The dress for Consuelo

The good:

• Paul has come through his two weeks of the dengue unscathed.  He slept the clock around a couple of days, then mostly slept the clock around, then became well enough to only sleep half the day, and when we finally knew he was on the mend he was sleeping normally.  He lost his appetite completely for about 10 days, and thanks to the Dengue Diet he lost 8 pounds.  To all of our readers looking to lose a few pounds, the Dengue Diet is Not Recommended!  We understand it can be another two weeks before he feels 100% but it is wonderful to know his fuzzy head and body aches and fever are a thing of the past.

• One good thing about Paul being sick was that I stayed home and finished up the dress I had been making for Consuelo.  Of course now I’m worried that it will be too small for her since I took so long to make it, but I have my fingers crossed.  Then I started a beautiful charted lace scarf for myself.  I sit and listen to audio books while I knit – right now I am listening to Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Photo courtesy NOAA

The bad:

• There was an incident in the Zona Dorada here yesterday that is pretty complicated to report, but some sicarios (you can figure it out) were in the process or about to be apprehended by police in a house next to a school in the Lomas  neighborhood.  A teacher saw a sicario on the roof with a gun, alerted administration, the army came and evacuated all the children.  All in all two sicarios were dead, seven apprehended, and aside from the trauma of evacuation, no civilian casualties.  Noroeste has a story about it if you care to read.  
  

• There is also a hurricane on the way, Hurricane Rick.  Most storms come up the coast and veer out to sea when they reach the tip of Baja.  Not this one, it is expected to turn towards land.  Right now it is a category 4 and it is expected to become stronger.  We are a little nervous, but hopefully we have some time as it isn’t expected to get here until Wednesday or Thursday. (Mazatlán is just about where the “u” is where it says “5 am Thu.”)

Photo Noroeste – Robert-Ito
Ayuntamiento  - Comisión

The feo (ugly):

• Red painted dots and dashes appeared on the sidewalks in Centro.  We wondered what they were about, and then we heard that the city of Mazatlán is considering a plan for installing parking meters in Centro.  A petition came around against the plan, which of course I signed.  The newspaper has been discussing it for the last few days and it seems like 1) some stores downtown would like meters because people stay parked in front all day; 2) non-Centro residents are indifferent or glad for the city to get additional revenue; 3) most Centro historico houses don’t have garages (or like ours, you can only get out if no one is parked nearby) and the historic center doesn’t allow changes to the house facades even for those who would like to incorporate a garage into their home.  My guess is that the whole thing will fizzle, at least I hope so.  The cartoon above is from the Noroeste’s cartoonist, Robert-Ito.  I think you can guess what it is insinuating.

By the way, if you are wondering why I didn’t use The Ugly on the end of this post title, search terms are funny things…I would end up getting lots of traffic to the blog from people looking for a movie!