Mazatlán is an interesting place to live because it has a lot of different phases. Carnaval is busy and noisy, Winter is filled with art openings, theater, fundraisers, and other social events. Semana Santa brings lots of tourists to the beaches. Summer school vacation means we can park on our street anytime. Summertime once the kids are back in school is very quiet. And I mean quiet.

It’s still hot so people aren’t walking around town as much. All the people in restaurants and parks are locals, which makes us feel like the city is ours for a time. We have had people over and been invited over to friends houses. We’ve eaten out a bit.

But Paul and I are enjoying the lull before the social season here to laze about a bit reading and doing projects. I’ve read a number of books lately. Right now I’m reading (and loving) Jane Eyre – I can’t believe that I never had read the book before! I wanted to read it before I read Jane Eyre’s Daughter by Elizabeth Newark.  I also read Emma Donoghue’s new book, Room, Bonk, the Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach, The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones, and A Nail through the Heart: a novel of Bangkok by Timothy Hallinan.

We took our new little dog Coco in to be sterilized.  She did very well and will have her stitches out in a few days.

The newspapers are full of criticism for the current city administration because several projects are dragging on and on for lack of funds to buy supplies. Plazuela Zaragoza has been partially planted with new borders and helliconia, but still is waiting for the rest of the walkway tile and lighting.  Same thing at Plaza de Los Leones on Angel Flores.  The Central Mercado is coming along but it is not done yet and it has been months!  The project was increased with the addition of undergrounding utilities throughout the area but it certainly seems it should be done by now!  I’ll get out and take some pictures this week – if I can get my nose out of my book, that is!

All our traveling is over for a while and we are settling in to the rainy season here in Mazatlán.  This September has been incredibly rainy so far, pretty much every day lately.

I love the big crashing thunder and crazy lightning shows and I love it when the rain pounds down so hard you can’t believe it. It feels like Mexico when it is raining hard like that!  Lately, though… it has been drizzly day after drizzly day and I am getting a little tired of it.  Can you tell I am from the Pacific Northwest?  Below is a 1 minute video of the rain a couple of mornings ago.

So what have I been doing?  Not too much.  We swapped the bedroom and Paul’s office -TV room again.  We gave away our tv room couch since it just seemed like a giant dog bed and once it was gone we could move back to the smaller room for the office-TV.  Paul and I get restless - we need to change things up now and then.  Plus it gave me a chance to do a good cleaning.

I’ve been cooking and baking a lot.  I made quiche in my new quiche pans - one was caramelized onion and mushroom and one was roasted vegetable with gorganzola.  I made a blackberry pie since Paul didn’t get to eat the one we made in Tacoma.  I made bread a few times, once a nice half whole wheat sourdough and once ciabatta bread.  The ciabatta bread was a treat because I had damaged my Kitchenaid stand mixer somehow and had to take it in for repairs.  I was thrilled to have it repaired in one day by the nice guys at Camacho on Zaragoza just East of Serdan.  You can’t make ciabatta very easily without a stand mixer, so I was glad to have it fixed.  A picture of the ciabatta bread is below.

I’ve been working on my fabric collage and doing a bit of knitting.  I’ve been reading a lot, as most Kindle users seem to report.  Cristina Potters of Mexico Cooks recommended The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow.  It is a fictionalized but very real sounding book on the drug cartels in Mexico, and takes place both in Mexico and in the US.  I recommend it, too.  It was written in 2006 but it feels very up to date.  There is no one who can tell me that the drug violence in Mexico is only Mexico’s problem, and I felt even stronger about it after I read this book.  China, Europe, South America, the US and Canada - lots of countries share the responsibility and blame for what is going on down here.

Our housekeeper has two weeks off, so I have been cleaning today.  I vacuumed the whole house and cleaned three of the ceiling fans before losing my interest in the project!  But I will admit that it was warm enough while I was working that I was dripping off my elbows and the end of my nose.  Thankfully it was time for lunch by then.

So, can you tell I have the blahs? Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll feel better when the sun comes out!

Henry is blurry, Coco is ok. Our new Oaxaca rug underfoot.

We are loving our new pack member, Coco.  We had Marthita the mobile pet groomer come on Saturday, and I thought I’d take a few photos to show you.  Unfortunately, that’s harder than it looks!  They are always on the go, playing and messing up my photos!  Oh well, here’s what I have!

Paul and I have talked over the years about how (knock on wood) easily some things have gone for us in our transition to living in México.  There isn’t any one thing we can put our fingers on to explain this – except attitude.   I think we usually go into any new venture as prepared as we can and as open and positive as we can.  We prepare ourselves for speaking Spanish, thinking about any unusual words we might need to look up.  And we try to always be relaxed and smiling, with an open expression on our faces.

Do you know what I mean?  If you’re all tense about an interaction it usually goes badly.

We have talked about this with regard to my trip to the US last month – my impression was that many people walk around with a “closed” expression on their face.  They probably don’t even realize it, but it makes a difference!  I sometimes feel myself “closing” a little and physically adjust my expression – and guess what, people respond to it!  I get lots of smiles and pleasant interactions  with strangers that I wouldn’t get if I was more closed down.

Henry from the side, Coco head on.

No matter what we’re doing we are always thinking about our preparation and  attitude and how we’ll be perceived.  I also give some thought to my clothing – to be dressed in a way to not be disrespectful.  Even if I am on my way to the beach after a meeting, I don’t look it!

There are lots of times when this has been helpful to us.  We just changed from an FM3 to an FM2 (actually now it’s called inmigrante) and we were as prepared as possible when we walked into the office.  The whole process was too easy to even mention – even with driving to the bank and making the payment and visiting the Kodak place for pictures our total time investment was two hours!  Now I know some of that just luck – our renewal is in the summertime when the offices of INM are not very busy, but part is that we were open and relaxed and built rapport with the people there.

People in Mazatlán are just nice, I know that.  Really, whenever we travel we realize that the people here are just the best.  But still a positive attitude, open expression, and some Spanish makes a big difference.

I call this one "goldfish dogs."