Baile Flor de Piña (Pineapple Dance)

Yesterday, we bought a painting at Diane Pearl Colecciones. It’s a young girl dressed as a dancer in the “Baile Flor de Piña” aka Pineapple Dance. The dance originated in Oaxaca and it’s really worth your time to learn more about it.. http://tiastephanietours.com/baile-flor-de-pina-guelaguetza-cultural-preservation/

This painting is special to Sheri and I. Years ago when we first retired to Latin America, Sheri started bringing pineapples to friends as gifts in place of the more traditional wine/flowers/chocolate items. I thought it was really neat and endearing (and of course it is). But to be honest, we never knew there was a Pineapple dance until yesterday. There is so much Mexican culture to learn about and appreciate

. ❤️🇲🇽😎

Mañana (Mexico Time)

Mañana (Mexico Time)

Mexicans look at time somewhat differently than other North Americans (yes Mexico is in North America just like the USA and Canada). The common stereotype is that Mexicans just show up for appointments and social engagements “whenever”. Often being late for important events. This is a bit untrue. If you have a medical, dental, haircut, carpool, other business appointment etc. you are expected to show up on time.

On time means no more than five minutes early. Early arrivals are resented by some Mexican business people since a lot of time between appointments is used for other important tasks, e.g. preparing for the next appointment, breaks (including bathroom breaks!) personal time. Since Mexicans are a gracious and considerate people, they will give up their “between appointment time” as much as they can and serve as your host. Show up 20 minutes early, they might hand you a mop and ask if you are here early so you could mop the floor! (not kidding, being excessively early is considered very rude by Mexican business people).

On time also means arriving no later than the time of your appointment. This is not very different than the USA. A missed appointment normally means a monetary loss to the business person so don't be late.

Social occasions are different. In the USA, time is money while in Mexico time is life – or so it is said. Quite rightly for the most part. So Mexican businesses will open late/close early if an event (such as a child's soccer event or concert) would interfere with the shop being open, well the shop will be closed.

Most Americans, except for the ones that think Taco Bell makes “Mexican” food, are familiar with the Spanish word “mañana”. It means tomorrow, right?

Well yeah, if you believe your Spanish-English dictionary. Buuuuut. In practice Mañana means “sometime in the hazy not so clear future” NOT “during the 24 hours of the day following today.”

This is one thing every American/Canadian needs to learn before moving to Mexico. Mañana means “not today.” I've read numerous stories on “Gringo” Facebook Discussion Groups where someone complains that their landlord or worker has promised the part will be in “Mañana” or the work will be started or done “Mañana”. Sadly too often the stories devolve into angry personal insults about the Mexican worker involved or Mexico in general. This is sad because Mexicans are eager to please and hate to disappoint others. And due to the USAer's lack of language/culture skills, the worker is faced with an angry/disappointed client.

So lets wrap this up today with a photo of a not-at-all-uncommon view just outside our gate. Horses!

I'll resume my writing Mañana lol.

😎

From The Jardine

I often tell people I grew up on a farm. This is a bit inaccurate since, though my mother had a huge garden and we grew alfalfa etc for hay, it was actually a cattle ranch and dairy.

Here at Casa Thompsons, Sheri grows sweet potatoes. Mostly for the flowers, which are quite beautiful, but also for the roots for comida. 

So this morning she incidentally harvested a small volunteer vegetable that was growing along with the sweet potatoes. Wow I thought, "What a cute little beet!" And as you can see it is pretty darn cute.

I spent a good portion of the day today with the Go-Gos song "We got the Beat!" going through my head. But after about 6 hours of this, I was informed that the identification of the veggie was a bit off.

Still cute though - Hey?

  

Our Story To Date

OK. Let's get the boring part out of the way. On June 24, 2011 I left a depressing unrewarding high stress job in Washington State (No it wasn't in Nowhere, WA just close by).

Actually it was not all that bad of a job as things go in the United States. Certainly didn't pay very well but it was technically interesting and actually helped to make this world a bit better place. BUT the job was killing me quite literally. I was 63 ½ years old and was not at all sure that I would live to be 64 (Spoiler: I did).

So I retired. Sheri and I spent October–December of 2011 in Costa Rica as “Snow Birds” and did the same January-March of 2013. A fantastic country, Costa Rica. Not your stereotypical Latin American Nation – but we had always wanted to live in Mexico so we did an exploratory three week trip to Ajijic in Dec2013/Jan2014, really loved Ajijic and snow-birded in six month increments for three years (2014, 2015, 2016). Generally October through March.

And in December of 2016 we decided we wanted to live here full-time. So we canceled our short term rental, acquired our Residente Temporal, and started leasing year around.

There must be something about December. In December of 2019 we bought a house in the western side Ajijic, in the La Huerta subdivision. Basically we decided to stop dating Mexico and marry her. We have spent a lot of effort to upgrade it to what we want, to be the Mexican house Sheri and I had talked about owning since our trip to Cabo San Lucas in 1994.

That's pretty much it for now. In a few days I'll post about the attitude change that occurs with home ownership, 

Just Starting Out

Well we are living in Ajijic these days.

It's June 4th and Jalisco just started to ease lock-down restrictions a bit. So for no rationale reason I decided to start a blog.

Just therapeutic journaling for my sake, and a place to express my allegedly oddball humor.

. . . Sheri and I ventured out of Casa Thompsons this evening to a local restaurant called St. Remy's.  A French restaurant about 1/2 mile from our home. we hadn't been there before and thought it might be a good way to start out the next stage of our lives. Excellent and overpriced food and drinks, beautiful scenery, quiet peaceful weather and all that. And such was the evening.

But there likely be a change in Ajijic. Just a feeling in the air that “normal” has altered, tomorrow's dawn will be slightly askew, that we (the community) will be forced to adapt quickly.

Nothing that I fear, hard times builds strong relationships and stronger communities. But change is rarely easy.

More tomorrow,