Hell’s Half Acre

But wait; there’s more! A window! Insulation on the newly installed door and window. Air conditioning and paint!

Our neighbor from Durango brought his mother from DF down a few days ago but I haven’t seen his wife for ages. His palapa is coming along so nicely and he’s got almost all his upstairs in. Beautiful hardwood in an alternating light/dark pattern. There are no lumbermills down here as wood is pretty scarce and that which does exist is either zaptoe, salam or another I can’t remember the name of. The wood for our vigas was selected by the father of the contractor, David. David does a LOT of the work down here. His dad selected the trees and then fashioned the vigas with a chainsaw and axe. This wood is so heavy it is hard to describe. Anyway, our neighbor’s palapa is FULL of it on top. I really hope he gets his downstairs (concrete) in soon, so the wood is anchored well.

I have a strange relationship with Jorge, our neighbor. Normally, the man of the house (in this case, Jamie) would be doing all the talking to him about his project or where he can put his garbage (our can) or if it is ok if the girls play with his dog (he’d LOVE it if they took him for a walk), etc. But I’m the one doing all this and I keep wondering if and when I should move from the formal “Ud.” to the familiar “tu”. I know that were I a man, we’d already be in familiar language, but I don’t want to seem forward so I keep to the formal and hope he doesn’t think I’m trying to distance myself from him.

I’m pretty sure I already gushed about our vigas in a previous post but each time we enter the bodega (and honestly, it is much larger than a bodega (storage room); it is really a recamera (bedroom)) I’m taken aback. This being Mexico, however, the ceiling is not flat and the vigas on half the ceiling have quite a gap in places. We’re trying to decide whether or not we want to fix that. This being Mexico and all, we talked to David about the job and this being Mexico, over a week later we’re still waiting to hear his price. In breaking news, I headed into town the other day to get paint, call Sirius and switch our subscription from our broken receiver to the working receiver, find someone to install our window and get groceries. I stopped at the first window place I saw, only because it was close to a telephone place and was assured that not only would they install the window, fabricate a piece of glass and aluminum to my measurements but would install it THAT day! This being Mexico they showed up at 7pm instead of the promised 4:30, but honestly, the fact that they showed up at all, and On The Day They Agreed To was shocking! So now, we have one less gaping hole in the recamera.

We have been trying, for months, to get a reasonably priced door guy to come out and make us a sliding glass door. We had quotes from $6000 to $3000 pesos in town since sliding glass doors at Home Depot run $12,000 (that is NOT a typo; we checked it each time we hit the store, certain that the last time our eyes had been lying). We even had a guy here at the palapa, fresh meat you might say, and he was willing to give us a quote. I made the worst gringa mistake however, after receiving a reasonable quote to install the window ($600, including the metal and glass; we paid $750) and fabricate the sliding glass door ($4300) I got excited and asked for an estimate for under the counter cabinets for the kitchen. Big, huge, gigantic mistake. I figured more work=more money in his pocket, but I figured way wrong. He left to get a calculator and never returned.

So we finally decided to do a Mexican version of French Doors. I talked to a local carpintero and he’s not only excited about fashioning the wood doors from Home Depot into French Doors, but he designed a wood and glass filler for one side of the doors. Our last opening in the wall of the recamera is quite a bit wider than the doors at Home Depot so we need to fill it with something. He’s going to design and make that something. Course, this was over a week ago, but we stop by and check on him whenever we get antsy and he always promises to show up “tomorrow” but never does. For some reason this really doesn’t concern us; he wants to do the job; he just has higher priorities right now. And we can wait. A bit more.

The other day Jamie and I were snorkeling here in the bay and saw TEN squid! Well, *I* saw eight but he counted ten! They were a little weird in their formation; they swim in a long line like a line of combat. After all the amazing colors and fish we see whenever we venture out I finally got interested in an underwater camera. I bought a couple disposable cameras at Costco last trip but need to get the pictures developed. I’ve been saving one for the turtles we hope to spot snorkeling in Akumal bay and I’ve got a huge itch to swim with the whale sharks as they migrate up along the coast from South America to the tip of the Yucatan peninsula. The boys are on board, but the girls are waffling.

I’ve been saving the best for last; we have poop removal! The pipes the park installed in our backyard for sewage and grey water removal (in a house, I bet you don’t even think about these things, but once you move into an RV, they are on your mind frequently) have been virtually unusable since we moved in. We bought all the materials (even though it is the park’s responsibility) and bribed the person who is in charge of this type of maintenance with two tires to do the work (even though this is his job and the work he does for the park). But he is amazingly lazy (even Jorge, our neighbor complained about him as he was supposed to be doing the same work for him) and it took quite a bit of cajoling on our neighbor’s part but finally it was done! I was very sneaky and mentioned to Jorge that he would have the same problems as they used bad pipes in his yard too, so he might want to have them replaced. Then I simply sat back and waited for Jorge to get the park guy to get to work. We have new pipes, they are UNDERGROUND (what a concept, eh?) and in the palapa, sewage removal is not even a thought anymore. Who would have thunk?

Today we hope to go to Akumal. The kids have been getting dental work done (one very small cavity for Sissy and Pike, Ellen had a baby root canal and I’m purposely leaving Jesse out of the conversation) which has been keeping us on the road and busy. We’ve seen turtles building nests and laying eggs and I’ve had an itch forever to actually swim with them. They don’t really come into our bay during snorkeling time and while the divers rave about diving with them we don’t dive. Yet. Maybe. We’ve heard that the turtles are pretty prolific in Akumal so I’ve had an itch to go there. And I can’t wait to see what kind of pictures the disposable comes up with.

In weather-related news, we’re watching Flossie quite closely as she is a Cat 3 right now and tracking for the Big Island (stay safe Mariluz and John!) and watching the current African wave. The last wave brought us 99L and we got a really good storm out of it. I’m hoping this next wave brings only a depressing (TD) but the stormcasters are expecting much more. Tuesday will bring news of Flossie and our wave so we keep watching and waiting.

I think we’re all caught up with our happenings and I promise it won’t be so long til the next time. We have had an absolutely AWFUL week for internet service however. Lastly, a shout to my Mom who recently complied (what do we say in English? completed?) a birthday! Happy birthday Mom!!! We all love you very very much and miss you terribly. Uh, you too Dad. Except for the birthday part. Smooches!