Personal

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A Change of Scenery

Whew. I’m leaving for Mérida on Friday and I don’t think I could possibly deserve — or need — a vacation more than I do now! After taking it pretty easy in January and reorienting myself with new clients, I’ve worked my tail off in February! I can’t believe how much I earned in just two weeks this month. I also have the peace of mind of knowing that I’ll have a full roster when I go back to work March 1st.

One of the most exciting projects I’m going to start on is a new transcription project for Gutsu films. I am very proud to have been their Transcription Coordinator for the forthcoming documentary Freedom for the Wolf and am thrilled to be on board for their next project. I’ll be doing some law enforcement work on top of that, as well as a little proofreading and general transcription. I don’t think I’ve been this happy with my workload in ages (outside of the proofreading contract that just ended, of course).

I was going to get takeout last night, but was too beat to fathom putting on my flip-flops and schlepping “all the way” to Miguel’s. You know I’m tired when cooking feels like less work than eating out! But tonight, as I sent off the final transcript and invoice for a major project, knowing that I have a couple of easy days of work left before my vacation, I just needed a change of scenery.

So, being the classy gal that I am, I transferred the rest of my white wine to a water bottle (the wine bottle being too large to carry in my purse) and went to Miguel’s. I brought a book, but ended up spending most of my time talking to Angela about different things and getting in some much needed linguistic practice. My word of the day is “castigar” (to punish).

I ordered a shrimp burrito and a chorreada.

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I still don’t quite know what the latter is all about, but it’s yummy. I like the base, which is a charred maize product. It’s much thicker than a tortilla and has a strong corn taste, but is not crunchy like a tostada. I like a lot of guacamole, hot sauce, and lime juice on my chorreadas!

I haven’t really had many cravings for the shrimp burritos this winter for some reason and each time I have one, I wonder why because they are so good!!! I like these with just the avocado sauce normally, but tonight added both hot sauce and chiles curtidos (pickled jalapeños) and that hit the spot tonight for some reason. Usually, I like the burritos because they’re not spicy, but I must have been in a mood tonight.

Miguel and Angela had a sign by the counter today announcing that they now have agua frescas made from fresh fruit. I asked what kinds and it was hibiscus (jamaica), horchata (which Angela qualified as being riced-based, which I knew, but haven’t tried yet), and… guava. My favourite! I bought a litre bottle from her and will finish it tomorrow as it is very dense since it has so much fruit in it. YUM. Look at the pretty colour!

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Dinner was $80 with the tip (6.58CAD or 5USD). That was it for Miguel’s for February. I can’t believe it’ll already be March next time I go!

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Mission Not So Impossible

I had an adventure and a half this morning!

My riding friend Sue emailed yesterday to ask if I could go to town today to act as a translator. I cannot remember the last time I’ve been to town and could do very well with a few hours away from my desk, so I was glad for the excuse to take off. I met her at 9:30 this morning and got the scoop on what we were off to do.

By way of background, she’s friends with a guy named Rus who had come to Isla for a few weeks from Minnesota and stayed in the apartment next to him. I met him once and he’s super nice. Rus uses his iPad to take pictures and while in Maz one day he set it down and forgot it! He had years worth of pictures on it and was devastated. He put up reward posters in the area where he lost it (Centro between the Mercado and Olas Altas), but nothing came of it.

When he got home, he called Apple and they told him how to activate the Find My iPad feature so that a message would pop up on the lock screen saying the iPad is lost and giving contact information (I need to make sure I have that working on my own iOS devices!).

Incredibly enough, someone had turned the iPad in to the police!!!!! Soon as that notification showed up on the lock screen, a very lovely lady named Marisela who works for the police called Rus in Minnesota to let him know she had his iPad. Rus then asked Sue to go pick it up. Sue had other friends of hers call Marisela to get an address and then asked me to go with her to be a translator.

Which brings us to this morning. The information on a scrap of paper was almost meaningless to me, but I did understand that we were heading into the Juárez colonia. I said our best bet would be to give the paper to a pulmonía driver and see if he could figure it out. Our driver, Mario, looked at it for a bit and saw a street name. That was good enough for him and off we went. Sue and I go to Juárez regularly, so we knew we were in the right neighbourhood and not getting taken for a ride.

We got to the street and he asked a few people if they could get us to Marisela from the rest of the information on the paper. No. Sue had Marisela’s number and I had my phone with money on it so I asked Mario if he would speak to her if I dialed on my phone. Sure. He got hold of her and started with “Marisela? Good. I’m a pulmonía driver and I’ve got a couple of Gringos looking for you…” Sue and I got that bit and burst out laughing. He talked for a bit and said “Aaaaah” a lot, which was a good sign.

Mario hung up, handed me back the phone, and drove a couple more blocks to where we needed to be. We really were “right there” and we had made the right decision to trust a pulmonía driver. This is where we learned that we were going to a community police station for the first time! We were shocked! We’d already asked Mario to wait for us and had made it clear as we were driving around that we were prepared to pay, so he told us where he’d be waiting and wished us good luck.

I asked a police officer outside about Marisela, but he didn’t seem too keen to help. It was an older gentleman in civilian clothing sitting across from him who took pity on us and led us in to Marisela’s office.

Sue had been told to come with ID, so we figured she’d show her passport, get the iPad, and we’d be on our way. No. I have no idea how long we were in that stuffy room, but it was a while! Marisela got all of Sue’s details to make sure they matched up with her information, was happy to see her number on Sue’s phone in an email from Rus, and then asked us for Rus’ address and birthday. Hmmm… Thankfully, Sue’s phone is set up to call the States easily so she called him and left a message. He called right back with the missing information. Sue then had to sign for the iPad and, get this, give her thumb print! They were thorough! Finally, we had to pose for pictures together with the iPad and also with Marisela, probably for their Facebook page or bulletin board. Whew!

Sue was a bit stressed during all of this, but I was having a blast. One thing was clear, there was no way she would have made it without translator. As she said, she would have been driving around in aimless circles and it would have been a waste of her time and money.

The iPad finally secure in her purse, we headed out and Mario whisked us back to the Playa Sur embarcadero. We’d determined the trip would be worth $300 to Mario, which is what he quoted us when we arrived, but we gave him $400. The trip had started off with him being a little uneasy and very likely wondering if it would be worth his time, but he was laughing with us at the end and left very happy and sufficiently compensated for nearly two hours of his time.

As soon as we got to Sue’s place, she sent Rus a picture of us holding his iPad. He’s a happy guy!

The iPad’s not home yet, though, of course. Sue is taking it home to Lethbridge with her, where she will courier it to Rus in Minnesota. But it’s safe and sound for now and he’ll have it in about eight weeks.

The takeaway from this story is that there are some really good people out there. This happy ending would not have been possible without the good Samaritan turning the iPad in to the authorities. And Apple deserves some credit for having a method to get its devices home when they fall in the hands of good people.

It was an awesome morning. Thanks, Sue, for asking me to be your translator on this fun adventure!

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Doors Closing and Opening

Something important happened a month ago that some of you on Facebook could have possibly deduced from the fact that I was taking a Wednesday afternoon off here, going to town midday on a Thursday, and getting up late — the amazing proofreading contract that I’ve had since last summer came to a very abrupt end.

It wasn’t the end of the world.

I would have loved to have done it for another six months, but I knew that every shift had been a precious gift. So I had a the money to cover a couple of months’ worth of expenses stashed away in my emergency fund (thanks to the low cost of living here in Mexico!). I’d still want to work hard at making up the lost income to touch those saving as little as possible, but the contract ending wasn’t the bottom dropping out event a similar situation had been the fall of 2014 when I first got to Mexico.

Well, to my surprise, in addition to a reference, they gave me a severance payment! What a gift! My being let go was a business decision that I could understand and this generosity made that decision all the more easy to swallow.

So instead of having to work myself to the bone in January to make sure I could cover February expenses and the lack of income from my Mérida holiday without touching my savings, I could take it easy somewhat easy…. but still remembering that I have a trip home and a flight to Europe to pay for in the next few months!

I’d been granted the gift of time I’d been looking for for so long — time to learn new skills (coding apps for iOS and doing WordPress development!) and to find new clients without the nagging voice at the back of my mind counting all the money I wasn’t making.

The very next day, I was taking the first steps to signing on with a new transcription client. And just a few days after that, after beginning a training program that revealed some ugly truths, I told the client that they were paying slave wages and I wasn’t interested in working for them after all!

That was scary… and liberating! The thing is, I haven’t been living paycheque-to-paycheque for the last year or so and I’ve gotten used to having a better than subsistence level of income. Transcription was the wrong field to get into because it tends to pay slave wages, but I’m now in a position to wait for the better clients to come along.

And sure enough, one did. Her rates aren’t amazing, but they’re fair, and it’s the kind of transcription work I want to be doing. If I had clung to the first opportunity that came along, I would never have bothered to keep looking and therefore found this one.

And then, something else came along, another proofreading contract that pays well and for which the client is hoping to build a long-term relationship!

I am absolutely slammed with work right now after several quiet weeks of getting myself sorted and it is fantastic! I have a good mix of tasks, I haven’t had to make any budgetary adjustments (Mexico being so inexpensive helps, of course!), and I’ll be able to enjoy my time off in Mérida. So far it looks like it’ll be ten days off. I had planned to do proofreading there for the old contract, so if I have to do a little proofreading for the new one, it won’t be a problem. 🙂

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Lunch in Town

I had a bit of a homey morning, doing laundry and catching up on some chores and bookkeeping. Around 1:00, I decided it was too nice of a day to spend on the computer so I put on my new dress and a new scarf and headed off for lunch on the Malecón.

On the way, I stopped in at the Mercado with the hope of finding a very lightweight dressing gown, something I’ve been wanting for quite some time. I struck out at the thrift shops back home and I didn’t like the selection in stores. I just wanted a pretty cover-up to wear over my skimpy jammies so I can have my coffee outside or run out to get the water without having to get dressed first.

I went up two aisles in the Mercado when I spotted something on a dummy. I had it taken off for me to examine more closely and was surprised that it was absolutely perfect:

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It’s almost like a kimono, so it has a very ample cut. The length is perfect, not so long as to get tangled in it, but long enough to be modest. It will make a good beach/swimming pool cover up as well. I was quoted $250, countered with $200, and was told that the best price was $230, which seemed fair to me so I happily forked over the money.

I then headed to the Malecón to have lunch at El Shrimp Bucket, a chain of shrimp restaurants. I was wary about eating there, but read several reviews that left me intrigued. I knew it would be a pricy meal, but haven’t had a really nice meal out in ages. I ordered a Pacifico, which came with a frosty mug, and hemmed and hawed over the menu. Everything looked good! I ended up having the “camarones a la suiza” (Swiss-style shrimp) because it had tomatillo (green tomato) sauce, which I love.

Shrimp-wise, the meal was worth its hefty $212 price tag. The portion of plump charbroiled shrimp was generous and perfectly cooked. But the dish could have stood a few minutes under a broiler to properly melt and even char the Chihuahua cheese. The roasted vegetables (zucchini, carrot, and eggplant (!)) were sparse, but very tasty. I was surprised that the rice was of the plain old white variety since rice tends to be so flavourful in Mexico. But it wound up being the perfect base for consuming a very tasty red sauce. There was also a sweet salsa that I’m pretty sure had real maple syrup in it (!). It was great for dipping the veggies in and even complemented the green sauce. Oh, and I had a bun, which I used to mop up every last drop of that yummy green sauce. All the salsas were just spicy enough for my tastes. The only one I didn’t try was what appeared to be a tartar sauce, since that’s made with mayo.

The meal was good enough that I’d go back to El Shrimp Bucket to try their much more reasonably priced shrimp, bacon, and avocado tacos! Their beer is the same price as everywhere else on the Malecón, so the frosty mug alone makes a return trip inevitable!

There’s a raspado (shaved ice) shop almost right next door, so I popped in for a dessert that would be much lighter than an ice cream and more refreshing on a super hot day. They had a gazillion flavours and I opted for piña colada. I want to go back and try some others!

I got in to discover that the plumbing faery came by in my absence! I have hot water AND pressure in my shower!

Am I glad I did my housekeeping before heading out, though! 😀

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Sometimes, Even the Dictionary Can’t Help

Today was the day to go pick up my new scarves and dress, so the plan was to do lunch, pick them up, then do a big shop for groceries.

For lunch, I went to Tony’s Burgers in the mercado to have one of their beef burgers. It wound up being quite good since it was made with real beef, but the patty was really thin and there was too much bun. I would rather pay more (it was $37) and have a better meat to bun ratio. Next time, I’ll ask if I can have two patties and I’m sure I’ll still come in at less than I would pay for a burger at Beach Burger. I even found Tony’s burger better than the super pricy ones at Mary’s in the Golden Zone, even if those have more meat. I still can’t believe it took me this long to discover Tony’s!

My things were ready for me when I arrived some time later at the seamstress. I hadn’t double checked my receipt when I went in last time and didn’t realise that her sister had put down seven scarves instead of eight. I paid for the eighth one and will have my friend Janet pick it up sometime next week and bring it to me on a Monday when she comes to Isla to ride.

Here’s my finished dress:

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I look forward to being able to wear this one in Maz.  I’ve been wearing it around Isla without the straps, but I’m too much of a lady to go to town dressed like that. It’s a really flattering style and I’m happy to now have two dresses in that cut and fabric.

Here’s the first batch of scarves:

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The colours are a bit off because of the weird lighting in the house. The far left one is actually a really deep brown, the middle one is steel-coloured, and the one on the right is a very dark purple. They’ll make nice neutrals.

Here are the more fun ones, with their colours being more reflective of reality:

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The one on the far left is blue and white, then there’s a dark pink with white splotches, then a lighter pink with white flowers, then a mint green with purple flowers. The eighth scarf also had a bit of a tropical vibe and is similar to the one on the right.

The seamstress wasn’t pleased with the fabric I bought since it’s not super great quality and warned me that I shouldn’t be surprised if I snag a scarf and the fabric starts to run. I expected this. Modatelas (literally fashion fabrics), a higher quality fabric store, just opened by the Mercado to compete with Parisina and I’ll go there and look for better fabric, preferably a stretchy cotton, since the seamstress is available to make me more!

I then hiked a couple of blocks to Alemán and waited a few minutes for the Sábalo bus. On it, I met a Colombian hotelier who made me promise to go check out Colombia someday, something a colleague of mine has also told me. They both said the same thing: Colombia is a cleaner, better organised, safer, and cheaper Mexico that is currently a really well-kept secret since most of the world hasn’t figured out yet that Colombia is no longer the terrifying place it was 20 years ago. One day. 🙂

I really didn’t feel like going all the way up to Soriana, so I decided to do my shop at the big Ley. The bus was extremely crowded and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get off. So as soon as I saw the Domino’s in the distance, with the turnoff to go to the big Ley only a block or two past there, I beeped the button. Sure enough, it took so long for people to let me through that the bus driver got impatient and drove off, only stopping again when I made it to the rear exit door and beeped again. That was fine as it brought me about a block closer to Ley. I hopped off and walked the three or four blocks to the store.

Ley had everything on my list, including hummus, but I got a little frustrated that all their beef was labeled “beef flesh.” I have no idea what I bought, but I’m hoping it’s similar to the “sirloin” stuff Soriana sells that I like. I really stocked up on meat for once since they had some good prices.

There was a woman promoting a product’s two-for-one sale. I had her hand me one and realised that it was a competitor brand for Tajín, the fruit seasoning (salt+chile+lime) I’m not nuts about, but which is strangely addictive. I’ve been wanting to try this other brand, La fina, so I put two bottles in my cart (for a grand total of $14).

The veggie section surprised me when I found kale. It wasn’t labeled and there was no price, but it was very fresh and there was so little of it that I grabbed it all, about the equivalent of two bundles’ worth at a supermarket in Canada.

The cashier asked me what the kale was and, of course, I completely blanked out. I pulled it up in the dictionary on my phone and told him to look up “col rizado” (spelling it out) or “repollo rizado.” Neither one came up. The produce manager came over and asked me where I had found the kale because he had no memory of it coming in. He went to look and confirmed that there was no label for it.

Finally, he said, “How much would you pay for this in Canada?” I did some math and figured about $40 (3CAD). His eyes went wide and he said, “That’s crazy!” He scrolled through the produce prices list a bit more and said, “It looks like fancy parsley. How does $14 sound?” SOLD. Then I told him I bought it all and he wouldn’t have to go through this again, which is where the accumulated crowd just lost it and doubled over laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

I then grabbed a pulmonía for the embarcadero (had a nice conversation with the driver), struggled to get my bags to the lancha because the package carrier guy wasn’t around, and accepted help on this side to get them into a pulmonía. I had to share it with a family going to the beach and as soon as we turned off the paved road and started to weave through the alleys to get to my house, the patriarch of the family asked where the hell we were going because he knew the beach was “that” way. I interjected and said that he was dropping me off at my house, which surprised him. Where the heck did he think I was going laden down with toilet paper, laundry detergent, and tons of food?! 😀

It never ceases to amaze me how a mundane day of running errands is so special down here!

Now, to figure out what I’m doing for dinner with all that kale!