Month: August 2022

For those of you that had a difficult time understanding the gravity of the fruit fly “crisis”, here’s a bit of proof.

I saw 2, or 3 flies in the Garcia’s bedroom this afternoon, when I went in to vacuum the floor. I checked the “apple” fly trap, and it had the rascals walking on top of it; none were taking the dive, so to speak. I picked it up, and checked the contents, and noticed quite a few flies already floating in the vinegar.

Took it to the kitchen, opened up the apple, and dumped the bit of vinegar that was left in it, and the flies, onto a small white plate, and about croaked.

I gathered up the other 2 apples, did the same to them, (one actually was completely dried, with an entire coating on the bottom of dead flies), and dumped them onto the plate as well.

This is what I came up with.

I”m not going to take the time, right now, to count them, but I’m guessing there are about 100, or more, of the “rascals”. I rinsed out the apples, filled them with about 1 1/2 Tbs. of apple cider vinegar, and put them where I collected them.

Within the hour, and with the fresh, strong smelling vinegar, there were already flies gathering. Somehow, something got in the wastebasket in our bathroom, who knows what, and that is what they were eating. And multiplying. Once I figured out to change the garbage bag, things are getting a bit more “normal”.

And here, I thought the crisis was over. Nope. Only averted.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Post script: a wonderful, happy 69th birthday was had by my friend, lover, partner in all things, my husband; Ivan. Many more, mi amor.

He is the sweetest baby I have ever had the opportunity to know.

He just turned 5 months old, and got his first tooth about 1 1/2 months ago. That’s right, at 3 1/2 months, he had his first tooth. At the moment, he had 2 well formed tooth buds, able to bite his mommy.

He doesn’t sit up yet, though that is coming, but he babbles on, and on for 3 or 4 minutes at a time. (In the presence of his mommy.) His face lights up when we come into their room, and start talking to him. It is such a highlight of our day, I can’t tell you.

Here he is tonight.

Liz was holding him on her chest this evening, and they were both having such a great time; each laughing at the other. I called out to him, by his name, and he turned to look at me as if I was in the room. Of course, everything I say to him is in English, so, hopefully, he will be the first bilingual person in the families.

One more funny photo, then, I’m out.

Liz is trying to get him to take a pacifier, so Ivan bought him this one. He hates it. But it gets a laugh from each of us when he uses it for a second.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

BAKING POTATOES, RUSSETS, HAVE ARRIVED AT OUR LOCAL COSTO

We have a 4.5k bag is in our trunk.

You have read, probably more than once, how much we miss our much enjoyed baked potatoes. Jesús, and Liz have only had one, each, their whole lives. We can’t wait to make some for them, too

Even better, we have all of the things we need to make them loaded. I am going to have a hard time waiting until tomorrow to bake a couple.

Never mind. It’s tomorrow night, but we made lasagna to take to the family tomorrow. Oh well. It’s not like they’re going to rot while we’re gone for 3 days.

THREE YEARS we’ve been waiting for a baked potato. After all this time, I don’t care if has only butter, and salt to recommend it. I WANT ONE. I want it NOW.

But no. It’s 2:03 am, and way too late for a potato.

Just a half a potato?

Maybe?

Pleeeeease?

No. It’s late. We need to sleep. Tomorrow.

Next week. We won’t have time tomorrow, we’re leaving.

I’ll see what I can do.

Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Today, Liz came down, and we made a beautiful 9”x13” pan of lasagna.

Conventionally? No. Tastefully? Absolutely. We are, however, not able to try it until tomorrow, or Sunday. We are taking it to Los Altos with us. None of them have ever had lasagna.

How can this be?

We have to set things right; bring the equilibrity of life into balance.

It started out looking like the above photo. Do not be deceived my good readers; it ended up looking like this.

We can’t wait to try it in the coming days. We sure hope that they like it as well. Not much worse than taking something you made, something new, and exciting, but no one likes it. Sure, they appreciate your effort, but it’s just not what they’re used to.

Sourdough bread, for example.

Folks down here don’t really go for sourdough bread. I don’t think many folks down here eat much bread, in any form. Period. Corn tortillas are king, and queen while trying to get food from the bowl, or plate, to their mouths. Most of the Garcia’s don’t use utensils; just tortillas. No need for a spoon, except for eating soup, but other than that, tortillas work as knife, and fork. I’m trying to learn, but it’s not easy. It’s a learned way of doing things.

That’s fine. We’re not here to change anyones way of life. We do want to introduce them to other cuisines in the world, however; see if anyone enjoys them. If not, well, I guess we’ll just have to bring whatever’s left home, and eat it ourselves.

OH, DARN!!!

A side note: while Liz was pregnant with El Señor Bebe, Brandon, by name, we made them spaghetti with a delicious tomato sauce, which included garlic bread. They absolutely loved them. They have had spaghetti with a white cream sauce, which is very common here, but never with a rich, meaty, homemade Italian sausage tomato sauce.

While Liz, and I were making the meat sauce, the cheese sauce, then assembling the whole thing, I was telling her that the basic tomato sauce can be used with so many different types of pasta; you just need to make the sauce to your palate. She understood, and here are the results.

That’s it for today. We have an early morning tomorrow; lot’s to be done before we hit the highway. Until we meet again

Sing along, everyone. Happy trails to you, until we meet again. Happy trails to you, keep smilin’ until then. Who cares about the clouds when we’re together? Just sing a song, and bring the sunny weather. Happy trails to you, ‘til we meet again.

If you want to finish the song, just repeat it twice. 😉

Until that happens, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Roy, and Dale are going to sleep now. Good night.

I hope the majority of you, reading this post, are living the life you always dreamed you would have, with the person with whom you were meant to live it.

I sure am.

He is my best friend, the love of my life from the night we met! He is my love, my lover, my husband. None of this new life would have been possible had we not me, oh, so many years ago.

I never wanted to marry a WASP, ever. Even as a young woman, before meeting Ivan, I knew a WASP was not going to be what I needed to live the life that was culminating in my mind.

Did I know I wanted Ivan? Absolutely. I didn’t have all of the pieces to my life’s puzzle, because I am not God. But HE knew I wanted Ivan.

He threw us together in the strangest ways, it was inevitable. Time, only, had to run its course, and we would connect.

We did, thanks to God.

Now, we have been together for over 50 years, and, hopefully, have quite a few more years together.

Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Post script: we are both quite fine, at the moment, and be in our beloved Los Altos by this time tomorrow. Much happiness to all.

THE FRUIT FLIES ARE GONE!!!!!

I think.

I haven’t seen a single one all day today; well, my daylight hours are only from 11am until 8pm. But in that time, I didn’t see a single one. Those that I did see turned out to be floaters. (If you don’t know what floaters are, ask an adult.)

I can’t tell you the angst I’ve had this past week. First with Ivan, and me being still unwell, and with the baby, and Gabi here at night, (their parents too.) I kept hoping they had no germs in their room, or fruit flies. They did have a few flies, but I put a fly trap in their room, and sprayed the two that were flying around the trap. Dead. Yah.

Today, there were about a dozen of the buggers in the trap.

As it turns out, the “traps” are filled with a liquid called “the lure”, about 15 ml. I smelled it to see what it was, and it’s apple cider vinegar.

I should have taken photos of the glasses I had in the living room, and kitchen; each with a 1/4 cup of ACV, covered with plastic wrap, and each with more then 25 dead flies. Those were the ones that got away from my bug spray. All I could buy was Off, but it worked just fine. Now, I just spray the floaters. Hahaha.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Remember the ACV. Good for us, bad for bugs.

Ivan is still a bit under the weather, so to speak, but I am finally pulling out of what ever this is that has us in its clutches.

Speaking of weather, evidently this is the “fall” rainy season. It has rained every evening in the week we’ve been home. Plus, it rained everyday of the week I was in Los Altos. Which, as you already know, is just fine with me.

However, having the electricity go out, for a whole minute, these past 2 evenings is getting a bit much. Yes, I can hear the thunder better, and can definitely see the lightning, but, since the fruit fly mishap, the windows have all been closed except our bedroom window. So I don’t feel closed in, we run one of our air circulators 24/7, just to have air moving around. Very helpful.

Until the electricity goes out.

Speaking of better every day, a heart felt shout out to my sister Martha, the one who just had a birthday. She has been laid up for the past couple of weeks, for personal reasons, but is up now, and doing well, according to her most recent texts. Glad to hear it sis. Love, and miss you.

I must tell you that I did a lot of knitting, while trying to breathe between coughing spells, when in Los Altos. I knitted 48 rows of 100, or so stitiches, having had to unknit 2 rows that were knit incorrectly. Oh, I had to do that twice, actually. One really should learn how to read before trying to read a knitting pattern. And, as I like to use the actual pattern, it makes it a bit more of a challenge.

Mind you, I haven’t been anywhere near this pattern in more than 3 years. I started it way back in the fall of 2017. I worked on it quite a bit, until we started packing to move, in the fall of 2018. By July of 2019, we were here, in Mexico; my knitting packed away in some obscure tote, Heaven only knew where.

Now, I have it back out, and am, once again, familiar with the jargon, and my notes. Away I go.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

We received another CARE package the other day from my SIL Mayra. Gracias comadre!! It took about a month to get from Iowa to CDMX, and it had a really hard time getting here.

Mayra does such a great job of wrapping the box, you can see how much tape she uses; there must be two, or three layers of it. That make me think that the hole in the box happened within the last day or so. The contents of the box were completely intact, even as the bottom most object was a refill pouch of the spray I use to get rid of spots on our clothes.

Besides the horrible “cold” we’re experiencing, the fruit fly “mishap”, and the electricity going out, (it just came back on for the third time this past hour), not being able to have my beloved spot remover has been the worst. Really.

My poor husband has been sleeping so much these last 2 days, I hope it is a recuperative sleep. He gets up for a 1/2 hour, or so, then lies down, and sleeps for the entire night. Please, keep him in your thoughts, and prayers. For awhile, however, no news needs to be considered good news.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

I think I just swallowed a fruit fly. Must have been floating, (read drowning), in my drink. Hahaha.

Wow!

It’s 3:20am., and most of the occupants of the condominium are outside. Why?

A new seismic activity alarm was installed not long ago, and it went off like no one’s business.

I was sleeping; Ivan was at his computer; I could hear this obnoxious noise coming from who knows where. WTH?

I sat up, looking at Ivan on his computer, asking him why he doesn’t have his earbuds in, and he is very calmly telling me it’s not his computer, it must be an earthquake.

Oh. Ok.

So, I got up, went to the bathroom, got out my robe, and started for the bedroom door. All the while Ivan is asking me if I was going to go outside with him. Was I ready? Me-I’m going to the bathroom- do I look ready? Him- Come on, we need to get downstairs, and outside. Me- You go. I have to get my robe. Him- Really? Put on these pants- you’ll be fine. Me- you can’t be serious. I’ll put on my robe, it’ll be faster. Him- ok. Let’s go.

Well, then I good sense to look in the bathroom mirror on the way out of said room and decided I had to brush my hair. Then, I had to put on my slippers, etc. Meanwhile, Jesús is knocking on our door, with Gabi over his shoulder, telling us we need to go downstairs.

So, we did.

Most, but not all of the condo members were outside, in the park.

For about 3 minutes.

After that, everyone went back inside, and I sat down to write this post.

We didn’t feel any quake, which is fine by me, but its epicenter was about 300 miles from us. Maybe someone felt it, but we did not.

All is well. Going back to bed.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

I must ask your indulgence for the next few days.

We are not as well as I indicated in my last post. we are still short of breath with any exertion; coughing continues but is one day loose, the next day tight. We are both without fever but have zero energy to do much.

The apartment is a mess, and I could care less. The fruit fly epidemic is less as I spent the better part of an hour yesterday trying to kill the wee buggers. Just when I thought it was safe, I picked up the original bag of yuck, which I had triple bagged, and tied up, the whole thing was surrounded by thousands of the flies. Yes, I should have taken it downstairs, to the garbage bins, but seriously, I didn’t have the energy. I just set it on top of the bucket of cans needing to be crushed, and recycled. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

As I said, the next hour was spent in a search, and destroy mode. Actually didn’t need to do much searching, just destroying. Any idea how difficult it is to get rid of that many tiny flies? I didn’t either. Until yesterday.

Today, the bag is bagged, the buckets covered with damp towels, and we are going to nap. Again. I don’t know if this is CoVid, but I’m betting it is. I have had it 2 full weeks, and still have a head full of snot, and a chest full of it, too. And, Ivan; I have never heard him cough this much in all of our lives together. His voice is so deep it rumbles.

I’ll post when I can. Don’t worry if you don’t read anything for a few days at a time. Really, we are worn out.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Martha, I am going to wish you a very happy birthday now, though it is 2 days early. I will be thinking of you on Tuesday, just not posting about it then. Love you sister mine.