(Post 69 of 233. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr!)

My dentist says I should be done with braces by Christmas! I’m through the part I was dreading most, the elastics. My teeth have been achy and sore and loose for five straight weeks thanks to them and I’ve been limited in the foods I could eat. As expected, the “braces diet” was good for my weight, but not so much for morale! So I decided to look for a visual reminder of how far I’ve come in the last ten months. I remembered that back in December, just after my consultation appointment, I had treated myself to a Reese’s peanut butter cup and taken a photo of my dental impression. So I picked one up today while running errands so I could compare my dental imprint then from now. I think this picture says it all!

My dentist/orthodontist here in Mérida is Dr. Javier Cámara Patrón of Quality Dental. I can’t recommend him or his team too highly. They really care about their patients, do excellent work, and their rates are affordable. I’ll have spent about 9,000 pesos in total by the time this is done, and the most I had to shell out at one time was 2,000 pesos. That’s about 425USD or 550CAD total for the entire year-long treatment. I could never have had this work done in Canada and, like Dr. Susana in Mazatlán told me, it’s not just a cosmetic issue. It’s helping with the wear on my teeth. It has also eliminated some pain on the left side from all the work I have had done on the top back teeth so that after nearly 15 years of only chewing on my right side, I now chew all but super hard foods on the left side as well. I have also been plagued most of my adult life by random shooting jaw pain that appears to have been resolved!

(Post 68 of 233. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr!)

After being dumped on by Tropical Storm Gamma, Yucatán is being walloped by Hurricane Delta. As of 11:08 CST on October 7th, here’s Delta in relation to me.

We’ve had steady rain for days and just a few minutes of it and the wind picking up. Coastal communities that are still cleaning up from Gamma are being much harder hit. Friends in Playa del Carmen and Cancún report that the storm was much less severe than everyone was preparing for.

This is my fourth hurricane season. I’m glad to be inland as I don’t think I could handle the stress of another hurricane season at the beach (we were on Nate watch on this day in ’17 when I was in Chelem). Mérida has only had a couple of devastating hurricanes (notably Gilbert). As I was following the news about Delta, I wasn’t too concerned and even took on jobs for today.

(Post 67 of 233. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr!)

My house is located close to a lot of little independently owned shops. I don’t have to go too far for things like hardware supplies, beer (when there’s no restrictions), and common groceries of all types. But if I want fancier groceries (like European butter) or to take out cash from an ATM, I have to go about 2KM north, east, or south of my house. In another climate, 2KM is nothing to walk, but here, it might as well be 20, plus Mérida is not pedestrian-friendly. It’s like I’m both super centrally located and in the middle of nowhere at the same time.

Well, all of that has changed.

There is now a giant Walmart an 8-minute walk from my house! I needed some cash today and instead of taking my truck (it’s been raining on and off all day, so too risky to walk 48 minutes roundtrip to my bank) and going to the nearest HSBC ATM, I was able to walk between downpours to Walmart, pick up a few things I needed, and then get cash as a withdrawal on my debit card at checkout. I was home in under 30 minutes, and that included taking the time to go through the store to get an idea of the layout and what departments it has. I can’t even get to the bank and back that fast in my truck because of the traffic!

I will leave you with an untouched, true to nature, sunset picture. We got a moment of respite from two days of solid rain, with more days coming. This has been an interminable rainy season…