Today is September 15^th, tomorrow is “16 de Septimbre,” Mexican Independence Day and we’ve been in semi-full party mode for at least a week already. The festivities of Tuesday the will be huge and my first as I wasn’t here last year.

Recently I was in a fabric store buying some material for pictures I was making (yes, I know, me in a fabric store? - but hey, I’ve been doing fabric things for years) and noticed they were selling meters of red, white and green fabric. The flag vendors have popped up on every square and vending area and you can buy almost everything you could imagine in those national colors, the Mexican people are fiercely patriotic and of course it’s a great reason for another fiesta.

Back to part 2 of things I’ve learned:

This time of the year you can’t have too much red, white and green and maybe that explains some of the immigration protests of 2 years ago, the Mexican people are a “flag waving” society sadly unlike much of America today.

I can’t go to a drive thru Burger King because it’s necessary for me to wave my hands as I attempt to communicate in Spanglish. When I order a #3 (tres) I need to hold up 3 fingers and when I say NO CEBOLLAS (no onions) I need to be gesturing “NO”. But, face to face we eventually arrive at an understanding.

Unlike a Home Depot NOB that has 483 kinds of chalking compound for sealing everything from the “crack of dawn” to your mother-in-laws mouth, in MX there are only 3 kinds, black, white and sticky. (all can be used with the mother-in-law application, says so on the label - I think?)

I learned maricos means fish, Max likes “Mariscos” flavor Wiskars cat food, don’t get “Pollo” (chicken) he don’t like it. However the outside guys will eat anything put in front of them, so nothing is wasted.

Especially during the rainy season the less stuff you have on the terraza the better, it cuts down on the places spiders can string webs between. During this season the population explodes and you get used to walking with your arm ahead of you to break the “stringers” or just wiping them off your face and hair when you go back inside.

You learn to look past the beggars, in the States it’s easier because you know there are safety nets, but here there are not. However you also learn it is a way of life for them, an “occupation” and if you handed one a thousand dollars they would be there again tomorrow, it’s what they do, you can’t cure the problem by encouraging it, hard as it is at times.

It’s hot in the Spring, the two hottest months are April and May, also the driest. Then it’s cool in our traditional Summer, usually 65 in the mornings and 78 or so in the afternoon -  take it or leave it, I’m getting used to it, but secretly miss some of those burning hot days in Texas. You get used to not having a thermostat on the wall – actually you can gloat and tell AlGore you’ve gone “green”. I have solar panels of the roof, but they’re for heating the pool so that probably doesn’t count as “green”.

For $2.70 a gallon, actually about $7.30p per liter, you can buy gas and right next door for $5 plus tip you can get a car wash that is equivalent to a $40 detail job NOB and it takes an hour and a half – minimum. They have sprayers and vacuums, but this IS Mexico, all things take longer (you learn that real quick).

Curb appeal, when it comes to housing, is an alien concept SOB. Mexican’s are selectively ostentatious and private, even reclusive. They’ll wave flags, put out shrines with gaudy plastic flowers and gold crosses, but to show your wealth openly (except for your Ferrari or Mercedes) would be in bad taste so almost everything is behind walls (that also keep things from being stolen). Inside the walls may be drop dead gorgeous, but you’d never know it from the outside.

The Mexican postal system isn’t useable per se, not even the native folks trust it so there are over 4,000 private courier companies in MX for “importante” stuff. And gringo mail is what it is as well. You have a PO address in Laredo which is too long to fit in the normal allowable space for the post office, Texas drivers licenses etc., so you abbreviate things and that immediately eliminates online databases from accepting your input, so you have to call a human, explain in long s l o w detail what you need. And then the mail is collected from the box and shipped through customs, so packages of any kind are a nono, don’t even think about it. Even an envelope of photos I received had a customs sticker on it. From there the mail is hauled to San Luis Potosi, sorted and then on to the mail boxes here at the lake in the back of the pool supply place. It comes in usually twice a week, sometimes even three times and then you have to remember the pool supply closes for siesta from 2 – 4pm, so you can’t get your mail. Outgoing mail is sent through the Lake Chapala Society (local gringo support organization). For $7p they’ll put a stamp on 3 letters a day (limit) and throw them into a bag and the next volunteer going NOB will haul the bag and throw the letters in the first box they find, if they’re driving it might be TX, NM or AZ, if they’re flying it might be Chicago or Portland. So, mail happens when it happens. A check I sent to Houston for deposit on the 6^th hasn’t made it yet?

I learned that a Tylenol PM pill NOB at Walgreens is about 1 cent ea in a bottle of 150, here a generic equivalent here is 45 cents ea – apparently Mexicans don’t have any trouble sleeping, so I had to order a supply from a friend coming down to visit. You also learn to start making a shopping list of stuff you want before you make a trip NOB.

Alka Seltzer here is $2 for 12 tablets, Sams NOB is $14 for 160 tablets – conclusion: Mexicans don’t get indigestion?

On the positive side, an Advair inhaler retail NOB is $200, here an equivalent is $45.

Everyone here uses a string mop, it’s almost mandatory, they leave strings around furniture legs, they’re not to be picked up, they’re left to indicate a recent mopping, sort of a mark of pride thing. No one has ever heard of a Swiffer duster – NO ONE! So, another import item on the NOB shopping list.

Here you can live native, or you can live gringo, it’s possible to live on much less and with less; less electricity, less convenience, less fanfare, fewer clothes, less of most things. And if you can, and do, live that way it can be considerably cheaper and the memories of luxury designer items (like chrome retro 4 slice toasters for $80) fade and maybe it’s age or this time of life or just returning to a more common sense way of living, but it’s not bad. Now, if you want to live gringo, it’s gonna cost more and you’ll not impress anyone but yourself.

Probably the biggest pain in the tail feathers is the CFE, our electric company, they’re darn expensive and love to punish “volume” users on a bi-monthly basis. In TX I paid 9.2 cents per KWH, here I’m paying around 35 cents. The pool is the killer. There are graduated levels of usage and if you use enough to slip into a higher level for a single month they continue to punish you for 6-12 month at the higher rate even if you drop back to near zero. They also have a nasty habit of estimating every other meter reading and as you might guess it’s always high and that single estimation, that “guess” or whatever it is can be the bill that sends you into a higher level even though you didn’t actually use that much, so you learn to read the meter religiously. I’ve instructed my rental company who pays the bill not to pay it until I approve or complain because once it’s paid to CFE the chances of getting a refund or even a credit are about the same as the chances of a 30 something, gorgeous blonde beauty with her own private jet ringing my doorbell looking for a husband – not impossible, but a hand calculator ain’t got enough digits to calculate the odds.

So ends part 2 of this report on things I’ve learned in Mexico. There will probably be one more installation before the 1 year anniversary rolls around. Right now I have to reset the clocks and radios, the power just went out again, hopefully the TV will be back on soon, the rain has passed – you get used to it, really you do.