(Post 209 of 263)

I was so disappointed on Sunday morning that I had gotten up early, slapped on sunscreen, packed a bag, and was ready to head out for a ride around 7:30 only to discover I had a flat tire!!!

Monday, I knew I had to sort this out ASAP by finding myself a local bike repair place. Thankfully, there was one just around the corner from me, a 3-minute bike ride! I figured that I could pump my tire and it would stay inflated just long enough to get me there. Just!

When you arrive at a business in Mexico, you should greet everyone, which I did. A waiting customer said hi back, but the owner just looked up to acknowledge that he knew I was there and then ignored me while he finished what he was doing. Once the previous customer had been sent on his way, I finally got a pretty rough, “What do you want?” I explained (ineloquently) that I thought I had a flat tire. He said he could look at it right away, promptly flipped the bike over, and got to work!

I love seeing experts at work. He released and was checking the inner tube in no time, finding the leak quickly by running the inner tube through water and looking for bubbles. He said it was just a pinhole and he could patch it. As he worked, I started to engage him, knowing that he’d get warmer once I knew I was a pretty long-time resident of the neighbourhood and would be a repeat customer. It worked! Before long we were chatting and joking pleasantly.

He had me back on the road in 15 minutes for 30 pesos!

(Post 208 of 263)

I’m surprised by how upset I was by the news that Canada’s head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, died peacefully today at her beloved Balmoral Castle. It is not necessarily her I mourn, but what her death signifies, the true end of a world and way of life that has been in death throes for nearly two decades now.

I thought I would share my memory of the Queen. June 27th, 1998, I was in Edinburgh, Scotland, and about to climb Arthur’s Seat when I turned back to look at the commotion at Holyrood Palace only to see a tiny familiar person dressed in bright colours climb into a car! I changed my plans and ended up getting pretty lost following the royal procession.

(I can’t believe my journal doesn’t say what colour she was wearing. I was such a crappy journaller back then!)

Here is the Queen at Uxmal, Yucatán, in 1975 (I could not find a photo credit):

(Post 207 of 263)

I really miss biking. I gave it up 10 years ago because it was just too painful because of my bad leg and knees. I just wasn’t getting enough use out of a bike to make it worth lugging one around anymore.

I’ve been thinking for some time now that I should try again now that Pilates has done miracles on said bad leg. Now that Bonita is gone and I don’t feel tied to the house anymore, plus we are getting into the cool season, it seemed like the perfect time to try biking again. The goal of this was not to start commuting around town on a bike — Mérida is not bike-friendly, no matter what the governor likes to brag about, and I don’t want to start showing up for appointments a sweaty mess. No, this is more for pleasure and to spend less of my free time sitting, to cycle the minimum amount of time on city streets needed to get to the dozens of kilometres of bike paths the city has to offer. That’s what the governor is actually bragging about, conflating having plenty of safe spaces to recreationally bike with having a bike-friendly city. The fact is that getting to these safe spaces is dangerous and there is almost never a place to park and lock a bike along the way if you want to run errands (I’ve already started telling my favourite businesses that it would be great if they could come up with a place to lock a bike).

Anyway, as it turns out, if I meander my way west through my neighbourhood for about 15 minutes, I will hit a series of bike paths that go from one end of the periférico to the other, north to south and back again, a total of nearly 20KM roundtrip. This is my most accessible and “bang for my buck” cycling destination. Other destinations, like the Paseo de Montejo, are too short to make the dangerous trip there worthwhile. My goal is to do a two-hour cycle trip one quiet morning a week, probably Sunday, as that’s when there will be the least traffic and the weather won’t be too hot. Forget evenings as it is getting dark very early already.

Now, I had to find a bike. I wanted a vintagey/retro city cruiser-type with handlebar brakes, a basket in the front, and a luggage rack in the back. I ideally needed 28″ wheels, but with women here being so small, that put me into men’s bike territory, so I compromised with a 26″ model. I finally found one that looked promising. A small local bike shop was selling it for $3,880 delivered (with a dent in the mud guard) and Coppel had it for $5,200 delivered! Sold! It’s not as retro as some of the models I was drooling over, but this one has much more comfortable handlebars, several speeds (a nice bonus!), and hand brakes. I’m thrilled with it.

Soon as I knew the bike was incoming on Monday, I put in an Amazon order for a helmet, lock, and bell. They arrived yesterday while I was at the dentist, so when I got back, I was able to head out to do a quick loop and get the tires pumped with air. I was rather amazed that it didn’t take long for my Watch to ask me if I wanted it to record a bike ride!

How was my first ride?

I can’t wait to head out again, but a few twinges this morning have reminded me I need to ease into long rides. I’m thinking maybe tomorrow late afternoon, like I did yesterday.

(Post 206 of 263)

Five years ago today, I got the keys to this house. That marks the longest time I have continuously lived in one home. I technically lived in the RV for just shy of eight years, from late August of 2008 to late June of 2016, but I spent about 18 months of that time away from it (six months in Lethbridge, a year total in Mazatlán, plus most of the summer of 2012 and all that travelling to and from Mexico), so while that does total about 6 years, they weren’t continuous.

I can barely remember those early days, they seem so far away. But I have the odd photo to remind me of just how big and cold and empty the house was at the beginning. Yet, inexplicably, I always knew it was going to be my home.

Making a home hasn’t just been about buying it and beginning to renovate it to my tastes. It’s also been about making a life here.  Because I’m such a homebody, I have been very slow to develop routines that will ground me in this part of Mérida, but I’m finally getting there, having settled on my favourite (or at least most convenient) stores and suppliers, having an activity (Pilates) that gets me out of the house regularly, and there’s now, finally, an independently owned coffeeshop on my regular route where they know my name and my order.

I’ve had a lot of milestones in this house — finding and losing Bonita, finding Alma, losing my best friend Bast, jumpstarting my career…

But the most important thing that happened to me in this home was the epiphany I had at the start of the pandemic about needing a home port and Mérida being by far the best place I’ve ever been to live through such a calamity. So while the city isn’t perfect, it has the things that matter, like security, good governance, and a stable, modern infrastructure. And so, I’m happy to be putting down real roots here.

(Post 205 of 263)

My beautiful girl Alma is home and I look forward to the life we will build together. She is only three, so unlike adopting a senior, I’m thinking long-term with her, past ten years.

I agonised for years about having another cat. When I was a tenant, it really did not make sense to get a cat because I did not own most of the furniture. And then I got Bonita, who was happy as long as the doors to outside were kept open, so I would’ve had to compromise with a cat that I had to allow outdoors. Now that I own the home and the contents and Bonita is gone, having a cat began to make more sense. So I began to hyper focus on all of the negative things about a cat, imagining myself with the worst case scenario even though those have been the exception. I imagined myself with a cat who doesn’t use the litter box and scratches everything and is very destructive and misbehaved, just trying to talk myself out of getting one of the sweetest and cuddliest and most magical creatures on this earth. The fact is that I have had way better luck with cats than not.

Then, there was also the thought of the freedom I gained after Tabitha and Neelix passed in 2013, and now again with Bonita gone four weeks ago yesterday. I wanted to start travelling again. It made no sense to bring in another pet, right?

But it’s not like I’m going to be taking long trips again any time soon. A cat can be left for a few nights and is easier to find a sitter for. Why deny myself a companion when I’m home for the couple of weeks total I might end up travelling in the near to mid-term?

What about the long-term? I adopted Tabitha at about the same age and she lived thirteen years with me. So the odds are better than not that I’m going to be ready again for extended travel while Alma still has many years left. I’m not fretting about that. Not because I don’t want to think about it or I’m trying to live for the moment, but rather because I saw our future, and it’s all going to work out just fine.

I really believe that things happen for a reason, that certain people cross our paths for a purpose, that sometimes things might not make sense at the moment but then there’s a moment of clarity in the future. That’s how I feel about Alma.

Remember how in 2016 I have sat in Spain for 2 1/2 months? Little did I know that I was staring at my future. The homeowner was like me, somebody who had been very nomadic in her youth and who entered her 40s realizing that she needed a home, a sense of roots, somewhere to land. Spain made sense to her the way Mexico makes sense to me. And so she bought a house and made a home, but she continued on her adventures knowing there was finally somewhere to return to. But home was fairly lonely,  so she got a cat, and eventually built the garden of her dreams. And she got very good at finding house and plant sitters that would also be good caregivers to her cat. She also found a reliable housekeeper that would make sure her house and everything was exactly in order when she would come back from her trips. And so she found a way to reconcile her nomad and her sedentary selves, to keep nourishing her need to travel while have a place to recharge.

And that’s what I’m going to do, continue to build my life by design step by logical step. And when I’m ready to travel again, I’ll have an example to follow in how to feel safe leaving my home and my girl behind.

So after working through all that, I decided that I was going to do this. My requirements were:

-not feral

-adult

-short hair

-female

I spent some time on various Merida cat adoption groups and saw that finding an adult was going to be difficult. And then Alma showed up. And she showed up again. And again.

Alma was rescued pregnant from the street about six months ago. The lady who took her in is one of so many people in Merida who take animals off the street, sterilize them, get them medical treatment, and then adopt them out to the right home. She had no trouble finding a home for the kittens, but no one wanted a cat who was approximately three.

I could not get her big blues eyes out of my mind. I finally reached out on Friday to see if she was available. I had a chat with the lady where I learned that Alma (then Cali/Gorda) was loving but not playful and knew how to use a litter box. Her rescuer hoped to put her in a home where she would be the centre of attention and be kept as a pampered house cat. Really, it was a match meant to be! We agreed that I would pick her up yesterday, Sunday, so I had a lot to prepare on Saturday!

Friday night, I started to think about names. I wanted something that could be said in French, English, and Spanish. I looked at a list of universal names and had a visceral reaction to Alma (soul in Spanish, nourishing in Latin). I can’t explain it; I just knew that was her name.

Next was to get everything she needed. When I got Bonita, I did a Walmart run that wasn’t very fruitful. So for Alma, I instead looked on Marketplace for a pet store that might deliver and found one in Francisco de Montejo, very near me. They put together a package for me of everything I needed but her food, so I ordered that from Walmart, along with more litter. I doubt I’ll keep her on this food for long, but I will be transitioning her gently. I suspected that Alma’s rescuer would not accept any cash as compensation for everything she spent on Alma and her kittens, so I got her two bags of the food, which I figured would be easier to accept.

My friend Jan generously agreed to drive me down near the airport to pick up Alma yesterday afternoon. It sounds far, but there was almost no traffic on a Sunday afternoon, so it was a pretty quick roundtrip, less than an hour. As I expected, the food was accepted but the money was rebuffed. I’m glad I had that foresight. This woman does very good work. She even asked for a copy of my ID and was happy to learn that she could follow Alma’s progress on Instagram.

Alma was very quiet on the ride home. I had set up the “bonus” room for her, so when we got in, I opened her carrier, with the intention of letting her come out and explore at her own pace. She did lean into a quick scritch, so that was very promising!

She was out of her carrier and exploring her new room in under 30 minutes. After giving her a couple of hours to settle, I decided to see if she might want to watch some TV with me. She let herself be picked up and shocked me by snuggling next to me and purring for over two hours! My heart grew about ten sizes last night. Alma was just what I needed.

This morning, I found her under the treadmill. Soon as she saw me, she yelled at me and then she went to hide behind the blinds in the window. I gave her some time and then tried for a repeat of last night. She was again very happy to come and cuddle while I had my coffee.

I think Alma is going to be exactly the kind of cat I need her to be, like my Tabitha was when I brought her home nearly a quarter of a century ago, a loyal companion who loves to snuggle but is just fine with my abandoning her to the right people when I need to see something different.

And so, after four terrible weeks, I have a home again and getting up in the morning is going to get easier.