Mexico is a land of contrasts, great beauty and great ugly, great wealth and poverty and great "dry" and great "wet".

As I look out into my world I see such contrasts that it's obvious Mexico didn't get the memo titled "All things in moderation". The profusion of colors year round is just breathtaking, in the middle of "winter" I have some of the most beautiful flowers with colors I can't begin to describe. The color saturation of some make them appear to be imitation almost, but you could never make a plastic or silk flower look like that. The flowering trees are amazing, the jacaranda's with their purple blossoms and now the African tulip trees are budding and many others add to the color mix.

Mexico is of course a land of great disparity when it comes to wealth and lack of distribution. Here in Jalisco we are in one of the most affluent states in MX with Guadalajara. The residents of GDL are know as Tapatio's and they have no problem making their presence known on weekends, holidays etc. when they arrive here to chill out at the Lake. The problem again comes in contrast, they know one speed - very fast with zero patience when it comes to following vs. passing. Herein lies a great contrast, the local folk are exactly opposite with cars willing (or maybe only able) to putter along at a snails pace with gringo's trapped somewhere between not sure whom to follow or whom to pass.

We have changing seasons marked in a number of ways, the most obvious is the falling leaves, but they don't do it all at once like NOB. Some trees drop early, some late and some continually so there is always basura for the gardener to sweep up, the pool guy to vacuum out and me to skim off the money pit. A more subtle change is the winds, they alternate from east to west and back again. For over a month each night about 8pm the wind would blow fiercely from the west, but as the rainy season has arrived the viento has moderated somewhat unless a thunder storm is approaching.

Also the insectos portend a changing time, the bobos (small gnat like flies) swarm in the evenings now, but during the winter I could leave the doors open without screens closed. And, yesterday giant flying ants arrived - in my pool and all over the place. These things are the size of small bees and large wings and the maintenance guy seemed to say they are "eaten", I didn't ask for details.

However the greatest contrast is dry vs. wet. I arrived 8 months ago the first part of October which was the tail end of the rainy season and when it dried up, it dried up like a prune, basically no moisture (except for one shower in Feb) until now. And "now" happened last Friday night when a horizontal storm blew in from the east and we picked up over 2" rather suddenly, then the following day and again etc., so from Jan 1st to June 6th we had a total of .33" of rain, since then we've had 5.56" of rain, the average for Junio is normally 6.6" so it looks like we'll shoot on past that average like a roadrunner with his afterburner on. Again, a total contrast, no moderation, we had months of dust when it was almost silly to attempt to dust as the following day a new layer was deposited on everything and I DO mean everything, now it's wet everywhere and even Max isn't much interested in going out.

Also our temperatures have moderated (although "summer" wasn't all that hot) to a level almost requiring long pants, something I've not worn since back in Feb/Mar. But, we are thankful for the lluvia and all it brings, the bobos, giant flying ants, cohetes day/night/weekends from the celebration in San Antonio (another lack of moderation, one or two would be fine, but hundreds?) the humidity, flowering everything and the mud streets that were formerly dust alleys - as I said, absolutely NO MODERATION.