Well, of course, it is baby Consuelo!  My son has been wonderful, sending lots of pictures and video, but I just HAVE to go visit her…so I am off to Mexico City for a long weekend Friday.  YAY!  In the picture above, do you notice the blanket  that’s keeping her warm?  Yep, that’s the blanket I knit for her.

I finished a bit of knitting recently.  This shawl is about all I need at night  in Mazatlán, and I just love it.  This is the washable cashmere that came from Crochet last month.  (Why is it every time we take my picture I have just yanked my hair out of a ponytail and have a weird expression on my face?)

It has been getting cooler here.  A couple of mornings this week it was around 65 to 69 degrees.  Yes, that does seem cold to us!  And one thing that happens in the winter is the beach at Olas Altas moves around.  The sand was carved away from the North end of the beach - I mean a shelf was created with a drop off of about 8-10 feet - and the sand moved South.

We were on a mission this morning - we headed to Bancomer to apply for a credit card.  We have a checking account with them which has a debit card, but you can’t use it online.  This has been frustrating because we could pay all our bills on line if we had a credit card.  There’s also this black hole you fall into sometimes if you want to buy something for delivery here in Mexico but your credit card is from the US.  We were looking at Apple recently…you can specify the operating language and keyboard you want, but if you want it delivered in Mexico you have to pay for it here and the address needs to match the credit card.  We even called their help line twice.  So we spent about 10 minutes waiting for a customer service rep and about 15 minutes at her desk in order to get a credit card.  The banker spoke clearly but it was all in Spanish and we did fine.  We go back in 5 days to pick up the card.  The interest rate is ridiculous (like 35%) but we plan on using it for convenience and paying it off after each use.

We are getting ready for a wild and crazy new year’s eve.  How?  By cleaning out all the kitchen cupboards and rearranging everything.  Now that our cupboards are clean maybe we can actually keep our resolution to not overbuy groceries!  We have had a bit of a time adjusting to the trio of  humidity-bugs-limited availability. Continuing the wild and crazy new year’s eve, Paul bowled a bit on his Wii, and I spent some time on the internet looking for my next knitting project.  Aren’t we just a couple of crazy kids?

I hope all of you have a wonderful time this evening marking the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009.  I am filled with optimism for the coming year, and I hope that you are, too.

I am a sentimental fool, totally in love with a granddaughter I haven’t even met in person.  She is so beautiful, and in her I feel such hope for the future.  We all sense the potential that she is about to explore, and I feel the optimism of her entire family for a world that she is a part of.

That she will be loved -  is loved - is without question.  She will be encouraged but not coddled.  She’ll be protected but not cocooned.  She’ll be her own person, and if I know her parents she’ll be assertive and will know her own mind.

She’ll be smart, I’m sure of that.  She’ll be funny - I mean how could she not have a sense of humor?  She’ll be empathetic and social, and will be one of the lucky kids in this world who knows she is loved and can develop herself without bracing for disappointment.

I am shocked at how raw my emotions are when I think about how much I love little Consuelo already, on this special day, the day of her birth.

Congratulations, Adam and Martha.  Your new adventure starts now.

Paul and the dogs are still asleep, but I hear the birds waking up downstairs.  It’s going to be another beautiful day.

Last night we went over to Serdan, the main commercial street in Centro.  The paper said they were closing the street around 5, but at around 5:30 the cars were still passing.  Along the curbs were kids with boxes saving places for their parents to put their “shop.” They closed the street to cars at 6 pm and it turned into a combination of street fair and tianguis.  It was quite crazy.

Paul and I had fun watching it all.  We didn’t buy gifts for each other this year so we only bought a few little things (gomitas, a blanket for the couch) and people watched.  The smell of roasting corn was amazing.

We’re cooking our own feast today and will spend the day cooking, reading, listening to music, and walking along the water.  We hope you will have a wonderful day, too.

I started to write a short summary of what made him so interesting and special, and it started to go on for too long and I realized that it wouldn’t do him justice.  But still I thought I would like to mark the day, especially for family who may be reading this.

A photo gallery is below.

Dad

Just a few pictures of my father.

11 Photos

Then, after dinner and coffee we ambled over to the malecon for the free outdoor concert -  Mariachi Vargas with mariachi band Continental and the Mazatlán Symphony Orchestra.

We got there after it had already started so the several hundred seats were filled, but we stood on the malecon with many hundreds more, enjoying the music, the enthusiasm of the crowd, and the warm breeze.  It was a wonderful end to a perfect evening.

Here’s a very short video of the performance:

The picture above is the nativity scene in the Plaza Republica.  As is usual in these kinds of scenes, there are various size animals sharing the barnyard.  See the HUGE turkey on the left side of the picture?  I took this picture as we met up with Guaymas blogger Brenda and her husband Roy.  It was so nice to finally meet them…we went over to the Plazuela Machado and visited over coffee for a couple of hours.  They head back tomorrow morning after having a visit with family staying here in Mazatlán.

The next picture is of the sand sculpture nativity scene in the Plazuela Machado.  Watching them make these is really interesting - they get the sand just the right amount of dampness and press it into  a box overnight, or maybe longer.  Then they can sculpt it.   Amazing, isn’t it?

And I just love the bull.  He’s relaxed in a very natural way, isn’t he?

Shoestring Gringa - JC and her husband moved to Mexico in 2005, and have lived several places.  They currently live in Sonora.  She is an artist and while her blog isn’t that old it has lots of good information.

The Traveling Was Hard - Puerto Vallarta Girl and her husband and kids  live in Puerto Vallarta now after moving from Portland, Oregon.  He has family in Mexico and they have had ups and downs - all with a sense of humor - as they create a new life for their family.

On Mexican Time - Can is a 27 year old Canadian, married to a 28 year old Mex(ican).  They met while she was working in Cancun for a couple of years, fell in love, and moved back to Canada… It is now 3 years later, and they are more than ready to head back to Cancun.  They just bought some land there and are building their home.

Jesus Chairez C. - Jesus is an artist, photographer and writer based in Mexico City. His work has appeared in The Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Voice and the Chicago Free Press. Originally from Dallas, Texas. Moved to Mexico City May 18, 2008.  I love his blog.

Midwesterner in Mexico - Newlyweds Julie and her husband moved to Mexico City in July.  She says “this blog will chart my experiences as an Embassy spouse, a Thunderbird Global MBA student, an expat woman, a Mexican culinary novice, a gringa.”  I love this blog, too!

Side note on so many blogs these days….Why do so many people feel the need to surround themselves in secrecy on their blog?  Or maybe the question is, why do they make it so awkward?  Some call themselves and their families by generic names that make it clunky to read.  I guess I wish that they would just make up a name for themselves and their family if they want to be anonymous.  But it seems more and more people are doing it, so I am probably the odd woman out on this one!

Adam and Martha are expecting their baby in the next couple of weeks.  They are planning on having at least a week or two of “nesting” time with their little one before they invite company so we decided to have a quick visit.

We love visiting them and we love the neighborhood they live in - Condesa.  There are a couple of large parks and the walking path down the center of Amsterdam makes the whole neighborhood feel like a park, really.  There are large trees everywhere, and (unlike Mazatlán) the sidewalks are WIDE!  (In the picture above, notice PANTS, and SHOES, and JACKETS?  First time in a long time for us!)

There are tons of great restaurants, coffee bars, and hip places like the Hookah Lounge.  But it is a big city, and for the most part strangers don’t greet each other.  Condesa is an area with lots of dog owners and the dogs seem well loved and cared for.  Get a few miles away and street dogs are the norm.

Here’s a shop with a trendy wall out front:

Saturday we decided to go to the Jamaica Mercado because we had heard there was an area with salvage antique house parts.  Adam and Martha wanted to see if there were salvage wood vigas and we wanted to take a look so that we could tell our contractor back in Mazatlán about it.  The mercado was amazing, beautiful fruits and vegetables (the tomatoes looked nicer than ours back in Sinaloa) but the most stunning part was the flower market.  Below is a view from above that I liked, unfortunately no pictures of the flowers up close.  All the flowers were so inexpensive.  A huge bundle of tuberoses for example, for 30 pesos!

As we rambled along we came to the piñata area.  Wow.  Take a look at Adam and Martha with the piñatas, below:

We did find the salvage place finally, and it was like so many places I remember in the Pacific Northwest.  The most wonderful stuff for me was all the wrought iron.

We ate lunch at El Cardenal in Las Palmas.  What an amazing meal!  We had eaten in their restaurant downtown once, but this might have even been better.  They start you off with a cilantro/avocado/cheese salsa-ish dish and hot tortillas.  We ordered a number of appetizers - cheese with squash blossoms, duck tacos, and Martha and Paul’s favorite, escamoles (or ant eggs.)  They brought fresh hot tortillas many times throughout and even reheated the ant eggs when they cooled off as we slowed down.  Yum.

To continue our upscale afternoon we went to Polanco and I got to go to the yarn store, Crochet!  And they bought me some beautiful fuschia colored washable cashmere for my Christmas gift.  Can you believe how lucky I am?  The area with the yarn store was very fancy, with the men hanging around in Starbucks while the ladies shopped.  We took a quick look at the store Arroz con Leche.  They make gorgeous traditional Mexican clothing for children, providing work to the traditional weavers, but updating the styles to be desirable to modern people.  Expensive but gorgeous, and such a good thing to be using the traditional artisans for modern styles.

Later that evening we went to the mall to get a few final things Martha needed to have in place before she has the baby.  As we walked along we saw the kiosk below…yes, you had better believe it that México is very modern in some ways.  At these kiosks you can take care of most of your governmental needs.  Pay property taxes, get printouts of deeds, and many other things.  Nice!

After siestas we decided to order pizza for dinner, and hang out at their place playing dominoes and talking.  We made a friendly wager about when we each expect Martha to have the baby…I said the 19th, and I think the latest anyone guessed was the 24th.  She is due the 30th but none of us expect her to be that late.

December and January are very smoggy and dry in DF and so we were happy to get home to the clean moist air of Mazatlán!  (Above is a picture of the smog out the airplane window.)  But we’ll be back soon, when our little granddaughter joins the family!

So, more later.  But here`s a thought in closing.  Adam said this last night as we were marveling about the jillions of people we were seeing everywhere.   “Think about, say, radishes.  Say you eat what….one a week?   So, 52 per year?  So, 25,000,000 times 52 = 1,300,000,000.  One billion, three hundred million radishes consumed in Mexico City per year!  If everyone just eats one!”

Mind boggling.

See you next week.

Here goes:

Some people seem to think that the rules here are the same as the rules where they came from.  Not true.  An acquaintance of ours had an out of scale building being constructed across the street from her, on a hill.  During construction, the front part of the property and part of the street caved in, apparently due to bad construction practices.  It has sat there with decaying caution tape around it for several months now.  Who knows what will happen next?

On a hill near Centro there is a condo under construction that was originally approved for six stories, and after it had most of that construction completed the approval was changed to 11 stories.  This will essentially block the views of a number of neighbors and is probably about 6 stories taller than most of its neighbors.  A picture is below.  (Imagine another 5 stories.)

But both those examples are in neighborhoods with vacant lots begging to be developed.  Even in built up areas there can be challenges.  Imagine how Wayne’s friend felt when all of a sudden a night time taco stand opens next door to her home!

Here’s another choice bit…A park in Centro of one block square.  In the center is a library.  There is a morning cleaning person every day, and a couple of times a month gardeners descend on it and trim and chop it into shape.  There used to be two large barrel garbage cans in this park.  I used them every day to dispose of our dog-do bags as I walked by with the dogs.  Several months ago, the barrels were gone.  The area where the cans used to be is now heaped with garbage bags and trash and the whole park feels sort of slummy despite the best efforts of the people that work there.   One friend said they thought the reason the cans were removed was because households were putting their trash in the park cans in between the Monday-Wednesday-Friday pick ups.  Who knows?

And another:  The city has a very active mosquito patrol.  They go house to house checking water in fountains, distributing bags of powder to put in fountains, and we have felt a real commitment to keeping mosquito populations under control, and hence control dengue.  But down the street from us is an abandoned house with water seeping (but faster than that, really) out the door and down the steps.  The sidewalk is a black sludgy mess.  And if you look in the window-hole (there is no glass remaining) you see a gloppy mess of inch deep water and sludge.  Do you suppose they just walk by that one when they are on our street checking houses?

None of these issues have my blood pressure rising…I am pretty mellow and am able to take note all this in the abstract, and I feel lucky for that.  But thinking about this kind of thing and how you might react yourself would be a good exercise for someone planning a move to Mexico.