Remember the movie "Never on a Sunday"? - well, normally here in MX you can depend on them to NEVER ever work on Sunday, you can almost guarantee it. They'll work on Christmas day, but not Sunday - well, until now, next door (gee, how lucky can I get?).

Next door at the old La Casa Nostra someone is investing big $$$'s in totally rebuilding the place into another retirement home. The work started a few weeks ago with 7am-7pm pounding of hammers and breaker bars breaking out the old tile floors, stripping the walls of tile and plaster etc, scooping the broken tile etc. rattledee clank into a wheel barrow etc. So, we sort of live in a boom boom clank & crash world, ok, they do stop at night about the time the party over at the park picks up, but I've started setting my alarm for 3:30am, I found a dead space in the noise level around that time and I want to be awake to enjoy it.

So, as work progresses, they're banging away and once in a while the old wall gives way and I have a couple of holes, not large, in the wall. Yesterday I saw one of the cats venture a peek in there, I smiled. For a time we got Saturday afternoons off, so that was nice, a whole afternoon with no bang and boom. And the wonderful quiet on Sunday we so look forward to - well, no more!

The tempo has stepped up, yesterday we got a whole day of bang and boom. And the one thing that continues to amaze me is the determined effort here in MX to remain in the past and do everything manually. These guys are using a small sledge hammer and chisel to deconstruct the place, one brick at a time and one whack of plaster at a time. Of course with solid brick walls you have to chisel a channel into the surface to embed plastic conduit to run electrical wires through. Do you think they'd use a grinder to cut grooves and then chip out the middle like wood work? - absolutely NOT, we do it the ancient way, clank & chip, it takes longer that way? Yes, I know, it's a Mexican "make work" thing, but that' doesn't mean I have to understand it.

Today, being Sunday, we finally get a break - NOT! At 8:30 they started cutting steel, yes, with a grinder, the same one they should have used to cut the brick and plaster to chip out for the conduit - but, I digress. Anyway, they're howling away over there, freaking out the cats, giving me a headache and then the real fun begins, a boombox. Now in MX they're a bit different, they look a lot like ones we see NOB being carried around on shoulders to offend as many people in the local as possible with rap etc. But, the MXn versions don't even bother to put a volume control, or tone controls on the offending appliance. When you hit the ON switch, it's max volume and of course the cheap speakers totally distort the (I hesitate to say) music, so no tone controls are necessary, it's just a BLAT BLAT BLAT.

This being the warm time of year the house is open, I like to play XM radio quietly in the background around the house to set the peaceful mood my karma is attempting to attain in my retirement. But, of course with the BLAT BLAT BLAT echoing from next door, my 40's music, like Serenade in Blue, is now mixed with a La Cugaracha backbeat and I'm conflicted, I don't know whether to waltz or (whatever is it you do to La Cugaracha?).

As you might imagine, the new casa hunt goes on. I'm developing a comedy routine, as I go from one rental agency to another asking about renting a new place I always start by telling them I need a place that is "QUIET"! That always leaves them howling with laughter - then it take another 5 minutes to calm them down and get them to realize I'm serious - which is about where they tend to lose interest in finding me a new casa?