So, life in retirement is pretty much plain vanilla with an occasional cinnamon red hot thrown into the mix to get your attention. Days all look much the same, you no longer look forward to Friday and you don't hate Monday. Days, weeks and months blend together and slip by with few things to punctuate their passing. My friend from Canada came down in October and left the first of April and it seemed only a few weeks. Here in MX, flowers always bloom, trees basically never lose their leaves, it's just a continuing repetition of  pleasant days.

So, when something exciting or different actually does happen you tend to take notice - and day before yesterday as I was sitting here at the keyboard uploading pics for a slideshow I got a boink indicating "you have mail" - well, ain't that special. So, I flipped over to Email and it was from my bank, Bancomer, it was titled: Nuestra especialidad es que  ganes al instante which translates to; "Our specialty is to win instantly" - catchy huh. So, I open it up and it simply said:

Stephen David Brown
Terminación de Cuenta 1275

Ok, now I'm beginning to take notice, we may have a "red hot" here. My Spanish, and probably yours, is good enough to guess what "Terminación" means and cuenta is account, like when you're in a restaurant and want your check, you ask for "la cuenta por favor" - my account please.

Now, combining all my language skills it begins to look like they're "terminating" my account 1275 - SHAAAZAM, I'm definitely paying attention now and I can measure the adrenaline flow, it's rapidly increasing from a drip or two a week to a tablespoon full all of a sudden pumping through the old veins.

I've learned in life that nothing is as bad as it might first appear, well, most things aren't, anyway I calmly reached over, picked up the paper bag I keep handy and started breathing rapidly into it. After a short time the glaze on my eyes began to clear and I could feel my lips again, so I thought about it for a moment, I probably misread the cryptic message right? - no, that's what it said, "Terminación". I called one of their reps named Phoebe and explained it and after asking me several times to repeat what it said she was mystified and referred me to my "personal" banker Beto down in the Village. (we rich gringos get special treatment with a PCU, Preferred Customer Unit manager)

After explaining it to him he said that in Spanish they were using the word Terminación slightly differently, basically what it was saying was "the account "ending" in number XXXX - ok, I can see that, Spanish is that way, they put the most important part of the message right up front with adjectives and modifiers after. So, I was still laughing, but not as hysterically as before, so what are they trying to tell me? I mean, the title was "Our specialty is to win instantly" which could also mean they got your money and instantly you got bupkiss, afterall, this IS Mexico and odd things have been known to happen?

He said he'd check, and later I got another Email from him saying it was supposed to be a deposit promotion, if you deposited $7,500 pesos you get a set of Pyrex dishes - again, ain't that special?

Yesterday I paid rent and stopped in his office to deposit some and I said "Beto, you have to stop scaring old gringos that way, we panic easily" - we both laughed. Turns out the Email was sent from corporate in MX City (and you know how corporate office are?) and they got the name and acct #, but not the rest of the message merged in and by the time we talked yesterday he had over 40 calls from other panicked old gringos asking "WHAT?????" - so, that ended that and I was reassured enough to deposit some more.

That was my "red hot" in the plain vanilla for the day, heck, probably week or even month, but as I always tell Mom when I talk to her, "nothing exciting to report" is a good thing, especially at her age, and mine also I guess?

Happy Mother's Day to all the special ladies out there who make our lives complete.