Well, a great Monday in paradise. The excitement today was multi fold, first I went down to the Lake Chapala Society and joined, so now I'm a card carrying member of the LCS - NOT to be confused with the ACLU - though there are some old gringo libs in the area. The facility is most impressive, a nice garden scene with different areas set up for membership, travel tickets etc. There is an extensive library and also a tape library for checkout. My primary interest for the moment is outgoing mail service and beginning in Jan a Spanish class for dummies. This led to the next challenge, finding some envelopes for the mail I need to send. I tried the El Torito, Superlake and later Soriana - my ultimate conclusion; grocery stores in MX do NOT sell envelopes.

While at the mailbox a lady directed me to the paperia (or something close) which is of course the "paper store" and I was to ask for sobres. I went to Chapala; downtown Chapala and downtown NYC have at least one thing in common, NO PARKING - but eventually I managed and procured the sobres. So, tomorrow I test out going mail.

The real adventure for the day after the LCS was the tianguis in Chapala which roughly translates to flea market. I motored to the proximity and found a place to park and joined in the marketing madness. The tianguis turns out to be a street converted into a marketplace every Monday that was somewhere between 6 to 8 blocks long of solid booths, often with tarps strung overhead for shade, offering everything from dead fish to dead chickens, cooked foods, electrical components, dishes, pots, pans, cookware to lots of produce, tapes, CD's, clothes; and may I digress at this point to note the Mexican women are structurally a bit different. Now, they tend to expand somewhat in the posterior areas at a relatively young age, I assume due to diet - to be more graphic, they spread out like chicken fat on a hot griddle! While still young they can be quite attractive and the style (while they can still paint them on) is skin tight jeans which are a mix of low cut and semi-bell bottom, faded in the appropriate "cheek" areas to accentuate. Previously on the streets I hadn't noticed (much) but a number of mannequins in the booths today clearly demonstrated the female Mexican physique, even in younger attractive examples, exhibits additional proportions in the caboose areas - how was that for a clinical observation?

Unfortunately I forgot the camera, so the Ajijic tianguis is Weds and I'll shoot some pics there.

Then there was the rug buying experience. I decided I needed a couple of area rugs and while I didn't see any at the tianguis there are always some on the Careterra in Ajijic, so I went there. You know, there is something a bit disconcerting and foolhardy about negotiating the purchase of a commodity of which you have no idea it's actual value. Take for example; my Jeep, it was worth somewhere around $15K so I could judge. But, what if I had no idea and when I walked in the salesman had said $30K and I negotiated him down to $22K and thought I got a heck of a deal? - so, I bought a rug, guess I need to see if I got a deal or the shaft - but it is nice, and wool and really Mexican, you can tell by the fringe on the ends?

Here's another little "I'll be dipped?" - I noticed that all the light bulbs in the house are clear, no frosted, no "easy reading" soft light, nothing but harsh clear light and so I checked at the store today and sure enough - ALL CLEAR? - I'll try another later, but the Soriana has nothing but clear. I guess it's an energy sort of thing, less watts, more light even if you do go blind.

Duh for the day: Turns out my front door is my back door? I consider my gate as my front door even though there's no real identification as such. The actual address is Paseo Del Lago #35. For some reason I got to thinking about that today and noticed the casita which has a door opening beside the gate has the number 20 which makes the main house number 35 seem unlikely. Then I remembered looking at the street marker "behind" the house and seeing Paseo Del Lago? - so, I opened the "back" gate and went out and looked and shazaam - a nice ceramic plaque with the number 35. But, when I've told people I live next to La Casa Nostra which opens out back people seem to know where I am.

This all came into play a bit later this afternoon when I got a call from the Rustico furniture guys saying they were going to deliver my tables in 10 minutes. Not being sure whether they would show up at the front or back I was prepared for either. They showed up about 30 minutes later at the main gate (I hadn't expected delivery), so now I have tables and a desk and tomorrow I'll swap out the high desk for the new low one and even Max should be happy as there will be room for him to lay down and take a nap next to the monitor while I compute.. Although the tables still retain residual stain solvent odors, almost like gasoline I'm sure it will dissipate in time - I am sure, really, or I'll have new deck furniture.

I threw in some new CD's in the Jeep today and whilst motoring through Chapala on the way to the tianguis I was listening to the Queen City Jazz band (Denver Dixieland, I've followed them since the late 60's) - what could be better, or more odd?

Wow, a storm is just blowing in and I'm seeing gusts over 15mph and that's down at deck level, I need to get the station up on the roof to see the real story - maybe manana.