(Post 77 of 233. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr!)

Recently, the world lost the great Sir Sean Connery. My best friend Bast and I are movie buffs, so of course we started reminiscing about our fondest memories of his roles. Top of mind for me was as Henry Jones Sr. in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We both love the scene on the beach in which Jones Sr. shows emotion before sacrificing a bunch of birds to save himself and Indy. That scene was filmed on a beach outside of Almería. When I was in Almería, I thought that it might be cool to go out and visit the beach, but couldn’t justify the time away from work to make the excursion possible.

l I made a lot of decisions like that when I was in Europe. My European adventure was not at all what it was supposed to have been, a voyage without end, a time of living in the present. But I had no sooner landed than my future was written out for me. And little did I know during those months that I was making the the right choices for the events that would follow.

The future of travel is so uncertain right now. I can’t think too hard about it lest I go mad with grief at such an unexpected cutting short of my adventures. All I can do is focus on the present. And it was the sacrifices I made during my nine months in Europe that are making it possible for me to ride so easily through this crisis. Somehow, as though I could see the events of the next few years written out for me, I struck a balance in Europe between living for the present while at the same time building in resiliency for pandemic. I learned to hunker down and focus on my business and I grew reaccustomed to finding my pleasures in a simple domestic routine.

And most important of all, I discovered that travel isn’t just about going out and exploring and having adventures every day. It is also about learning the local rhythm of life. And for me especially, those months on the shores of the Mediterranean, Africa so close and yet still so far away, meant a breakthrough in my Spanish fluency that I’m not convinced could have happened anywhere so quickly but in Andalusia, as that’s the accent I first learned. I am so grateful right now to be able to converse so easily in Spanish with the few people who populate my days. Whether I’m explaining potential solutions to electrical and plumbing problems to my handyman, conversing with an Uber driver about the social debt of large corporations, or laughing with a neighbour about something silly my dog did, I feel like this fluency roots me to the world in which I’ve chosen to live out this crisis.

And so, these pandemic days continue to march on relentlessly and unapologetically. There are little bits of normalcy again, like the one Sunday a month when Juan comes to do the yard work and “La Jefe” has fun supervising, but those days are brief and fleeting.

It’s hard to get time off (for which I am not complaining!), but when I do, I try to be on my feet and away from screens. A couple of nights ago, I started building a new cupboard I bought for my kitchen, finishing it over the course of the following day.

I’m quite chuffed at how perfectly everything fits and that I now have a proper broom cupboard.

My handyman was back today to install a light fixture above my kitchen sink.

(His next jobs will be unblocking the kitchen sink, doing maintenance on my bedroom AC (both of which he knows about), and installing a pressure flow thingamabob in my master shower (feasibility to be discussed).)

He timed his arrival today perfectly as I was literally just minutes away from completing a gruelling afternoon of making homemade pasta! Why all that effort, he asked me.

Because I get a stomachache from fresh pasta made with chicken eggs. But these beautiful duck eggs magically don’t cause me any issues (omelettes are DA BOMB, by the way).

He did quick and very clean work, so I had time to throw together a quick ragù sauce (hint: wine and sausage replace the need to cook the sauce for hours!).

Dinner was welcome because I hadn’t eaten since a breakfast of homemade waffles (I’m nearly through my list of eggy things I need to catch up on!). I bought a mini waffle maker that I still need to play around with. A friend assures me I could have gotten these a lot darker brown, so I’ll keep playing till I get it right. But they were still delicious! And that’s fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, something that is no longer a travel treat but something I have a few times a week. There could be worst vices!

All this time cooking is a way to nurture myself. I’m paying attention to where my ingredients come from and planning meals with intent and an aim of nourishing myself. I don’t think I’ve ever since my adolescence had so much time to spend in the kitchen (I was cooking professionally in those days!). And I’ve noticed that the more time I spend in the kitchen in a day, the less time I spend in the kitchen over the week. It’s really great to pull a portion of chicken curry with rice out of the freezer for those nights when you have unexpected overtime because I took downtime to cook in bulk.

There is so much uncertainty right now. I choose to focus on what I can count on right now, like business continuing to grow and a house of my own being within reach. I’m not thinking (too much) about how I had planned to go to Japan for my ten-year business anniversary next year (a lovely bookend to the five-year anniversary in London) or that I haven’t been more than five kilometres from my house since March. There’s no reason to make myself sad over things I can’t control and what has been taken from me. Instead, I choose to focus on what this pandemic has given me, an economic certainty that was so very much out of reach that day in Almería when I decided on an amble through the city centre instead of an excursion out of town.

(Post 76 of 233. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr!)

With the house, I sort of inherited a handyman that the landlady trusts. He does the air-conditioning maintenance and small plumbing tasks and electrical things as well. Unfortunately, he has become less and less reliable and he never even bothered to show up the last time that I had an electrical job for him.

This afternoon I messaged the landlady about the plumbing “emergency” I described in my previous post, and she gave me two other referrals for plumbers. I contacted both of them and one got back to me very quickly. The other one ended up calling me about an hour later, but I didn’t need his services anymore.

The plumber, Don Wilbert and I went back and forth on WhatsApp. Based on the photo I sent him, he advised me that it was a big job. That to do it right, you would have to take out most of the wall to get to the guts of the plumbing. I was all ready for him to say that. I don’t use that tap, so I suggested that we just add a stopper, and he said that was a good idea if I could live with that. I sure could and my landlady said that at this point it’s my house, to a point, so it was my decision, plus I was paying!

Don Wilbert arrived at 4 p.m. on the dot, as promised. He had brought the part he needed, so it was a very quick job for him and his helper. I was a little low on cash, but I hadn’t made a run out to Walmart to get more because I figured there was no way that job was going to cost me more than 600 pesos. It ended up being $450, but I only had a $500 bill, so I let him have the extra.

The two of them cleaned up completely, going so far as to ask me for a broom and a dustpan. So I knew that I wanted to keep his number in my phone. He gave me a business card to show me all the services he offers. Like a lot of plumbers, he does electrical and air-conditioning work as well. So I booked him for next week to install a light fixture in my kitchen above my sink! When he comes back I am also going to get a quote for service on my bedroom air conditioner as I’m getting a mouldy odour coming out of it. I cleaned the filter, but that didn’t help.

I know I am in this house at least one more year, so I’m really glad to have a reliable handyman in my contacts again!

(Post 75 of 233. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr!)

Homes in Mexico have few water shut-off valves. So this resulted in the entire rooftop tinaco (water tank) emptying by the time I got hold of a plumber. I also have no water to the house until the plumber can resolve the issue (I don’t use this tap, so I’m going with the cheapest option of adding a stopper and plate over the opening). I do have water at an exterior tap that is in-line between the where the city water enters and the ground-level tinaco, so at least I’m not entirely without water until resolution. Always appreciate reminders that building codes exist for a reason and to be mindful of that when I renovate or even build my first home here!

(I have intentionally turned off comments to the blog. Feel free to email me.)

(Post 74 of 233. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr!)

I had no idea when I adopted Bonita two and a half years ago that we had come into each other’s life at the exact perfect moment. I needed a presence to keep me company and rooted in Mérida for a few years; she needed a home and creature comforts in her old age. It’s crazy how I had just started to get the travel bug again and was trying to sort out dogsitters when the pandemic hit. As things stand, I suspect I’ll be staying close to home for the rest of her life, which is what my anxious girl needs. We’ve grown so close since lockdown started, finding each other in a way that we had difficulty doing so in our first two years together. My being home all day every single day really gave her the routine and security she needs. She’ll always be an anxious dog wary of strangers but she knows for sure now that I’m her human and that she has a home, of which she is fiercely protective (it took a long time for her to find her voice, but now she’s not shy about using it!).

I don’t know how she knows it, but I’m no sooner up and about in my room upstairs in the mornings that I hear her barking up at my bedroom window. She’s had a night alone and is eager to see me. Our reunion is the best part of the day, when she is most playful and affectionate. If it rained overnight and she got wet and/or muddy, she gets a bath or at least a toweling down, the latter of which she adores.

Ours is a quiet, simple routine. She’s an old girl now (going on 15!) and while she often passes as much younger to those who have just met her, she has the energy of an old dog. By late morning, she’s happy to slumber at my feet or by my side on the couch, depending on what I’m working on. She likes one meal a day, and preferably at the same time as me. She’s developed a taste for cheese, homemade chicken broth, pork gristle, and cooked carrots, but will literally spit out fruit. Her favourite treats are jerky sticks that she can happily spend an hour chewing to pieces. Due to her immune system being weak and there being a lot of feral dogs in the neighbourhood, we don’t often venture out, but when we do, she knows we’re going to her Uncle Jan’s house, something we started doing again a few months ago. She loves going there and feels safe.

Here are some pictures from her lockdown so far, uploaded as WordPress decided they would be, so not in chronological order.

This was today. It was a cold wet day and it was funny to see her timidly head outside to pee and then race back to the warm cosy couch by me!

Cheeky grin!

She doesn’t snuggle a lot, so close contact like this makes my heart go boom.

We had some roof work done over the summer. Her sad expression at her view being blocked is pretty funny. She loves supervising workers!

She will sometimes extend her rear paw like that as an invitation to massage it.

Post bath. She loves snuggling up in a towel!

Snoring and farting. LOL!

Very rare snuggles!

The look of love!

Guard dog mode activated! This was HILARIOUS. My neighbour was working on his roof. She’d periodically run outside to our shared wall and bark up at him to stay on his side of it!

Happy to be visiting!

She’s shyer with Jan at home, but friendly at his house.

She even lets him pet her when she’s visiting.

She was snuffling and “running” in her sleep. I feel privileged that she trusts me enough to fall asleep so profoundly in my presence.

This is her leash for around the house, so I probably had workers. She was happy for a distraction.

When she stares at me like this, she slow blinks a message of “I love you” just like a cat does.

Enjoying her favourite treat! Her teeth had been bothering her for a bit, but it got sorted out.

I was shocked when sharing a picture of her with my professional association resulted in this post by another related professional association that follows their Twitter!

B and Dodger. Because she lived with so many cats and dogs, Bonita isn’t particularly bothered by animal strangers.

Sound asleep!

She’s just so cute. 🙂

These are different, chewier, treats. This one took her DAYS to finish.

She’s so goofy sometimes. Doesn’t she look like a walrus here?

I managed to get a picture of a rare time that she slipped her paw under my hand. She even curls it around to hold it.

Ah, another ritual. When dinner’s done and the kitchen is cleaned and I’ve shut down the office for the night and I’ve finally sat on the couch to watch a little TV, she has to give me a bath. I swear she’s a cat in disguise!

More rare snuggles

How can you not feel seen by such a stare?

Thank goodness she’s not a slobbery dog!

She LOVES ear scritches.

Awww.

I think he found the right spot!

This was during the heavy rain from Hurricane Zeta. Doesn’t look too bothered, does she?

I had a hard time imagining myself with a dog-friendly lifestyle and I can’t imagine it happening again. This was the right dog at the right time and I am so blessed to have her.

(Post 73 of 233. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr!)

Bast said I should post a picture of my treasure haul from yesterday, so here it comes. But first, a little background.

Areas of high tourist transit, whether it be a snowbird destination like Mexico or a summer destination like the Yukon, are great places for locals to score high quality used goods at bargain prices. The short-termers, especially those with deep pockets, buy things for the time they are there and then discard them when they move on. March-April is the time in Mérida to buy used things like appliances, mattresses, and household goods in pristine condition and to expat standards of quality as snowbirds leave. I’ve seen a 20,000 peso refrigerator bought at Costco and used for four months sold for less than half that, and that wasn’t an oddity.

Of course, this year, the snowbird repatriation was a rather panicked affair. Folks took their first opportunity to go and did not do the careful preparations they normally would have. There was very much a sense of an evacuation.

Not everyone left. Some folks, even on tourist visas, realised that it was best to make their stand here. Others simply got stuck. It’s only now, as some countries are opening up and Mexico is being added to safe lists (waves to Switzerland!), that some of these tourists are leaving. So yesterday, I scored a haul of fantastic things, all but one of which had been on my “I really want that, but not at full price” list for a while, all from a Southeast Asia-based American nomad who got stuck here but is finally free to head off to his next destination in the Balkans six months later than planned.

My haul included:

– A set of Rubbermaid producer savers. I’ve had many people tell me these would work wonders for my problems with things like carrots going bad in my fridge, but at nearly 900 pesos for three plastic containers, I wasn’t willing to experiment.

– A 4-quart Pyrex baking dish (have duck eggs, 00 flour, and a pasta maker, lasagna is an inevitability)

– A silicon roasting rack. I’d never heard of such a thing, but I can think of uses for it and it was included in the total price regardless.

-A silicon springform pan. Now, this was a gift, pure and simple. I was supposed to get the three items above for an agreed-upon price, but he offered at arrival to throw this in. I’ve wanted a springform pan for ages, but couldn’t justify the cost for the one or two times a year I make a cheesecake!

The total value of these items on Amazon Mexico is about 2,500 pesos. I got it all for 600 pesos.

The seller’s location was just within walking distance of L’épicure gourmet boutique when hauling all those items, so I then hoofed it there to pick up the aforementioned eggs and flour. What a great hump day excursion. I hadn’t been that far in centro (Mejorada area) since probably last year!

Bonus Bonita pic for Bast. 🙂