Author: iagardener55

It’s time for a Brandon update, so, get ready.

He’s a real treat.

He is developing the beginnings of a real personality. See if you don’t agree.

He knows our voices, both Ivan’s, and mine. He even smiles, usually, when he hears us speaking to him. I try to speak to him in English, so he can become comfortable with it, and know it’s me. He reaches up his hand, for whatever reason, who knows? More importantly, who cares? We bend down the inch, or two required, and kiss it until he moves it away again.

He is growing so quickly, right in front of our eyes. We are so privileged to be witness to it, it almost brings tears to our eyes.

It has been many years since we were around a baby, so it is like a semi-new experience. (I hope that makes sense). Anyway, here are some photos of him, just this evening, watching soccer, (football), on the TV with his daddy.

Going to go back to Los Altos sometime in the next few weeks, hopefully. I will have some things to tell you then. As for now, boredom is a terrible thing.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

Even Dr Fauci has symptomatic CoVid after his initial injection, and the 3 boosters. What does this tell you people? It is/was NOT a vaccine. Vaccines are supposed to last almost a whole lifetime. Research.

Woohoo.

It has been hailing for the past 5 minutes. No kidding. Here; let me show you.

We haven’t had hail for almost 6 months. It dropped the temperature by about 6º – 8º in about 5 minutes. Lovely.

It is now 66ºF, down from 74ºF. Yeah!!! It won’t last long; it can’t. I want it cool, and to stay cool for the next 6-8 months. It won’t. It can’t. It is summer here; up North too. Yuck.

Not my favorite months; not without a swimming pool. We used to have a good sized pool, above ground. It was 4 1/2 deep x 15ft wide; it had a saltwater filter, plastic cover, and a bubble cover solar heater. It was amazing. It was great. It was such fun when the heat was unbearable. We, or I, swam,and relaxed in the pool almost every evening during the summer for as many years that we had it. I miss it immensely.

The only other thing I have really wanted was to wake up to see mountains on the horizon. If, and when we ever move to Shanghai La, there will be mountains on the horizon; just for me.

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

He insisted.

So, we did it.

It wasn’t my fault.

We made Italian beef sandwiches for the first time, and they were amazing. However, with a sandwich, one needs to eat bread of some sort in order to call it a sandwich.

So, we did.

Jesús bought bolillos, a dozen of them, and we ate heartily. They are so soft in the middle, the bolillos, with just a hint of crunch on the crust. They are addictive. No. I only ate 1 1/2 total bolillos, at 3 different times. And, yes, I included it in the fictional accounting of the foods I ate for those 2 days. (No, I didn’t really keep track those 2 days, knowing I was going overboard. So, sue me.)

We had purchased a “sirloin” primal at Costco, and had already used up what I would call acceptable steaks. The rest was definitely stringy, and loaded with sinew. Yesterday, he suggested that I cook the rest of the chunk like I did for the Italian beef sandwiches.

So, I did.

We had purchased a large jar of roasted red peppers at Costco, as well. I opened them, and put a large pepper on top of the hunk of meat, wrapped it in cling film, and put it in the fridge overnight. Later today, hopefully, we will use the meat slicer to slice the meat thinly, and put on a roll, (also purchased you know where).

The au jus one makes with this recipe is killer. No, not literally. It is absolutely delicious. If I remember, I will take photos of the above, and share it with you. If not, find a YT video, and enjoy.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

Finally.

I have started back on a low carb lifestyle. Down here, that’s saying something. Tortillas, beans, rice; all of the lovely carbs I enjoy have to be reduced to a minimum for awhile. How long can I last?

As long as it takes. I am so tired of carrying around 2 stones of extra weight, I could scream. I won’t, but I feel like it sometimes.

This is not going to be very difficult for me, though, as I have been a carnivore from birth. To be forced to eat meat, poultry, fatty fish, chicken, eggs, dairy, avocados, nuts, green leafy veg, well, I look at it this way.

Someone has to; it might as well be me.

I am not a sweet fan by any stretch of the imagination. Give me a thick, medium rare, NY strip steak, with plenty of fat around the edges, and I’m in Heaven. If you throw in a baked potato with butter, you, too, will have a place in Heaven. (We haven’t had a baked Russet potato in over 3 years. Imagine that if you can!!!)

Anyway, we can’t go to the store just yet; have to wait for money to come in. After that, look out green grocers. We’re coming your way.

Hope all of you are doing well, and staying happy. Don’t forget to wash your hands, especially if you are no longer wearing masks. We are slowly getting out of the face covering here, too. See you soon.

I have to tell you how it’s the little things that make me smile.

I have been using my iPad Pro in its nifty cover that charges my pen, stores it, etc., for roughly 3 years, or more. It is finally giving up the ghost; after all of this time. I have made good use of the investment that it was at the time, so I don’t feel too badly about it no longer working well. Neither do I.

However, having looked into our stack of keypads for the Pro, I have, once again, found Ivan’s Brydge 11.0 Pro keypad/keyboard. My Pro fits comfortably into it, is portable, and types as fast as I do.

When I touch the keyboard, the backlight comes on, plus, I can adjust the light intensity without clack, clack, clacking a key, hoping something, anything will happen. It has taken me half again as long to type the last 10 posts as it is with this Brydge. I can actually keep up with my thoughts, and ideas.

As I said, it’s the little things.

You may be interested to know, that out of 4 bundles of basil cuttings from the store, and 3 months worth of trying, my latest little cutting has roots.

I broke down, and bought a rooting hormone, put some in this little yogurt container, and poof; 3 weeks later, it has rooted. Thank the good Lord. I have a freezer with a ton of basil, taking up much needed space for other things. Now, I need to learn how to make pesto. Loves me some pesto.

Thought you might be interested to see that. Maybe you’ll like this as well.

Yessiree. That’s garlic. Have no idea what I’m doing, just stuck 3 cloves in the dirt, watered it, and they are all growing. You should see the onions. But, that’s for another day. As it is the spring, and the growing season is upon us, everything is taking off like crazy. I like crazy. It looks good on me.

But, you people need to stay happy,healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

Commonly referred to as beef tongue.

A more sumptuous piece of beef is not to be found. We found a meat market that doesn’t charge the same price, or higher than a t-bone for the tongue. Costco, one of our fav’s, charges $5, or $6 a pound for a tongue. As most are at least 2 pounds, that’s $10. For a beef tongue?

I think not.

The most recent one we bought we got at meat.me.mx, not far from the apartment. It was half that price.

I remember, when we were dating, we made a tongue for my mom. When we left the tongue on the kitchen table, and went off to do the dishes, mom’s stupid dog came in, jumped up on the table, grabbed it, and took it behind the living room couch. By the time we got in there to retrieve it, though, she had almost completely eaten the thing.

Until we make another one, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

He is obsessed with videos of ear wax removal.

On YT, there are hundreds of videos showing the removal of impacted, possibly hereditary, ear wax.

Yuck.

For years, I saw ear wax being removed by surgeons trained in its removal, and never really gave it much thought. Since he has become so cognizant of its existence, it has become more of a ‘thing’.

Mostly, the people in the videos are from third world countries; people who have, possibly, a lack of education about how to keep their ears clean of ear wax. OMG. It gets real, watching the videos. The amount of wax removed from those ears gets a bit overwhelming at times. Even he thinks so.

But, then there are the infected cow, and horses hooves. I do believe he is going to take up hoof cleaning as a hobby. Some of the videos I’ve peeked at are absolutely horrendous. The men cleaning these hooves always asks the owners why they don’t bring the animals in sooner. Some of the hooves that we’ve seen are several inches long, from neglect. Horrible.

Gosh, if you’re looking for a new “something” to watch on YT, try the two fun things already mentioned.

If they aren’t to your liking, there are always the butt flies.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

What is so difficult about buying a bag of dried pinto beans?

Everything.

The beans they say are “pinto” beans here are some of the smallest beans we have ever purchased. They are the size of sunflower seeds in the shells.

Okay, time out. That was a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

The beans in the US are at least twice the size of the pintos here. Talk about flavor; there is none. The pintos up North make a luscious brown broth/gravy when cooked; no need for a coloring agent, like Magy, here, or Kitchen Bouquet, in the US. They have there own natural coloring agents within the beans.

We are searching everywhere, online, to find anything similar to the beans we had up North. While we search, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

Differences can be wonderful, also difficult.

It has recently been brought to my attention that, as “Matron” of our home, it falls upon me to meet, and greet guests, family, etc., when they are entering our home.

As we have had so few of the above over the past 10 years, it has fallen by the wayside for me, to remember my duties as La Dueña, or as Ivan has started calling me, La Alcalde. That always makes me laugh because I remember it from the movie we enjoyed watching with kids called “Zorro the gay Blade”.

There are few differences, really, here; I have just been lazy, truth be told. When someone comes into the home, it falls, normally, to the Dueña to answer the door, and greet said intruders with grace, charm, and aplomb. Hahaha. It is the duty of the “maid”, or housekeeper, to do thus. Don’t have one of those, so, I guess that leaves it to me.

That’s ok. I should know who is coming, and going in our home. Y biggest concern is my lack of fluency of the Spanish language. I am much better conversing in Spanish than ever before, however, without alcohol, (liquid courage,) it is difficult, at times, to perform this task.

That having been said, after having been gently reminded of this error, I have taken up the mantle, and am on my way to being “La Dueña del Año”, the owner extraordinaire. (A bit of poetic license was taken in the aforementioned translation; in case you were wondering if it was literal.)

Have a great day, week, month, year. Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

I just discovered that I can use the Uber app down here, and have stuff delivered from all of the stores we frequent.

I don’t know how important this type of delivery service is to any of you, but for us, especially, it means not having to get the car out of the garage, which is never easy, then drive through the recently renewed CDMX traffic.

People are even going without masks outside now; finally. Depending on where we go, outside, will determine whether we wear masks. If there are a group of people having a discussion, or eating, or what have you, we wear masks. If there is no one around, nope.

I am typing this after having discovered the Uber app for CDMX. I don’t want to spend too much time on it or I’m sure to order something we probably don’t need at the moment; just to see how it works.

I’ve got to go. I can’t resist seeing what happens. I’ll let you know.

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