Adios 2023

Up a bit later than usual ... yippeee! Did a whole lot of nothing other than make coffee and watch some TV. I began watching the movie Sully. Before I had thought it was going to be a dramatization about the buildup to and the ditching in the Hudson River. I was pleased to see it follows the aftermath involving authorities, especially the NTSB. The tone of the personnel from that organization is very threatening and far from business-like. I know this is a movie and there is some "drama" added to enhance the experience of the viewer. I am sure people from this organization carry themselves throughout their aftermath investigations in a similar manner.

I am just about finished with the critter-proofing of our sliding doors. I attached some brush weatherstripping to one of the glass doors in our bedroom. We need to out one more strip on where the right sliding and screen doors meet then we will be done. No progress yet on the major culprit for incursion of critters. At the bottom of where the fixed and sliding glass doors meet in the living room there is a gap of 1+ centimetres. As one looks up higher on where those doors meet, the gap reduces to about 6-8 millimetres. This is the evidence we used a while back to ascertain that the doors are not perpendicular to the floor.

On our way back from downtown this week we spoke with a friend of Dominique who works as a caretaker at the Ceba Suites complex down the hill. As it turns out he is also a carpenter. We are going to contact him this week to see if he can come up and look at a few things we need done.

Some prep for the celebration at Lynn and Ranae's will start soon and we will be heading up there around 7pm. Two other couples from the condo building are going as well so it should be a hoot.

So here's a story about a cute couple. To protect the identity of the innocent bystanders, let's call them Ranae and Lynn, for example. Any similarity to persons known to the reader is coincidental. So we are with them Friday afternoon. She is dressed in a nice outfit, as always. He is wearing shorts and a sleeveless tshirt. At about 5:45pm, she says to him "What are you going to get dressed?" He scowls. Not long before we leave, he disappears into their room and comes out wearing said shorts, but with a buttoned short sleeve shirt this time. Now for the point of this fictitious story ... who is in charge in this relationship? If you said he is, what planet are you from. If your choice was her, bingo. Let's make this more of a challenge ... pick one:

1. Her
2. She
3. Ranae

Whenever one meets or hears of this couple, there is always mass confusion since one expects René to be the guy and Lynn the gal. Not likely. Life challenges like this are something I do not need.

Then there's the one about something Javier Polo said once to Dominique. She was wondering whether it is easy to buy jam in Mexico. Jam is a huge part of my diet due to the ever popular PB&J offering. His advice to her was ... yes, you can find any kind of jam in Mexico, as long as it's strawberry. We have bought two jars this time we are here. One can find a jar so small that it could be hidden in the fridge by a grapefruit. The alternative is one that could be referred to as a two-year supply.

We are on day day 83 of our 189 day stay in Zihua this time. We saw the (preliminary) lineup for GuitarFest bin March and found some of our favourite artists missing ... mainly Omar Torrez and Eric McFadden. We shall see what transpires as the lineup gets more fixed as the date approaches. Of the entertainers listed, we only recognized four of them. We wonder whether the "missing" artists did not make the cut this year (not likely) or they have not been finalized yet.

When we were at the Chinese restaurant for dinner, my second Corona arrived before I has even ordered it. Works for me. We experienced another right of passage today, one step closer to being more Mexican. Since the shindig starts at Ranae's at 7pm, we thought it wise to have a late lunch. We had fish and leftovers at about 3pm, more like the time the locals eat lunch. Another Mexico native habit we experienced finally. We usually have the midday meal at just that ... midday. What I do not think we will ever do is have dinner when they do. It is not really the locals' dinner time until somewhere between 8 and 9pm. We cannot imagine what it would be like to take in so much food a mere 2 or so hours before we retire.

Heard from Ben and Crem about their trip here in March. Ben said it was very challenging finding affordable flights without the nuisance of more than one stop. I suggested a few things to him like Toronto/Phoenix or Toronto/Minneapolis or even Toronto/Houston then a direct flight from one of them to Zihua. I also wondered if he was hoping to fly on points. I found when I used to fly enough to be able to use Aeroplan miles, that a short trip from Ottawa to New York could have a stop in Boston. I think that is the airlines' insidious way of making it as hard as possible for us to use earned rewards.