at my house. Not as impressive as the Empress, I'm sure, but a good time was had by all. And this time there was no booze and everyone managed to stay on their feet.  I’m sure Marie probably found the whole event very tame.

Marie, bottom left, at her 97th birthday tea at my house

A Pozos Story

So it was Karen’s birthday party and the town got together and decided to surprise her by turning it into a 60s theme. We all dressed up in hippie drag.

That's Mary Jane and Janice Representing

And we made 60s-style food: chicken and pineapple skewers; mac and cheese from a box; chicken wings and blue cheese dressing; onion soup and sour cream dip with potato chips; devilled eggs; three bean salad, and Ritz Crackers.

Oh, and brownies.

Despite the rainy weather, a grand time was had by all (well, except perhaps for Billy Ray but the less said about that incident the better).

The most memorable moment was when Pablo presented his wife with a birthday gift. It was a big box that he suggested she set on the ground before unwrapping it.

And when Karen opened it; up popped a chicken. It was Rudy!

The story is that Rudy was a stray rooster who hung out in their garden. Karen fed and named him. And then a few days prior to the party, he disappeared. Pablo checked around to find out if anyone had seen the missing fowl. He discovered – shock, horror! – that their neighbors had sold Rudy to a cock fighting operation.

Demonstrating that he’s up for husband of the year, Pablo found them, bought Rudy back, and brought him home to Karen. Everyone was thrilled, not the least of which was Rudy who hopped onto a wall and crowed loudly.

Sweet!

The New Elizabethans

Last month saw the 60^th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne of England. I know I’m late to the party in acknowledging this, but since I don’t have television here in Mineral de Pozos, I pretty much missed the whole hoop-la. Besides, I come from a family that is not, shall we say, big time monarchists. Our working class roots run too deep, our Irish blood is too thick, and we lean a little too much to the left to really get into the spirit of a royal wing-ding.

I’m not quite as vehemently opposed to the royal family as others. I tend to think of royalty as a bit like the English version of Disneyland: they bring in tourist dollars; they are efficient at putting on great costume parades; and they have it all over Disney in that they have real castles and princesses. I can’t help thinking England would be a lot drabber without them. It does cheese me off, though; that Prince Charles (above right with his mum), who was born the same year as me, hasn’t even started his real job yet while I’ve been toiling away for the last 45 years.

Eat it Disney!

That said; I am enjoying one thing that came out of the whole jubilee to-do and that is listening to a terrific series of programs on BBC Radio 4 called The New Elizabethans. They’re doing a 15-minute broadcast every day (I get the pod-casts) for 60 days about British and British Commonwealth people who impacted the world during the 60 years of the queen’s reign.  

They started with Sir Edmund Hillary, who reached the summit of Everest with Norgay Tenzing  at the end of May 1953, but the announcement wasn’t made until the morning of June 2^nd, the queen’s coronation day.

The Queen may have gotten a crown; but Tenzing and Hillary got cool decorations from the Kingdom of Nepal

Others are from the worlds of the arts: Alfred Hitchcock, Laurence Olivier, Harold Pinter, Doris Lessing, and Francis Bacon, for instance.  Inevitably, they’re covering Lennon and McCartney, but more surprisingly, David Bowie. These are all people I know something about, but I’ve been really blown away by hearing about people I had no idea had affected the world in the way they did.

One is Richard Doll, who made the connection between smoking and lung cancer. Others are Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web; and Cicely Saunders, who founded the hospice movement.

Tim Berners-Lee: thanks, dude, wouldn't be here without you.

I’m a little alarmed to see Simon Cowell coming up later to the exclusion of people like Mary Quant and Vidal Sassoon, who radically changed the way Brits (and the rest of the world) looked during this time. I’m sure Anita Roddick of The Body Shop is worthy, but why not Laura Ashley, who created a global clothing and decor empire? Probably everyone can come up with exclusions that irk them, but on the whole, it’s fascinating listening.

This all got me to thinking that my own life-span pretty much corresponds with the queen’s reign. She and her family have been background noise for as long as I can remember. One of my very earliest memories, when I was three, was walking with my mother in Salford, England, where I was born and seeing the little shops she frequented closed and with their windows covered in black crepe paper.  When I asked why, she told it was because the king (he of The King’s Speech fame) had died in his sleep the night before. I didn’t really grasp the concept, but I did get that something momentous had happened.

My memories from the following year, when the young queen was crowned, are inextricably tied up with my memories of us immigrating to Africa. We were actually aboard The Braemar Castle on the high seas between London and Cape Town on coronation day. But prior to that, we were caught up in the pre-coronation excitement. It was the tipping point for people in England getting television sets. Prior to the coronation, no-one in our blue-collar neighborhood had a TV; after it, almost everyone did. I saw it for the first time at a neighbor’s house just before we left (and since there was no TV in Africa, didn’t see it again for years). My last memories of our street were the red, white, and blue bunting strung from house-to-house.

This stock shot of a coronation party is on a street almost identical

 to the one we left from in Salford.

All my going-away gifts from friends and family were coronation related. Among other things, I got a picture book of the royal family, a little replica golden coach and horses, and a mug with the queen’s picture on it. Everything was lost during the many moves we made over the years.

I found a picture on Amazon of the very book I was given as a going away gift. Seeing it brough a flood of memories.

Naturally, the ship put on parties so the displaced Brits could join in the celebrations. I recall my mother getting ready for the ball. She wore a dress she had made with a silver lamé strapless sweetheart top and a huge “new look” style white tulle skirt that practically touched the walls of our little cabin. For the occasion, she pinned three red-white-and blue bows down the side of the skirt. She looked beautiful. Next day, we kids had a party with copious amounts of cake and ice cream and balloons. And they gave us all commemorative silver tea spoons. I’m sure I still have mine but I can’t find it.

The Braemar Castle docking in Cape Town after transporting us across the Atlantic from London

Does this allow me to call myself a New Elizabethan? It would make a welcome change from Baby Boomer, wouldn’t it? But, nah, I think not: it sounds kind of daft.

The Meanest Kitty in Mexico?

When I bought my house in Mineral de Pozos six months ago, the previous owner warned me about the feral cat issue. (She also said there were ghost cats in the house; but that´s another story!)

Sure enough, when I moved in it became apparent that cats had been running rampant in the empty house. There was a hole in the very old, small door leading from the bathroom to the courtyard that gave them ingress; cat pee in the corner of a bookshelf; and little dusty paw prints all over the house. My first line of attack was to block the hole in the door from the inside but proved ineffectual as I´d come home and find my barrier pushed aside. Then I piled bricks in front of it on the outside. But these were super cats. The bricks would be tossed aside like Legos. Finally, I dragged a big pot with a particularly vicious cactus plant in it up to the hole and finally had an effective blockade. Eventually, I had a new door made and the picturesque old one is now an art installation on my porch. La puertacita a ninguna parte. (¨The little door to nowhere.¨)

The Little Door to Nowhere with the ¨cat hole¨in the bottom

But that didn´t stop the cats entirely. All the rooms in my house open to the courtyard so I have to make sure every door and window is closed and latched when I go out. I even have to close the doors on one side of the house if I am on the other side. I learned this the hard way when I went into my kitchen one night after watching a movie in the living room, and it was wrecked. The trash can was up-ended and the contents strewn all over the floor. The dog food dragged off its shelf and scattered everywhere. And there were broken dishes in the sink.

The mayhem in the house was not the only problem. The cats would party on my bedroom roof at night. They were a rowdy bunch: wailing and yowling and running around, making far more noise than you´d think possible. I´d see their shadows spookily passing over my skylight. They regularly overturned the recycling can with a clatter and used the fern bed under my bedroom window as a litter box.

Of course, I do have a secret weapon against them: Henry. My little dog Henry actually has no problem with cats. When we visit a friend who has one he will politely sniff them and yield the territory and if we meet one on a walk, he will just stroll on by. But these cats were a different breed. If he encountered one skulking under the lavender bush, it would go all saber toothed tiger on him. Just because he´s polite doesn´t mean he´s a wuss: When the cat arched its back, bared its teeth, and hissed at him, he´d fight back. Next thing, I had Wild Kingdom going on in my garden. Cats streaking and emitting blood curdling howls and Henry right on their tails, silent, focused, and looking for a take down. Further, at night, when he heard them on the roof, he´d hurl himself at the door barking loudly. Did I mention this was the middle of the night?

I decided it was time to know the enemy. I identified three: a pretty white female, a ginger tom, and a gray one of indeterminate gender. I realized pretty soon that the latter was the alpha whatever. Before long it had banished the other two to the perimeter of the property. I still see them sunning themselves on top of my water tank or prowling along the wall topped by broken glass (putting paid to the idea that it would deter a cat burglar) but they rarely come any closer.

Ginger cat is now exiled to the ruins next door

And now I think gray cat is trying to get rid of me. He has no fear at all. I see him watching me everywhere I go.

He´s always there; just watching and waiting

Several times he´s walked right into the kitchen when I´ve been in there. If I try to shoo him away, he makes noises like something out of The Exorcist. He brazenly tries to sneak passed me and into the house, crawling low to stay out my line of sight. He sleeps on my outdoor furniture at night and should I venture out to the courtyard after dark he acts like I´m the one who shouldn´t be there.

(OMG, even as I´m writing this, he just jumped on my firewood and knocked the whole pile down!)

Quite frankly, I´m scared of gray cat.

Don´t let his benign apperance fool you. One step closer and he would have had my eyes.

I really do like cats, so why not just make peace with him and since he already lives here, adopt him and fix him? Well, for one thing, he´s probably too feral to tame. He´s in pretty good shape and probably feeds off rodents and scraps so I don´t feel too badly about not trying to save him. And I know he drinks from Henry´s water bowl.

And secondly, I´m allergic to cats. At age five, I developed severe asthma. I´d have attacks of the kind that these days would have you rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. But in 1950s Africa, I just had to gut it out because there was no help on offer. Additionally, no one apparently made the connection between the onset of this condition and the new cat I got that slept on my pillow; both of us tucked snuggly under a mosquito net. His name was Smokey and he was followed over the years by Misty and then Mr. Jinx. And throughout my entire childhood I wheezed and huffed so hard my ribs would ache for days. Once I actually broke a rib.

Me at five with Smokey. Oh, if only I´d known ... !

The attacks stopped quite abruptly when I moved to England. I just thought it had been something in the air: maybe the jacarandas? Then after I´d been in London about three years, my roommate brought home a little calico kitten and we both fell in love. We named her Tiffany. (Hey, this was the early 70s and it was all about the movie, Breakfast at Tiffany´s. We were way ahead of the trend.) Within a couple of days, my asthma was back and I finally made the link. Now though, I was able to go to the doctor and get pills and later an inhaler that got me though until my roommate moved out and took Tiffy with her.

For the next 20 years, I avoided cats. It´s sad because I love all animals and would love to snuggle with a cat like I did in my childhood.

Who could possibly not adore Chacha and RubyCat, the new kitties at Galeria 6?

After all those years of dodging them, I tentatively tried being a room with one and I learned I´ve built up a tolerance.  My threshold is about two hours before I start to feel that familiar tightness in my chest. Some of my friends will be surprised by this revelation because I rarely talk about it. The thing is; if you say you´re allergic, people want to put their cat out of the room. But it´s the cat dander and hair that is already in the room that causes the problem and banishing the poor cat from its own home doesn´t really help. I had to clean and paint my house from top to bottom when I realized the cats had been hanging there while it was empty.

So, no, gato gris and I are going to have to make some kind of peace. He/she needs to understand that I am the mistress of this house and is going to have to find somewhere else to haunt.

I know: Fat chance.

A Construction Moment

My bathroom re-do is well underway. The guys are working really hard and doing a beautiful job. Then yesterday at 6 p.m. as they were finishing for the day, they told me they had run out of tile.

¨How can that be?¨  I asked. ¨I bought the amount you said you needed.¨

¨Yes but we thought you were getting bigger tiles. These tiles are chico,¨ they replied.

¨But you told me to get 8 square meters and I did. It doesn´t matter how big or small the tiles are, they still should cover 8 square meters.¨

¨No, senora,¨ they explained patiently. ¨When the tiles are smaller you need more and they get used up quicker.¨

My beautiful chico tiles

¨Um, okay, ¨I said, scratching my head like Curly of the Three Stooges, ¨then I guess we need some more tile.¨

We decided not to go the square meter route this time and count instead. Cinco cajas -  five boxes - they told me.

It necessitated a three-hour round-trip drive to the tile factory, where I showed them the sample and ordered six boxes to be on the safe side.  They loaded them into the car for me. When I got home, I discovered they were the wrong color.

So it´s back to Delores Hidalgo again tomorrow for me. At least it´s a nice drive.

Out of the car window on the road to Delores Hidalgo

My Summer Vacation in Mineral de Pozos

Regular readers will notice that I haven´t posted a new blog for many weeks. The official explanation is that I took the summer off. The fact is; I haven´t felt one bit like sitting down and writing, either this blog or actual work. That´s unusual for me as generally I´m more comfortable in front of a keyboard than anywhere else. But since I settled into my new old house in mid-June, all I´ve been moved to do is work on it and in the garden. It brings me tremendous joy although I have to keep reminding myself not to feel guilty about not writing.

Now it´s September and somehow just the turn of the month has put me in a better frame of mind for sitting at my computer.  So to kick things off again, this is a catch-up with pictures of my Mexican summer.

Despite it being the rainy season, we had a hot, dry spell that gave me loads of time to plant and weed and reorganize my courtyard garden. The previous owner told me that she loved the garden to be all tangled and mysterious. I do get the appeal of that, but I felt I was not actually seeing half of it so I tried to sort it all out. I dedicated an area to succulents and cacti (and have the scars to prove it).

A shady spot outside my bedroom window has become the fern garden but there´s also a magnificent ojo santos bush that was thriving there.

I got the funky fish fountain to work, although it´s sort of jerry-rigged at the moment. I wasn´t sure if I should be reassured or made nervous when the dengue fever task force came round and put something in it to deter mosquitos.

Once I uncovered everything, I found I was better able to showcase my magnificent lavender patch; two spectacular hibiscus bushes; and a highly perfumed rose bush. After a shower my garden is heady with scents.

My fruit trees yielded me some delicious tiny peaches, a handful of figs, and more pomegranates than I or the birds could eat. I have a fruit called a lima that I´d never heard of before. It´s a citrus that´s not as tart as a lemon or as sweet as an orange.  I´m experimenting with smoothies and salads.

I also did a little art project in the garden. I inherited a painted arch over my bedroom door and embellished it with some metal birds and old birdcages I found.

 And speaking of birds, I had two batches of baby golondrinas in my entryway nest! The first was a trio that peeped and cheeped all day so I called them Peter, Paul, and Mary. I watched and photographed every stage of their development with total fascination and was sad when they finally got their wings and took off. On the other hand, I was happy not to have to clean up bird poop every day.

Then a couple of weeks later I was amazed to discover I had another four. Like all second children, they didn´t get photographed as much as the first, nor did I name them. They´re at the stage where they fly off during the day but around 7 p.m. come home and, fully grown, cram themselves back into the nest for the night with tails and wings sticking out everywhere. More poop to clean up.

The house got its share of attention. I repainted the kitchen, which was no easy task since the walls were red and now they are white. It took four coats! It´s still a work in progress as I´m planning to tile the floor and put in a colorful tile backsplash. The bathroom, which I thought would be the very first thing I´d do, is still not started. This is because the guy I found to do it is not available as his mother had an accident and he doesn´t want to leave her side.  Get well soon, mama!

I also had the sala painted; too big a project for me but Oscar and Chucho did a great job. And I finally unpacked all my boxes from California. I cranked up the sewing machine that came on the truck and made pillows and drapes. I invested in a couple of pieces of show-stopping furniture: What I call the Marie Antoinette bed and a huge room dividing buffet. So it´s starting to come together.

But the summer wasn´t entirely about work. I went to a number of lovely parties both here in Pozos and in San Miguel de Allende. Some had mariachis!

Happily, my friends Eleanor and Barbara each have places in San Miguel where I can bunk down for the night when I don´t want to make the 40-minute drive back to Pozos after dark.

Pozos also had a number of wonderful events: a blues festival, a mariachi festival, a mine tour, a home and garden tour, and several art openings. During the Toltecidad, Zaragosa Plaza looked like Venice beach on a Sunday afternoon. 

Friends who came to town from San Miguel for these happenings knocked on my door so I had a constant stream of visitors. Plus, I´ve made a whole lot of new friends in the neighborhood. What I´m finding is that weekdays are quiet here but there´s a whole lot going on at the weekend. That set-up pretty much suits me to perfection.

The only fly in the ointment this summer was that my little dog Henry got a nasty eye infection in both eyes. Many vet visits, antibiotics, three kinds of eye drops and mucho dinero later he now seems to be fine.  

Well, the other bummer was that my computer hard drive fried and my new one has a new operating system with the instructions in Spanish so that has been, to say the least, an interesting learning experience. I don´t really know if Windows 7 is good or bad because I don´t really know how to use it properly. But I´m managing well enough to have no more excuses for not writing, so tune back in for regular posts.